You might be thinking, “You have a week until you leave and its just now official?” After all, it was official after I signed up for the TEFL class, and it was even more official after I bought a one-way plane ticket. However, on Friday, the Taiwan government granted me permission to visit their country.
In preparation for next Wednesday, the process that has been by far the most nerve-racking has been getting the visa. On Thursday, Dave and I went into the city to the TECO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office) to apply for the 60-day visitor visa. The processing fee for all the paperwork was $131, and we signed a line stating that we understood they reserve the right to deny our visas, for any reason, and they don’t have to tell us why. So you can understand the anxiety after all that we have done in preparation, only to lay ourselves at the mercy of the folks over at TECO and possibly have our visas denied.
“Come back tomorrow at 1:00,” they told us, which did nothing to ease the pit in my stomach. The suspense element is lost here since I began this post with the end to this story, but needless to say, the 24-hour period of our judgment was terrifying. However, with the visa, there is really nothing else to do besides show up at the airport next Wednesday. Any nervousness I may have been feeling has all subsided and been replaced by relief and excited anticipation.
In celebration, I went to New Paltz for the weekend and had a great time and said my goodbyes to a lot of people. There probably aren’t going to be very many people I see in the next week.
So long, snow!
(get it?)
3 comments:
i guess it becomes REALLY official when you get a j-o-b huh??? nice pic of the snow! we finally got our first snow here!! once is perfect. you should have just moved to maryland. :)
the rulers long..i get it!
(i just made you say underwear)
I actually didn't get it until I read Kate's comment... but wait- is that really what I'm supposed to get?! Lame-ooo.
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