Leaving for Venezuela

I'm ready to go and leaving this afternoon. I finally finished getting everything yesterday, so my life has been a bit of a circus for the last week or so. I have been visiting with everyone I had not seen at Christmas and trying to finish getting ready. For example, I read a couple of weeks ago that I needed a tourist visa for Brazil. So I went to the consulate in Toronto. It was closed (at 2 pm); they are only open until 1. So I went back the next week (Jan 9). I got there, and needed to leave again to get a money order -- nothing else was acceptable (even cash!). The woman behind the desk was such a witch. The next problem she had was that I don't have a plane ticket home, I explained that I didn't know when I was coming home, or from which country. Finally after lots of arguing she allowed me to write all my plans down (I am flying into Venezuela traveling by bus to Brazil, then continuing on to Argentina and Chile also by bus and so on...). She accepted that, and looked at my ticket to Venezuela and said that the earliest my visa could be ready was the 24th (I leave on the 25th). This had me quite worried, because I thought they may have to send it to the embassy in Ottawa to get the visa. But no, she is just a mean lady, I picked up the visa yesterday with no troubles and it was ready on the 12th!!

Then last night I decided that I should verify that I do not need any other visas (that i cannot get at the borders) for any other countries (I have looked this up in my LP guides already). So just to be sure I checked the Government of Canada website. Looked up the country forms for each place I am going to, and checked to see if there was any other helpful information and I got great tidbits of advice like: Always cross at official border crossings; Don't climb a volcano without a guide. I love how helpful the government is!

Oh well, now everything is done and done! So I am ready to go. Once I get to South America I will start posting more pictures.

Chritmas and New Years

It is always nice to be home again, and here I am for Christmas and New Years -- yea! Sadly we do not have a great Internet connection (the main problem with living in the country) so I cannot post very often, as I am not patient enough to wait for slow Internet. But here goes...

I got home on Dec 23th and on the 25th we had 10 people over for dinner. We had a great time, and it was pretty relaxing as most things were done before hand. We spent the rest of Christmas week visiting friends and family.

My brother and hi girlfriend.

My mom and uncle.

My best friend Meena.

My uncle Larry, me and Jill (my uncle Phil's girlfriend)

Dessert time mmmmm...

Something's funny...

Dave, Phil and Jill, as we all play a little Monopoly after dinner (Dave and I won :)

Dec 26 -- A party at a family friends'. The group of us in the picture haven't all been together at a Chritsmas party in many many years.Dec 27 -- My Big Sister and nieces came to visit (Don't the girls look great in their hanboks (Korean clothes)). Dec 28 -- My aunt came for lunch. Dec 29 -- day off -- time for shopping, cause all my good pants are in the mail and I need to go to a nice restaurant on the weekend -- yikes! Dec 30 - Jan 1 visiting with a friend of my mom's and her daughter up near Bobcageon (about 1 hour north of where I live). It was great to have a nice relaxing New Years, since the last few week have been crazy.