Germany probably off

Germany is most likely off. For various reasons let's not get into (partly it's my incompetence, partly it's that the entire process feels designed to trip up anyone trying to go through it, exacerbated by how the people in the call center entered the wrong information for my application), my appointment today didn't even get started; I have a new appointment for June 1.

That leaves me in a bind. The visa process is going to take either 10-12 working days, or 10-12 calendar days. That means at best I have a week's leeway, and at worst I have one day to get my passport back, with no way to make concrete plans in between now and then because I may or may not have a visa in the end.

I don't think I can relax until this is over :( I need to sleep on it, but as of tonight I've talked myself into making this a UK-only trip, and scheduling a different Schengen-countries-only trip (time and money willing!)

See, if I'm not going to have to save up for the Germany leg, I'll have enough money to choose one or two more places around the UK, and in hindsight it makes sense to not stress about getting two visas each on two trips, and I'd only need to deal with one currency at a time (everything in the UK uses pounds sterling right? Will research that).

That is, instead of doing London + Germany this trip, and Wales + France to a second trip, why not do London + Wales this trip and Germany + France + ??? the next? Makes sense right?

Also it'd give me time to be a good traveller and pick up usable bits and pieces of the languages of my eventual destination Schengen-area-countries :) Trying to decide whether I'm sour-graping and giving up too early, or bowing to practicality. MAYBE BOTH.

My apologies to everyone who I have made tentative plans with that just fell through ♥ So so so sorry for all the fuss and effort!