A Crisis Averted

The only real perk we get to being here are the five short trips out.  I don't make overtime; I don't get any bonuses; I don't get any preferences for bidding on follow-on assignments; I work six and a half day weeks, twelve to fourteen hours a day; and unless I'm traveling around the country, I eat at the same damn cafeteria every day, every meal.  So the trips matter to us.  But after we returned from Greece, we feared we would lose our last trip.  Afghanistan issues a one-year visa.  It requires you to submit your passport six weeks in advance of your departure to come here - so it's pretty much guaranteed that your visa will expire four to six weeks before your scheduled departure from the country.  You have to have a valid visa in order to leave, so that means you have to renew.  But it won't accept a passport for a visa renewal unless the visa has less than 60 days to go.  And they say that the visa processing will take four to six weeks.  However, for the R&R trips, there are various rules as well.  You have to space them out, more or less every seven weeks or so.  You have to be back in Kabul no later than 30 days before your final departure from the country.  And you have to be in the country at least 300 days, or else they make you stay longer, so every day you spend on an R&R extends your stay in Afghanistan.  So when we got back from Greece, we had less than nine weeks left, with one trip remaining.  So we handed our passports back the day we returned in order to get the visa extension.  But it was looking dire.  We had only the window of the first week in June to take our last trip.  We couldn't get flight reservations or hotel until we knew that we had the visa.  And time was running out.

It all came together today, after a bit of hounding.  We are supposed to be able to pick up our passports tomorrow, with their visas.  After they told us there were no flights available, I went on the airlines' web site and found some alternatives.  And about half an hour ago, I just booked our hotel.  So in ten days, we are going to Nice.   That's right - from Afghanistan to the Riviera.  I anticipate that we will observe subtle differences.