For Everything Else, There's NOTHING

Police reference check: $15.00
Passport photos: $27.34
Student ID card: $16.00
Travel insurance: $366.12
Accommodation fees: $434.69
Flight reservations: $371.34
VISA fee: $74.00
Travel pack, quick-dry towel, sleep sheet, laptop lock, plug adapter, various travel accessories: loads more money
Time spent collecting paperwork, making phone calls, doing research, being resourceful and finding cheap deals: LOTS
Tears and energy spent over trying to get Spanish VISA and then being told that I can't (at least not before I'm scheduled to leave the country): worthless

So a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...NOT. First of all, it wasn't funny and second of all, there was no forum. I spent far too long circling the Spanish consulate's automated phone system yesterday morning (what kind of system tells you to dial *24 to speak to a consular officer and then HANGS UP on you?!) and when I finally found a human to talk to, she informed me that HA! there's no way to get a VISA within two weeks when she has people who have been waiting for two months. I was polite, explained that I'd been waiting for my doctor's note and that things were delayed due to the holidays, but no, there was nothing she could do. I either forget about the VISA and get my ass out of the EU before my time is up and the authorities detain me, or I can fly back to Canada to pick it up. Uhm. Ye-ah.

Without my VISA, I can't stay in the European Union for more than 90 days - which is definitely not enough time for me to go to school and get credit for my courses. It's also not enough time to live in Spain and do all the travelling I wanted to do. It means no permanency for a long period of time, and lots of moving around all by myself. It means doing North Africa by myself or not at all. It means hugely disappointing my North African travel-buddy, and finding some way to tell my parents that I'm now going to Spain for fun and not for school, which will be very, VERY difficult. This means a mad scramble to re-figure out the next few months of my life and make loads of contingency plans because I'm apparently a huge magnet for STUFF THAT GOES WRONG.

I feel a little confused and a lot lost. I'm burdened with a huge feeling of disappointment and it's the utter failure that gets to me. I've been working at this 'exchange' for over a year and I feel like I failed miserably at pulling it together and everything that I've been planning has not worked out the way I wanted it to at ALL. For goodness' sake, I started thinking about an international exchange back in the Fall term of my second-frickin'-year. The application process took months last winter, spring was full of good news because I got accepted to the one school that I wanted, but starting in August everything just went so, SO wrong. It took nearly three months for my exchange advisor and I to figure out that: the school teaches in English, the school doesn't teach in English, the school teaches in English for non-exchange students, therefore we need to withdraw from the exchange program. And oh look, none of these English courses can be applied to my degree! Whee, my graduation plans just went down the crapper! I get to tell my parents that my little brother graduates before me! Wheeee! Basically, all the work I did for the exchange program meant nothing and I had to start from scratch in late-October/November.

According to the lady at the Spanish consulate, if I wanted my VISA on time, I should have handed in all my paperwork at least two months ago, in mid-November. Look lady, two months ago was when I applied to leave my school and study abroad as a free agent sans exchange program, two months ago was when I re-applied to my school in Spain, and I didn't get accepted to said school in Spain until LATE November. By the time I collected even some of the paperwork you wanted, everything was closed for the holidays. I didn't get my doctor's note in the mail until YESTERDAY.

So I get that some of this is my fault as part Shit Magnet and Victim of Circumstance, but hel-LO, can I please have some compassion (i.e.: no scoffing and HA-ing when you hear that I need my VISA in two weeks because I fly out of the country then)? Thanks.

To Do:
- request transfer of VISA-making to another office that isn't so backlogged
- email/call/harass old exchange advisor to HELP ME PLEASE
- find loopholes that will allow me to hide out in a non-EU country for a period of time and then return to Spain
- beg, cry and tug on the compassionate heartstrings at the consulate
- make a friend at the consulate who will do me a special favour
- pray that a miracle will occur that gets me my VISA in two weeks
- find illegal Spanish VISA on the blackmarket
- Google search "squatting in Spain"

From now on, I've got nothing but prayers and the Big Guy's good humour.
3:18 pm

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Good Year

I said goodbye to 2006 in the backseat of a car that reeked of New while driving in circles around downtown Toronto trying to find a damn parking spot that wouldn't cost upwards of thirty-freaking-dollars just so we could go upstairs into a condo that didn't belong to any one of us and sip real champagne from fancy glasses that also didn't belong to us and count down towards 2007 in a more civilized manner than on the streets of Urban Traffic Hell. Alas.

At 11:45pm we resigned ourselves to the fate of AM radio giving us the low-down on the countdown and when the car clock said 0:00, we honked like mad. To our dismay, we soon found out that New Car Time was not the same as Toronto time, so we essentially celebrated the coming of 2007 twice, within about four minutes of each other. Again with the mad honking. It got to the point where I wasn't sure if people were honking out of good-natured celebratoryness or out of frustration and anger that traffic had come to a standstill around the fireworks that were shooting out of Nathan Philips Square. Gladly, we had fun that night with our pricey, but uber-fancy drinks, good company during our two hour and twenty minute wait for a table, our delish meaty dinners, and yes, even the car ride because it meant delicately making out in the backseat while the two in the front were leaning on the horn.

So despite the fact that it was a very rainy and fairly anti-climactic Eve (as compared to the 'wild house parties' I've been to in the past *sarcasm!*), it was a good one. So far, 2007 isn't off to a bad start:

I've won an Award and a Scholarship from my university totalling almost $2000!

Hot damn, I officially fly out in three weeks. I've got my first two nights of accommodation in and around London figured out - now I just need to work on the other seven nights....

I know I already told you this, but I have my accommodation in Spain! I found out tonight that it's a PENTHOUSE suite with TWO bathrooms for just three girls that's (again, indulge me here) between my new university and THE BEACH. Beach beach beach beach beach.

My boyfriend and I are discussing plans for him to come visit me IN SPAIN circa late April/early May 2007 in time to celebrate my 23rd on the island of IBIZA!

*screeeeech to a halt* Boyfriend? What?

Adam deserves a better introduction than that and this, and I've been trying to work on one for the last, oh...I dunno, few weeks, but how do you introduce and encapsulate someone so awesome into just one entry? For now, here's the photo of us all dolled up in late-November ready to get it on before I-Ball. Kidding! We got it on after I-Ball.

No, but seriously, he's great. More on that to come soon in a greater, more eloquent and mushy fashion.

2:05 am