MY NEW BOOTS
Friday, 25 January 2008
Thursday, 24 January 2008
READY TO GO
Well hello all...this is a very exciting first post! I am sitting here at my kitchen table at the house in California. It is ten to midnight, and I am finally ready to go to Poland!
What seemed to be a lifelong ordeal with the Polish Ebassy in Washington DC finally ended when I recieved my visa to stay in Poland (yay). I had sent the documents in about a week before Christmas, and only last week did I recieve a letter stating that I had not provided proof of health insurance (nowhere on the form did it say I had to!). So I immediatley sorted that matter out with a very helpfull man at AON insurance in New Zealand, and that night i faxed the corrected documents to the embassy. In my cover sheet I included my email and cell number, in case I needed to be contacted, as snail mail was obviously not working. After two days I started to stress again (by this point i had had my wisdom teeth up, which added to confusion), because I had not heard back from the embassy, and my phone calls always managed to either get a fax tone, or get lost in the networks of governmental automated voice systems (I was getting tired of yelling yes into the reciever with no response from the lifeless voice). so to my excitement, the fedex tracking code finally came to life (I had sent a return envelope and taken down the code), and the next day the lovely delivery lady handed me my fast post envelope. thank god.
My next hurdle was the bloomin criminal records (no, im not a convict. Im working with kids, so they just want to make sure). I had posted it from the Marewa shops with the Matron, and like the goon I am, I managed to leave out the silly copy of my drivers license. So while I was stayin in New Zealand still, I recieved a letter from the Ministry of Justice saying that I needed to send a copy of my drivers license! I promptly sent that off, and was off to California the next week. I fancied that I was in the safe zone, seeing that a Ministry of Justice envelope is very out of the ordinary, and the lady that takes care of the house was keeping an eye out for it. Much to my dismay, nothing was delivered as of Jan 20th. Even worse was when my mum called me from New Zealand, informing me that the day BEFORE they had recieved my first application, all the forms had been changed for the New Year. Despited this, the Ministry 'forgot' to inform me of this fact when they returned the uncompleted forms. Thanks to a very helpful man at the Ministry called Te (who i mistaked for Steve...oops!), my new request (faxed in yesterday) was expedited and I recieved the results this morning. Once again for clairifycation, the result of the search was that as of January 24th 2008, I had no criminal record at all.
So thats what Ive been managing the last week. Its funny to see that I cant seem to get ahold of a governmental facility WITHIN the country Im in at the moment, however I can have a criminal record search expedited via many phonecalls to 'Te', and have the documents sitting on my lap in less then 24 hours. Thats New Zealand for you.
Hope you enjoyed the first of many (hopefully not too many) ordeals, and Ill talk to you soon!
What seemed to be a lifelong ordeal with the Polish Ebassy in Washington DC finally ended when I recieved my visa to stay in Poland (yay). I had sent the documents in about a week before Christmas, and only last week did I recieve a letter stating that I had not provided proof of health insurance (nowhere on the form did it say I had to!). So I immediatley sorted that matter out with a very helpfull man at AON insurance in New Zealand, and that night i faxed the corrected documents to the embassy. In my cover sheet I included my email and cell number, in case I needed to be contacted, as snail mail was obviously not working. After two days I started to stress again (by this point i had had my wisdom teeth up, which added to confusion), because I had not heard back from the embassy, and my phone calls always managed to either get a fax tone, or get lost in the networks of governmental automated voice systems (I was getting tired of yelling yes into the reciever with no response from the lifeless voice). so to my excitement, the fedex tracking code finally came to life (I had sent a return envelope and taken down the code), and the next day the lovely delivery lady handed me my fast post envelope. thank god.
My next hurdle was the bloomin criminal records (no, im not a convict. Im working with kids, so they just want to make sure). I had posted it from the Marewa shops with the Matron, and like the goon I am, I managed to leave out the silly copy of my drivers license. So while I was stayin in New Zealand still, I recieved a letter from the Ministry of Justice saying that I needed to send a copy of my drivers license! I promptly sent that off, and was off to California the next week. I fancied that I was in the safe zone, seeing that a Ministry of Justice envelope is very out of the ordinary, and the lady that takes care of the house was keeping an eye out for it. Much to my dismay, nothing was delivered as of Jan 20th. Even worse was when my mum called me from New Zealand, informing me that the day BEFORE they had recieved my first application, all the forms had been changed for the New Year. Despited this, the Ministry 'forgot' to inform me of this fact when they returned the uncompleted forms. Thanks to a very helpful man at the Ministry called Te (who i mistaked for Steve...oops!), my new request (faxed in yesterday) was expedited and I recieved the results this morning. Once again for clairifycation, the result of the search was that as of January 24th 2008, I had no criminal record at all.
So thats what Ive been managing the last week. Its funny to see that I cant seem to get ahold of a governmental facility WITHIN the country Im in at the moment, however I can have a criminal record search expedited via many phonecalls to 'Te', and have the documents sitting on my lap in less then 24 hours. Thats New Zealand for you.
Hope you enjoyed the first of many (hopefully not too many) ordeals, and Ill talk to you soon!
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