This time, it was the American Embassy! I needed some passport pages, so I headed there the other day. The Embassy is in Mayfair, a pretty posh section of London near Oxford Street. When I finally got there, there was a line around the corner--probably 300 people long. I hoped that I wouldn't have to get in that line so I headed to the front to speak with the police officer standing there. I explained why I was there and he simply said, "Get in the que!"...Okay! So, I headed to the end of the line and decided I might as well make myself comfortable there. The guy in front of mentioned that it was going to be a 3-5 hour wait! Apparently, their computers were down the previous day, so there were double the amount of people there.
After about a 2 hour wait in the line, another police officer came through asking if there were any American citizens needing services. I raised my hand, and he said, "State you business!". Again, I said I just needed extra passport pages. He escorted me to the front of the line! The security at the embassy was tight! There was a tall steel fence around the perimeter and then about 10 feet inside of that was a chain link fence with barbed wire on top. To gain entry, you have to go through airport-like security, and if you had any electronics (phone, iPod, etc.) you had to leave it at the gate, and couldn't bring it inside. Once inside it was very much like the DMV. Get in Line 1, then go to Line 7, then wait for your number to be called, and then go to Line 10.
So at the end of the day, I got my pages. I'm a little upset that they don't match my other ones, but I'll get over it!
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