Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
Aug 16 ~ Day #98
| Budget to date
| Spent today
| Total to date
| Daily average
|
Total
| $9800
| $38.31
| $8774.76
| $89.53
|
Miles by Road
| Miles by Sea
| Miles by Air
| Miles by Train
| Total Miles
|
13352+42=13394
| 4451
| 000
| 69
| 17914
|
Current Location: Kissimmee, Florida
Today’s Total Expenses: $38.31
Transportation: $2.00 (Parking)
Accommodation: $30.00
Food: $6.31
Downtown Orlando
We decided to take a drive into downtown Orlando and stop into the British Consulate because we had a few questions we thought they might be able to answer.
I had tried calling them in the hopes of, perhaps, getting an appointment with someone who might be able to help with our questions. However, all I could get was a automated attendant and recorded messages, no matter which options I chose. Very frustrating.
British Consulate
Naturally the British Consulate was in a high-rise office building in the heart of downtown Orlando. That meant we would have to pay for parking as there didn’t seem to be any place that we could park that didn’t have meters.
We chose a municipal parking lot and prepaid for two hours. It was the cheapest option at only $1.00/hour but you had to guess at how much time you would need because it had to be prepaid.
Well, we might as well not have bothered as the person we spoke with at the consulate, through a glass barrier, couldn’t help us at all.
We were inquiring about how Geoff would re-patriate to the UK and what was required so that I could go, too. He referred us to the British Government website and to a company in the US that CHARGED for any information it gave you!
About the only thing this consulate could have helped with was, if Geoff had entered the US on a British Passport and was injured or in trouble, then they could have helped.
You’ve really got to wonder why there needs to be a British Consulate in a place like Orlando at all.
Any visas that we might require would apparently have to be processed in New York. Same goes if Geoff had wanted to renew his British Passport.
It amazes me what governments will pay for (like a consulate in Orlando), when, perhaps, a toll-free number to call would suffice. That is, a toll-free number where someone actually answers the phone and not just a bunch of recorded messages that don’t help anyway. Sorry – bit of a rant.
Back to the Resort
After wasting $2.00 on parking that we really didn’t need, we headed back to the resort, picked up a few groceries along the way, and got back to trying to catch up on the computer stuff we need to do.
