My Lucky Day

I heard a ring on the phone this morning, thinking P was playing a prank on us, but that wasn't the case.  The Fedex man came to deliver an envelope to me.  I signed and he handed over my envelope.  I was definitely scared as I was thinking my passport application was being returned because of something I must have filled out wrong.  But to my surprise, I was given a receipt, and both old and new passports.  Process completed in less than 2 weeks!!!!!

Here's a look at what they are like:

This is the old passport.  Mine was from back in the year 2000.

This is the design of the new passport (obviously not mine).

And the front of the new passport book which seems to be way more rigid.

I was totally impressed, amazed at the current turn around time for a passport.  Maybe I just got lucky because I actually mailed them off via Fedex Priority on Tuesday April 6th and received the passport back on Monday April 19th morning.  I payed the normal fees but had to use priority service since I couldn't track my passport from Canada in any other way.

Way to go US passport office - I'm clearly impressed!  My plans to travel might be closer than I had planned!

The Last Day of 33

Wow... Years do seem to fly by pretty fast these days. I woke up this morning after sleeping in until 8 am, which was a complete dream, and thought to myself wow today is the last day that I will be in my double digit odd year of my thirties, you know the end of the big 33 age.

Tomorrow is the start of a new age and another year older. Last year at this time, I was getting a phone call to let me know that I got a job. I do have many hopes and dreams set for this year. Most of these dreams I keep to myself, but the one I most think about so often is Switzerland of course. But I did add triathlons to my checklist of accomplishments finally.

In the last month or two, I have finally gotten back the interest of reading. I loved doing that while I was living in Switzerland and quite frankly missed that a lot. One thing that makes it a lot easier is that we don't have a TV and don't want to get another one either. The Internet works quite well for P and I and we plan to keep it that way.

I was able to read 2 books in the last week. I'm quite happy to have finished them. They were my type of books for sure, those little short stories that were page turners. I bought them from our second hand book store, Russell Books here in Victoria.

Last week's book was The magic of Provence by Yvone Lenard and two other books during Christmas. This weekend's book was C'est La Vie by Suzy Gershman . They are both travel writing books. I love knowing more about culture, places in Europe and a story in the life of an expat. I can relate to their feelings more about their love for their adopted country and so I think this is what makes me love to read these types of books. The added bonus is that the books store has a fair selection of those travel writing books I can pick up for under $10.

I'm also hoping to curb my addiction to that darn facebook game I keep playing. I accomplish nothing with it and don't have much to show at the end of the day for what I did. I like seeing tangible results and I guess that is my latest goal.

I do hope to revamp a website or two this year. Get better at posting my photography again and do a lot more reading. We shall see since I can be beyond busy enough with my training schedule in the pool, at the gym and outdoors.

Until then, I will just day dream of my love...

The Alps as seen from the Ex-Expatters holiday trip back to Switzerland.

Weekend Update

So it had been 1 year since my last swim meet.. And I think it turned out pretty well. The travel always kills me and I was quite tired by the time I arrived back home on Sunday evening..

My times were not earth shattering at all but here they are..

400m Free - 2nd in my heat - 1st overall in age group. 5:10.25
100m back - 2nd in my heat - 2nd overall in age group. 1:16.57
100m breast - 8th overall (last in heat) - 1st overall in age group. 1:24.31
(not my best time)
100m fly - 5th overall , 2nd to another female- 1st overall in age group. 1:15.07

Here's one photo from the meet of me.


I only know it's me because of the blue goggles, at UBC.

In other news, Sabine let me know that the Today show was doing their travel show this week which I JUST LOVE. Here's a link to some of what is happening.

Needing a Vacation

I think I'm in desperate need of a Vacation! We actually haven't travelled outside our normal city limits since December now. I didn't even go skiing this year. And the snow was probably the most awesome it's been in years.

(pic of sunset Friday eve, west Vancouver)

So with the below post and people everywhere talking about vacations, I'm starting to get vacation fever. Now my biggest problem is being able to take one, and figuring out where to go. We are going to stay close to home but I guess the furthest we would travel is either Banff or California. I'd like to do both, but don't know what we will be able to do at this point.

That all depends on how fast this slow moving letter from CIC gets to me. It's been 3.5 wks (April 18th was when it changed on the web) and I still haven't gotten the letter. I've tried calling the call center but they weren't of any help. I tried to tell them I haven't gotten a letter. All they would tell me is "sorry I'm not able to give you any information about that"....

Well why don't you keep diggin Watson because if a DECISION MADE is what I see on the Internet, you'd at least think you'd try communicating with me on when my landing interview was... I'm not incompetent.

Oh wait, I forgot, you're too incompetent to put two and two together, but like to make people sit and miss their landing interview dates... Yup that's Canadian Immigration for ya.. Hard dumb ones at work...

Anyhow - after a week of sunshine, all spirits around here are much higher. I'm going to try bringing out my camera more on my travels as I've had some awesome views and keep missing the shots sans camera.

Happy Mother's Day

Hope Everyone get's to at least make a phone call to their special Mom today. I can only guess that many of us are a bit too far away to enjoy the day together. I'm lucky enough to have my brother close enough to cover for me.

So I found a really cool site this morning. Ended up being able to make my own super cool collage of photos with it. You should try it, here's mine below.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I've taken a few pics since we have had 7 days of sun now. Let me see what I can do to publish them.