The UK Consulate is a Benevolent God

Praise be unto St. Andrew! After weeks of agonizing waiting, a special little package showed up for me by courier. Inside, as you may have guessed, was my dear, sweet passport. And inside the passport? MY UK VISA!!! I was expecting a stamp, but come on Mickie, we're living in the future, duh. Instead, the visa is actually a sticker with all of the numbers that, when taken together, equal my whole identity. There was also a not-exactly-unflattering picture of my face on the sticker. Imagine! Me! On a sticker! I never thought this day would come! As I'd hoped, I've gotten approval for a full two years in the UK and I'll be allowed to work in almost any field I want (I'm not allowed to be a professional sportsperson. Damn.). The only bummer about the visa is that the new version of the Canadian passport is really nice - on each of the pages, it has a picture of something culturally significant or an important moment in Canadian history. My favourite page shows the painting of the Fathers of Confederation at the conference in Charlottetown. Naturally, my visa sticker ended up on this page, right on top of our first prime minister's face. Oh, Sir John A., what a charming rascal you are!

           John A. MacDizzle in the Middle. In the more recent version of this image, he's been replaced with a sticker of my face. 

In other news, "whilst" (Scots actually use this word - they're waaaay more eloquent than us) I was impatiently awaiting my visa, a couple of other things happened. One of them being that I got older! I have officially levelled up age-wise. Clearly I did not spend much of the past year becoming smarter, because to celebrate my birthday, a friend and I went out to eat. And eat. And eat. Between the two of us, we ate a meal meant for four people. Plus two bellinis each. Plus dessert. By the time we were nearing the end of the meal, we knew that it was going to end badly. But stopping was no longer an option. Needless to say, it was way too much food. I felt insta-sick. The last time I was in that much pain was the day after a pub crawl in Dublin. I ended up hanging out with another friend after the b-day glut. But most of that time was spent lying down. Not moving. Lesson learned? Yes. I hope. And yet, I have quite the tour of key European food zones coming up, so the odds of this painfully-acquired wisdom sticking are not great. I know about your Ham Museum, Madrid. I'm comin' for ya.

For my birthday, I also ebay'd myself a travel bag that I had been coveting for some time. Lululemon's bags are supposed to be for yoga or running or whatever else healthy people decide to do in their spare time. But, they also make for fantastic carry-ons or weekender travel bags because they're very deep, so they can hold a lot. They also look like purses as opposed to duffel bags, so they don't act as yet another glaring badge of tourist-ness. I got a helluva bargain on mine and when it arrived at my house, I spent a good fun twenty minutes or so testing it to see if it could hold a variety of different things from my room. In case you're wondering, a full-sized pillow totally fits.

                                                            Classy bag for a classy broad

As university wraps up for the year and summer jobs are about to begin, moving season is upon us. At the moment, I'm living in my apartment with a couple of my friends who are taking it over since I'm taking off. I still have a week left in Ottawa and I don't want to impose on their space for too long, so I'm going to be shuffling my self around to several of my friends' doorsteps to beg for a warm piece of floor. Except for tomorrow, when my dad will be in town on business. Tomorrow, I get to bask in the luxury of the corporate hotel suite pull-out couch! (Thanks Pa.)

Finalement, today my sister, with whom I will soon be travelling, wrote the last exam of her undergrad. What victory, Marg! Congratulations! Now you're finally allowed to start getting excited for the trip (you have a lot of catching up to do on this front, by the way).

                        The universities may take our money, energy and mental well-being, but they will never take our......

That, my lovelies, is all for now. Only 16 days!!!

Processing... Processing...

It would seem that the hard work is just about done. Yesterday, after collecting every document that has ever passed through my hands and having a bit of a panic over a website payment glitch, I finally, finally had my appointment for my BIOMETRIC SCANNING. Yow, exciting! Acutally, not really as exciting as I had hoped. There were no lasers or cyborgs whatsoever. Just a couple of humourless security guys who scanned me with metal detectors before I was allowed into the office. Apparently the document collection business is fraught with peril as there were two security guards for one 10'x10' office. After getting the ol' metal scan, the fellas checked my bag to see if I had brought in anything dangerous like a cell phone or hair spray. Electronics they did not find. However, I had forgotten that in the front pocket of my bag were around, oh, say 150 little Canadian flag pins that I sometimes give to visitors to Parliament. When this discovery was made, I don't think anyone quite knew what to do. The security guards exchanged a glance that may have meant something like "Should we scan every single one of these pins individually?" or perhaps, "Do you think we should confiscate these evidently dangerous objects?" or maybe even "How's about we arrest this deviant on the spot?" Exactly what thoughts were shared through that gaze I shall never know, but in the end all it amounted to was the senior guy saying "Wull that's a new one," and letting me carry with my appointment. Crisis averted.


                                               
                                                                                                    Oodles of pins


After that point, the appointment went smoothly. Got my picture taken. Signed some papers. Put stuff in envelopes (None of them were licky envelopes though, just the kind that seal with stickers. I like licky envelopes. They're tasty.). I was asked to use a super high-tech method to attach my photos to my application sheets (glue stick). The coolest bit was that I got to have my fingerprints scanned. I figured it was going to be the old-school inky-fingers method, but naw man, there was this neat little beep-boop machine that sort of photocopied my fings with its green flashy light. Cool.

Actually, I lied. The best part of the appointment was dropping my finished, be-enveloped application into the office's courier box. I did it with great pomp and ceremony. The security guys were not as moved by the scene as I think they should have been. But for me it was a big moment. ALL of my personal information is now in New York City for final approval. Funny that all of my info gets to go and hang out there, but I've never been there myself. Bizarre. Anyway, within 11-21 days, I should get back my passport with a nice new stamp in it! Or I'll be categorically rejected. We shall see.

In the meantime, both SWAP and its UK partner Britbound will be sending me their "Okay, time to get rully, rully, rully excited" welcome packs. I suspect it will work.

For now, I'm doing my best to entertain myself in Ottawa so that I don't go crazy while I'm waiting for the adventure to begin. Gotta remember that Ottawa is an awesome city too. And spring is finally starting to show up, so it should be a reasonably pleasant month before my adventure gets underway. Patio season is at our doorstep.

Tonight I'm off to a play: Drama at Inish. It's a little Irish comedy do, and if there are two things I like, it's comedy and the Irish! If there are three things I like, it's comedy, the Irish and some sangria on a sunny patio, but the third will come with time.

44 days till I'm on a plane!!!