D-Day

Wednesday was a bit crazy, work called the French Consulate to see if the papers for my visa had arrived yet. They had, but they were the wrong ones. Shit. We fired off a haste filled email to our lawyers in Paris, asking them to get on the governments case to get the correct documents sent before my 10:30AM appointment Thursday at the Consulate.

Thursday morning, Judy from HR came in to make sure that things were going well, even though she was really sick. She got in and found an email waiting saying that the correct documents had been faxed, and that they "should" be there. We called the Consulate, just to make sure, but there was no one there. So, we took a gamble, and I headed out to Vancouver to see if luck would be on my side. I arrived with about 30 seconds to spare for my meeting, and luck was with me, they had received the documents about an hour and a half earlier. I now have my visa, and a bit weight has been lifted!

I called work, told them the good news, but had to run back to Abby to give them a scan of the visa so that they could get to work on the plane ticket for me. I just got an email from work stating that I will be leaving probably about 6:30PM Wednesday on a KLM flight to Amsterdam, then switching and heading down to Marseilles.

So, I will be here for a few more days, but am busy getting my apartment cleaned, and sorting my stuff to send over to France. So much still to do, and so little time!

And the sea isn't green

I haven't had what you would call the best of days today. It was bad enough that I was going into work on a Saturday, but what I found in the parking garage added many a woe.

As I walked up to the car, I noticed that something about the way the light was reflecting off of the front fender didn't look correct. As I got closer, I kind of when "hmph" and went to get my camera. You see, there was a dent in my bumper, which wasn't there when I left my car the night before. The fender was a bit out of sorts as well, but since I was on my way to work, I took a few photos to show where the car had been sitting, and to show the damage done.

Once at work, I found out that the project that I had been asked to come in for was all done, and there wasn't much for me to do with it. I of course wanted to come home to deal with my car, but due to mis-communications (there really is way too much of that at work) the supervisor had me scheduled to work the whole day, and in fact he had me scheduled to be at work for 11.5 hours, today, tomorrow and Monday! So, I explained as to why I was in, and that I needed to deal with my car, and that I was never supposed to stay the entire day and he promptly sent me off across the other side of the airport to work over there.

This really wasn't too bad of an option, since it was a lot work than I had figured on, but while over there, I had a loonie eaten by the pop machine, and my tool box key fell out of my pocket and down a drain in the floor. I managed to get my key back, but lost the loonie.

So when I got home, I talked to the building manager, and I told her about the car and who I thought had done the damage. Turns out that my guess was right, a young fellow was driving his Mom's car, and backed into mine. He was really upset, and apologetic about the whole thing, but his Mom looked like she was gonna kick his butt this side of Tuesday!

Tomorrow I will need to go and find a repair shop to get my car fixed as soon as possible. I have found out a bit more about my visa, it seems that the French lawyer is trying to get the government to FedEx the documents to the consulate here in Vancouver before the end of the week. I really don't think that it will happen, but we are trying to be optimistic and have booked an appointment for Thursday to see if I can get it. If I do get it, that means that I will probably be leaving some time in the next three to five days after that. If I don't get it, then I might still be here in December. I really hope not since I won't have a place to live as of November thirtieth.

Now, I need to get ready to go to Jay's to rock out at Guitar Hero, and maybe karaoke.

The French Connection

I am still in Canada. Seems that the French have decided to have another labour dispute, and have all gone on strike. So my visa hasn't come through yet and I am left living in my empty apartment still.

I am thinking (hoping) that I hear something in the next week or so, since it is about the right time to be hearing something. Then it will be an insane scramble to finish with the few items that I have here, do one last load of laundry, get my stuff to work so that it can be shipped out, take the insurance off of my car, park it at work, and then find some way back to Ladner to stay with my brother till I catch my flight out. Probably all in about 24 hours.

I will send out a mass email when I know what date and time my flight will be (just in case some of you want to come and see me off at the airport.)

So close, yet so far...

Here I am, sitting in an empty apartment. Well, empty except dust bunnies, a mattress and a chair. I guess that this will be my life for the next couple of weeks or so until I leave for France.

Early this morning, I had a herd of friends show up to help haul my furniture over to the storage locker. It took about two hours to fill the truck up, then about an hour to empty it again. The locker is VERY full now, although I am sure that I could go up if I need to. Actually, I will need to, I still have a mattress and half my kitchen to put in there.

All said and done, I am glad that part is over. A little cleaning, a little more packing and I will be ready to haul out of here for good. It will be nice to know just when they are planning to ship me out, since I still don't know. I am still hoping that the visa will come through soon, so I can try and be out of here by maybe November 15th or so.

It is funny how, although I find it hard to leave everyone and everything behind, now that my stuff is all away I want to get out of here and get settled in France. Time to move. No fun living in an empty place, with barely a place to sit down.

I am thankful to my friends who all came out and helped me today. It is always nice to know there are people who I can depend on in my life. Hope they all know that they can depend on me too.

Need to go and get rid of some of the dust, before I sneeze all over my laptop. =)