Life’s a Journey

I heard that Canada is a beautiful country even long ago.  The country offers plenty of scenic grandeur, but also a sense of freedom and people who are “happy, polite helpful and amiable.”  They drive a hundred miles to hockey games, end phrases with “eh?” and hail new immigrants in January with, “cold enough for yah?” or in June with “warm enough for yah?”

Firstly, there is the weather.  Canada, of course, is the “Great White North” and the winters in some parts can be teeth-chattering.  Then there is the size and variety of this country.  Here you can see the most spectacular lakes,

World’s greatest waterfalls,

most modern cities with world’s tallest towers,

I have no idea how this works, but Toronto’s CN Tower is hidden somewhere in this picture. After looking at it carefully you may discover it, but this could take several tries.

and if you like MOUNTAINS,

you get 500 miles of mountains; if prairies turn you on there’s another 500 miles of them.

It’s actually very far away, sorta like 8,000 miles away!  But we need visa to enter Canada as Filipino citizens.  The first time I planned a visit was in the summer of 2006.  But when I tried to get the GO stamp,

well, tough luck.  I guess it wasn’t easy to enter that country after all.

But then I just didn’t give up that easily, now a year later, I decided to give it another try.  And this time, armed with a canadian work permit.  Haah!

And so finally, on the morning of May 2008 comes the event that will change our lives forever.

PLACE: Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

After a mountain of paperwork , filings, and research, my wife and I got up early in the morning for the visa. 

Things went quite smoothly as I was feeling really nervous and excited at the same time.  We went up the 7th floor of the Canadian embassy, picked up a cue #, til it was my turn.

The visa officer just asked several regular questions and I was so happy things were going on smoothly.  I guess I had been sloppy for too long, when he asked me if I have any friends or relatives in Canada, I replied “Yeah”. 

He seemed a little unhappy and asked “What do you mean YEAH?”  I thought I was going to have a heart attack right there.  Then I managed to clear my throat and had to rephrase and said

“Sorry sir, I mean YES. My mom lives there.”

And then he checked on my files once more.  Although I already applied for a canadian work permit some time b4 that, and that too, wasn’t really easy.

The guy had some french accent but generally I had no problem understanding him.  Anyway, we had to wait for some time before getting the visa.

FINALLY the Visa result came…

Rock on, EH!!!!!

to be continued…