Preparations

Hi all,

I sit here writing this entry while my books are all in boxes as my belongings get put into storage for my great adventure. It is hard to believe that I will be off to India in only three more days. It seems like only yesterday that I was asked if I would like to go and now here I am packing and wondering what will be in store for me.

This adventure began back in February when my senior supervisor asked me if I had my passport. Unfortunately it had expired after my previous adventures to Chile and Ireland with my old job and I would need to get a new passport. After being told to wait to see what could be done to expedite the passport process I was finally told to head to the coast and get it through as quick as possible. So at 2 in the morning on March 30th off I headed to the Surrey passport office. Arriving about half an hour before the office opened and standing in line outside in the cold and wet. Finally after about 3 hours I made it into the office and with all of my documents in order, was finished in only a few minutes. I have no idea why it should take others so long unless they are totally unprepared for the processing. I drove down with another candidate for the trip and he had quite the shock to find out his drivers license had been expired for quite a while and could not be used as id. Thankfully he did have other id that did work and was finished shortly after me. We ended up driving straight back stopping for lunch in Chilliwack. What a way for this adventure to begin.

Now we had to wait on pins and needles as we waited for the passports to arrive. It felt like the longest 3 weeks of my live. But arrive they did and according to some in spectacular time. Now the passports were all gathered to be sent off to get our visas to India. It seemed like another wait forever to get the visas back but they finally were cleared and arrived this Tuesday and now the scramble for flights began. I do not yet have my actual ticket but have been told that I will be flying out on Monday. What an incredible experience so far.