To Canada and beyond

Due to a volcano in Island I had a couple of very exciting days. At this stage I'm hopeful that I will be on a flight to Canada on Thursday. However, anything is still quite possible. Currently, no flights are allowed in the Irish airspace; much like the rest of Europe. But that might change on Tuesday or Wednesday. If that's the case, maybe I can be on my flight Thursday as planned. I would not want to complain though, since I know other travelers have way more serious issues due to being stranded without visa, medicine or money. For myself the clouds of ash are more or less "just" an inconvenience. If my flight on Thursday does not take off, I will have to cancel or rebook my hotels, my health insurance, my car rental and obviously my flight. I suppose I will also have to let everyone I'm planning to meet during my first week know as well. Anyway, there is little I can do now but wait once more. By the way, the photo shows locally produced ash. Long liv...

I got it! I got my passport back. The package arrived yesterday already. Happy days. Now everything is set. Also, all hotels are booked at this stage. So I have to print off the booking confirmations and then the stay for my first couple of weeks are already sorted. I guess, I can finally call a few property management companies to see what they need from me as a potential tenant. And then I will have to get myself into the job hunting game. Exciting times ahead, but I'm delighted to have my visa sorted this far. Photo above: I took the photo above on my last ski trip in the US. I thought with all the snow, it might be fitting. It's a little on the ironc side, since it happens to snow in Ireland today, whilst Canada apparently experiences a rather nice day...

Last week's Monday I had my medical. Only having received an appointment on Friday, I was very happy that I actually sorted the entire examination that same day. After initial hesitation and after getting a quote I decided to go for the medical in Ireland. It worked out to be 280€ in total; examination 150€, blood 80€ and the X-ray 50€. So, there would not have been any point in traveling to Germany and paying maybe 50 - 100 € less. Also, I would have never made it this quickly. At this point I will still have to send the results to London. This will, however, have to wait for the blood result's arrival. In theory, they are due tomorrow. If they are, I will have them collected by a courier and delivered to London. The photo above was taken on Britta's beach in Wicklow.

I just got word from my laywer in Canada that my medical forms have arrived. It took a lot longer than I expected, but it's a nice new year surprise that they are on the way. My laywer confirmed that I can actually get my medical done from any medician on the following list. http://www.cic.gc.ca/dmp-md/medical.aspx That means I don't necessarily have to do my medical in Ireland. It might be worth it for me to fly to Germany and save some money. I will have to get some quotes in and compare some prices. From what I have read in other blogs and forums it might be well worth it. By the way, for those wondering where the picture above is from. I shot it today on the beach in Carmel-on-the-sea. California is always great for a visit.

So, I went to Paris and did my interview. Just to give you a mental image, I have to note that summer has broken out in Ireland. We nearly hit the 20 degrees Celcius twice and it rains a little less. Coming from this background, it is no surprise that it took me a little while to adjust to the 30 odd degrees in Paris. Marching to my interview in business casual and with a really heavy bagpack, I was very happy that my anti-transpirant deo held it's end of the bargain. I was about 30 minutes early and that served me well. My interviewer, a nice lady from Quebec, did not even leave me waiting for 5 even minutes. She paid a great deal of attention to my previous work engagements and my studies. Then it came to the most dreaded part of my interview - the French test. I feel that I have to elaborate a little more. Due to an unfortunate delay in my test result reception I only got a hold of my French marks slightly more than a week before the interview in Paris. So I decided that there i...

Time is closing in on my interview with big steps. I have sorted the French test. But now I have to get a birth certificate, a copy of my certified high school diploma and about a million of other documents... again. The process in all honesty is very tiresome. Nevertheless, I'm delighted that there seems to be a move on things now. So I will spend the coming days and weeks improving my French, gathering documents and learning facts on Quebec. Fun!

Good news again. I got the date for my interview in Paris. It'll be in August. Boy, am I glad that I took that French test early. Nevertheless, I am a little concerned about the French test still. They haven't send me my results on paper yet. So all I have is an email with a PDF attachment. Well, I am sure it will work out. It did so far... Anyway, the weather here is miserable at the moment. So I posted a picture from another day. I love the clouds here in Ireland...