Clear and Present Visa

My visa to Australia has been processed and my flight has been changed to later tonight 11:50 pm PST or way way too late East Coast time. The visa process took a lot less time than what I have envisioned. I had already investigated potential jobs here in Carlsbad on the slim chance I would not be leaving for a month, but the visa Gods smiled kindly on this traveler and everything has worked out. It was ironic and somewhat bittersweet that my visa was granted on Monday, Sydney time at 10:30 am. Originally, Sam and I were scheduled to arrive at 7:30 so I could have come down with a wicked case of stomach cramps and loitered in the bathroom for 3 hrs until my visa became official. The plan had me all flushed. Foresight is 20/20 no?
I am excited to return to my Sydney life. Aside from being an experienced barman, I will go back to my other job as a prophesier of the future. What does this job entail Alex? Well, since I am technically a day ahead of you beginning on Wednesday, I have the ability to foresee how your Wednesday will go. I suspect I will receive more emails on Sunday your time to ascertain and how my Monday is going to fully prepare for the upcoming Monday in the States. Consider me the groundhog armed with more short term scheduling capabilities.
Therefore, starting Wednesday or for you stuck in the stone age Tuesday, I will update this blog every week and a half or sometimes earlier. Expect some exciting stories that revolve around my time with my Mom or that Australians prefer Carlton beer over Tooheys beer.
I also wanted to again send my love to everyone I saw over my past month that I was in the States. You can't measure how happy I was to see everyone again and really has made it a memorable trip.

On the side of the road

Well.... Everything in the past two years has made me believe that immigration issues could not effect this traveler. I have had one issue before trying to depart Chile and get to Argentina. It was a 6 a.m flight and I had the brilliant idea (done by many, many people) to stay up all night and just roll to the airport. I forgot my student card, which I needed to leave, and this proved to be my undoing. This card, turns out, was more important than my actual information contained in Chilean immigration computadoras or my passport. We almost missed our plane as my reaction was, how shall we say it, less than diplomatic. Thanks to some fast (and soothing) talking by one of my friends, we boarded on time. This would be the last problem I would encounter while traveling. Now, I am waiting in the US for my Australian visa to be processed and there is a possibility that it will take awhile. I would love to be an immigration official, or for that matter a plumber, electrician, any household appliance repairman, only for the fact that you can give huge gaps in time when the contracted task will be completed. My visa, to be processed, might take 2 days or 4 weeks, or I'll be at your house between 8 am on Tuesday and 10 pm Sunday. If you leave the house (or enter the country) and we come, the whole process starts over again. So now I am leaving for sunny California and waiting there for who knows, 3 days, 1 week, till the rest of my hair falls off (which could be tomorrow, so here is to hope). Welcome to my blog, which coincidentally is a lot like others blogs. My purpose for this blog is kinda of written journal of my time in Australia, and then my travels with Sam, my girlfriend, to India and to somewhere in Latin America. It serves as a James Joyceian (not a word, but work with me) personal platform to inform you about me, cultural experiences, exciting places to go, thoughts and feelings on being abroad...well you get the idea. An electronic global footprint, so to speak. Also it serves as a place to read about me, without having to send one of those pesky emails, thereby allowing you (the reader) to expend the least amount of energy in contacting me.
I guess my real purpose is to hopefully stimulate a travel bug within you and go out to visit me or just go anywhere. Incredibly enough, working at a bar allows me a large window of time to be online so I will be able to update this pretty regularly. As for now though, picture me with a sign that reads "Australia or Bust" sitting on my luggage on some dusty road, ready for the adventure to begin.