Category Archives: travel

How I got this way

“You’re living the dream,” is what people say when they learn we’re heading to Europe for an extended stay, but I don’t always feel that way.  Hotel-living, travel, sight-seeing, modest cardiac-safe levels of adventure – what’s not to like?

Bureaucrats, that’s what’s not to like.

Yesterday’s discovery that our designated bureaucrat forgot to process my visa application  is a classic twist in the overseas-working-holiday picture.  In short, whatever you expect the bureaucrat to do, whatever he/she says they’re doing – it is not so.

And the fact that they hold your passport and identity information, plus wield the awesome powers of “the state,” forces you to be your better self when dealing with them, when really you want to be your five-year-old, tantrum-throwing self.

Our friends Al & Nina (not their real names – must shield their identities from foreign bureaucrats who might wreak horrible vengeance on them for sharing this story) danced this dark waltz with Spanish visa authorities who insisted she stay in Canada during her application while sending him willy nilly around the globe fetching documents to feed into their paper shredders (I’m sure this is true).

After sending Al to Japan on a boomerang mission to fetch security clearance from a northern district’s police department, because they had lived there once, and then return immediately to British Columbia, and then back to Toronto to pick up their visas, a Spanish official handed Al his visa, with a dark comment about Al stealing jobs from decent, hard-working Spaniards (Al’s company was creating 400 jobs for those Spaniards, but visa bureaucrats are weak on math).

And then, the official turned to Nina and informed her that her visa had been denied.  Nina – who had endured a forced year-long  separation from her beloved because of this bureaucrat – is ordinarily a suave, well-dressed, dignified, intelligent and articulate woman.

As she threw herself against the embassy’s safety glass, she reminded the official that while inside the embassy she “may technically be on Spanish territory, but you have to come out sometime, and when you do, you’ll be in MY country and I”LL be WAITING.” Nina  managed to say a few more things as her husband physically dragged her out of the building, but I don’t want this blog to get blocked for inappropriate content, so you will have to imagine the rest.

We are waiting for the day that embassy’s security tapes get hacked and put up on Youtube. It’s going to be a doozy of a show.

In the meantime, I’m coping with my own visa-stress by applying generous dollops of Breyers Black Forest ice cream to my thighs,via my digestive system, of course.

Just about the right amount of ice cream required to soothe bureaucrat-burn.

The first place

From Dave's "check-it-out" visit in January 2011

All trips begin long before arrival at the airport, packing the trunk and buying health insurance. They begin when someone wakes up one morning, looks out the window and thinks, “I’ve seen this before. In fact,  everyday.”

That is the beginning. The thought hangs in the air for only a brief moment, until the next thought, which is usually, “Time for coffee,” or if one is married or similarly espoused, “I wonder if my beloved will bring me coffee in bed. Maybe a little nudge will help.”

Travel ideas germinate and these days, they are growing like crazy, if the “interwebs” is any measure. Travel blogs are everywhere and they’re full of great information, most of which goes un-noticed.

I know this, and yet I’ve chosen to blog at the behest of only a few people. Maybe three. It doesn’t take many readers for me to put fingers to keyboard.

But I drift. The point I’m trying to arrive at is that we’ve passed the germination stage of this journey and are still at the static stage, which is that every morning Dave gets up and checks his email to see if our visas have been approved.

You won’t see many pictures of the anticipating traveler hovering over his keyboard every morning. It’s just not glamorous enough, but the truth is that these days, every trip starts this way. If not for waiting on a visa, then for making travel-arrangements, browsing hotels, destinations and the like.

I’m not complaining. This is an improvement over travel circa 1990 when all trip-planning was preceded by 38 minutes of muzak as one waited “on hold” on the phone, stuck to the house by the phone cord, the then-modern-day umbilicus to the travel-mothership, ie. travel agents and or travel-related businesses (airlines, usually).

Those were dreadful days. Let’s not speak of them.

That is where we are today March 21, 2011. Still checking our email, still hovering over the laptop waiting.  It’s not exciting, but it is part of the trip.