A very tropical Christmas to me

Someone must have been praying about the visas. Though not smooth as butter, here is what happened:

I took the metro then changed cars then took a bus then took another bus (all guided by a Fijan man on staff here) until we finally arrived at the Indonesian embassy. After discovering that we should have made copies of some papers that were needed for each individual (we though one copy would be enough) I also was told that we had filled out the wrong application forms (not my fault at all, those were the ones given to me). So Siti (Fijan man) and I fervishly filled out the new forms and when we got to the bottom, there was the ominous signature line!
When the man at the counter handed me the new forms, I asked him if they had to be signed and he said "no" but I went and asked him again...he said "no" again.
So when I had all the copies and right papers filled out, I brought them back up to the man again. He was going through them all and shoved them at me saying, "these need a signature." (by the way this man never cracked a single hint of emotion the entire time I communicated with me...no matter how friendly I tried to be) I looked at him (thinking "what the heck?!") but politely reminding him that he had told me (twice! only minutes before!) that I did not need to sign them. He made a glance sideways (as if to see if anyone was watching) then looked up and me and said (monotonously) "they need a signature."
The proverbial lightbulb went off in my head and I said "you mean you want me to sign them?"
He did not even look up at me, but nodded his head once in a yes.
I did not even think. I just took the forms and signed them for everybody. I don't know if I should have or not, but I don't feel guilty about it at all and no lightning has struck me, so I believe all is good.
Ok, I said I signed for everybody and by everybody I mean the non-Dutchies. Yup, Dutchies had a problem again. The form they needed was filled out for the embassy in The Netherlands and not for Singapore...wonderful.
So I got back and after a day and a half of communicating by email and phone calls to Indonesia we finally worked out how to change the one-teeny-tiny-little detail of a wrong country name to the right one. Here is what I did:
We (Bas and I) were told that in order to change the form it would take several weeks of waiting for the Indonesian government as well as a lot of money for each person to change it. That did not make sense to us since it was only one paper and only the name of the country needed to be changed. We called the lady whose signature was on the paper and asked her permission to change the name ourselves. I had saved the original document in my email.
I had to be creative in how to change the document because their computers do not have Word (though they have everything else) and it would not open in several other applications, but I found one that worked and changed the name! I am really turning into a clever little forger, huh? : )

ok, next time I write I will be sure to be more informative of what is going on more personally. I just wanted to finish the story that I began in Amsterdam.

We will all have our visas by Tuesday at 3:00pm. Again, thank you to those who prayed...and keep praying for us!