Getting Our Visas

November 29. We made travel arrangements with a travel agency in Iran for our trip. Americans must have a tour guide in Iran.

December 22. We submit request for a visa through our travel agent in Iran. They cannot submit it to the Iranian government until 60 days before we arrive in Iran.

January 25. We get word from our Iranian travel agent saying she will apply for our visa. She says we should have our visa by March 15.  We plan on going to Iran April 11 but we leave on our trip March 21. It’s going to be cutting it close getting our visa before we leave

January 26. We send our passport to Washington DC to a passport/visa service company so they can get our visa for Syria and Iran.

February 2. The visa service has picked up our Syria visa and will hold our passport until they can get our Iranian visa.

March 10. Our visa for Iran is appoved, but must wait 3 days before it can be taken to the Washington DC ‘Embassy of Pakistan interest section of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. (there is no Iranian Embassy in the US).

March 15 Tuesday. We are starting to worry we need our passport by Friday so we can leave on Monday and although our visa from Iran has been approved, per our tour company, we do not have it. The visa service took our passport to the Iranian office on Monday and the personal there said they could not issue the visa right then but must leave the passports and wait. We tell the visa service to leave the passports. We tell them they must get the passport back by Thursday regardless so they can FedEx it to us Thursday so we can have it by Friday. The visa service takes our passport back to the Iranian office. We do not have a flight into or out of Iran yet, we were waiting for our visa. If we do not get our visa we’ll be planning a last minute trip somewhere else…….

Wednesday we hear nothing.

Thursday. We are anxious we need our passports by tomorrow. We call the visa service and they say in order to get our visa, Iran wants $58 more each to process the visa. The visa service asked if we still wanted to go ahead and they would go back on Thursday with the extra money and pick it up on Friday. They would FedEx our passport and visa over night and we would get it on Saturday. We Said OK.

Friday we call at 3:30 DC time and the visa service said the courier is setting there waiting for the visa and would call when he picks it up. The visa service office closes at 5:00.

Friday 4:30 DC time. The visa service now has our Iranian visa and passport and will call when they have a tracking number. The visa service office closes at 5:00.

Friday 6:15 DC time the visa service calls with the tracking number.

Saturday 9:30. Our passports and visa arrive and I wanted to kiss the FedEx driver but I don’t think she was as excited I was to see the package in her hand.

It’s been quite and adventure already and we haven’t even left yet. Yesterday I heard about protests in Syria.