Change of plans and some minor crises

I haven't written anything for a while....

Partly because it's exam period and despite what people will say, I do actually study for my tests :P

Partly because the last week and a half has been one crisis after another for my CEED, at least it seemed that way to me! Needless to say, I've been a little stressed out and things haven't gone quite according to plan :P

I found on Monday nightlast week that the payment for my flights had been due that day and Travel Cuts hadn't recieved it yet. So those flights I booked? .... bye bye. Then, the same night, my Mom called me and said my visa had been rejected. Why? Because I sent the wrong kind of cheque! I didn't know there were different kinds. So Monday night I was panicing that all my plans were falling apart.

On Tuesday I went to travelcuts and looked into some new flights. The same ones were no longer available and I had to push my departure day back because I needed to allow time for my new visa application. So I booked some flights and tried to call AIESEC Canada to ask for help. Unfortunatly, Karolina, who's in charge of exchange and all of the CEEDers, wasn't in the office that day. I didn't know when to book my flights for because I didn't know how long the visa would take. The Brazillian websites are so inconsistent. One website says it takes 10 working days, another 15, another 20. I didn't know what to do. So I tried calling the consolate directly. No answer. For a Brazillian visa you also have to send a plane ticket and I didn't know if a reserved ticket was good enough, or if I had to have an actual, paid for ticket. I wasn't sure what size picture they needed because one site said they wanted 3.5 x 4 cm and another site said they wanted 5 x 7 cm. I wasn't sure what to put for where I was staying. Ahhhhhh, I was going crazy! So many questions and no answers. Plus, my new plane tickets could only be help for 24 hours, which meant they had to be finallized the next day or I would lose them again.

Now it was Wednesday. Finally, I got a hold of someone at the consolate (by calling the embassy first) and the lady there tried to answer my questions. Feeling a little relieved, I finished my application and headed over to travel cuts. I changed my flights again, this time so that I would have 22 working days by the time I sent in my application to the time I fly. That way I figured I was covered. I called Tai, the finance person at AIESEC Canada, and she was so helpful and did all my paperwork right away. I had my flights booked and paid for in a few hours. Then, I was off the the post office and sent my new and improved application by overnight mail to the consolate in Toronto. Hopefully everything was correct this time. I asked one of the AIESEC USP members, Koba, for his address and phone number for the application. Apparently an important thing for Brazillian visas is proving that you have somewhere to stay.

So by Wednesday afternoon, my flights were booked and my application was off to Toronto. It's not perfect, but hopefully everything will work out this time.

As it stands, I will now be flying out on May 16th and arriving the morning of May 17th. This is unfortunate because that is the day CONADE starts and the rest of my host LC will be leaving at 5:00 am to get there on time. Which means I won't have much of a reception, and then I will be somewhat on my own to get to the conference, and I'll be late. As I said, not ideal. But that's the best I could do.

If I have any more problems wit my visa I will have to delay it even further, which would mean missing CONADE, and I would hate that. But if by some miracle my visa comes sooner, I will change my flights if I can to go earlier. I'd really rather not get off an 11 hour plane ride and have to find my way to the conference, but if I have to, I will.

There isn't much I can do now but wait and see. I might call the consolate this week and ask them how it's going. I don't think there's anything I can do to make them process it any faster. Just hope I guess.

Here's some advice to future CEEDers: Get your visa application in as soon as you can! It takes a long time, and if you mess up, it takes forever to fix! Ask questions and make sure you get it right the first time. And yes, there are different kinds of cheques :P

In the meantime, I've been talking to people online and trying to learn a few more words. I also found out that obe of the professors from my university is in sao paulo doing research on recycling! This is right up my alley so I might try to meet up with this person while I'm down there.

I haven't got any of my shots yet. I need to look into that soon. I will have three weeks at home now before I fly though, so I figure I have time. Next week I have a gazillion appointments.... dentist, doctor, optomitrist etc. Should be fun, eh? Haha.

So I'm less stressed than I was, but still a little worried. I can't help that, I'm a worrier!

Once I'm done my exams I'll be able to ficus more on learning portugese and researching things about Brazil. I still have so much to learn. I should make a to do list of all the things I want to do while I'm there! I will be a very long list ;)

Hopefully I will have some good news to post soon, and I'll try to write more often.

I hope this very long post is somewhat coherent!

Tah tchau!