I know I should have posted this sooner, like on Monday, but I got my passport back from London where it was vacationing with the locals.¬† It got stamped and allows me to move to New Zealand now! Woohoo! Total process time, 9 months.¬† As an extra bonus they have given me a returning residence visa as well so I don’t have to apply for it once I show up.¬† Now I just need to spend the next four months figuring out where I want to live and what I want to do.

I am thinking about just traveling around working three to six month contracts and following the migratory birds.¬† I don’t know how they do it but they seem to know where the nice weather is going to be.¬† I have seen them flying north for the winter here just as soon as it starts getting cold.¬† I don’t know how they do it but they are smart. (ok, small confession, I haven’t seen them do this.¬† I imagine they would though)

I don’t know what else to say.¬† Just working away down soaking up the cold.

After three and a half months my visa application has a case officer.¬† I should have planned and read the requirements better and I would have had the application in at the beginning of October instead of the end of November.¬† Two months isn’t that bad and I have seen some nice things.¬† I wouldn’t have been able to travel to Australia and met everyone I have over here.

I still think I will work and travel over here in Australia for a while before I go over to New Zealand.¬† There are several places I still need to see like Cairns and Tasmania. I don’t have exact plans yet but I will have a better idea next week after I talk with my case officer.

So I finally found the right link for US Citizens to apply for a working holiday visa in Australia. For those of you that are still looking it is called a “Work and Holiday” visa and can be found here. It took them all of 12 hours to approve me. I will head back over to Melbourne on Wednesday. Just in time for the Grand Prix and St. Patrick’s Day. Now if only I had a visa officer for New Zealand.

I have known for a while that I am leaving tomorrow to go… somewhere. I didn’t know where. I have had some excellent suggestions from several people. Go spend a while in Tasmania. Go to Alice Springs and Uluru. Go to Adelaide and sit on a beach. Turns out as I was pricing my options I ended up deciding to go to Christchurch, New Zealand. It ends up being the same price or cheaper to do this.
My visa is taking longer than I wanted and I will have to get a new passport before I can get it. That means I need to stay in one place for a month as the consulate processes my application. I figured that I might as well just hop over to New Zealand and get a working holiday visa for Australia and travel for a bit more over here.

I think I will travel Australia until September or so (beginning of spring) then fly over to New Zealand and get a real career. This will give me time to travel much more of Australia and I will have income so my budget won’t be as tight. I would love to get up to Cains but it is the wet season so the scuba isn’t great right now. I will let you all know more later when I do!

Finally, 10 business days after shipping it, 15 real days I have my passport. Since I noticed that I actually had a search relevant to the status message, I thought I would repost some of my findings and research to help the next person.

When sending may from England with Royal Mail to the US, you can use the same tracking number on both of their websites. They may have different information so it can’t hurt to check both of them. If you are sending/recieving mail that is only recorded delivery, USPS will only have the status “We have received notice that the originating post is preparing to dispatch this mail piece.” until delivery is attempted. Nothing will update. Kinda sad but the better option is registered mail I believe. That will be tracked the whole way and you will see it going through customs.

So, I was happy today about 4:30pm when my sister in law called. I just knew it was a good call. The feeling you get before you answer when you just know everything the person will say. The mailman stopped by, nobody was home so he left a note. Yeah for knowing when I will get my passport (whenever I get up).

After I got the good news I decided to have a light workout and move some chairs. Helped purchase some theater chairs and picked them up from Costco. They are the nice ones with the electric recline. It kinda sucks having to make three trips because you bought so much stuff it won’t all fit in your truck.

Anyway, after some light chair lifting I went back to the office and did a good 30 minute heavy workout lifting a server trying to put it in the right place on the rack. Wow 4U servers are built like a tank and are about as heavy. Not really but it sucks trying to put one in rails at six feet in the air. It really sucks when you break one of the rails and have to start all over.

Ok, so I finally added a myspace account. I hadn’t yet because I was not interested in most anything I found on the site. Horrible layouts, ugly ads everywhere and a huge list of comments about how drunk someone was at some party. I created my account because there are some people that I will be unable to stay in contact with once I move except through myspace. Sad I know. If only I had emails or phone numbers for all of my friends. I’m a bastard for not I know. Anyway, if you want to be my friend leave a comment or find me on myspace.

2008 will be an adventurous year for me. In order to stay in touch, I am starting a blog that I will try to keep up to date with the comings and goings of my life. This will hopefully be a good place to find out what is happening with me, where I am right now, and possibly see a picture or two.

Right now I am still in Boise, ID waiting for my passport to be shipped back from London where it has been being processed for my visa. It should arrive in the mail in the next couple days and then I will be off to Australia for a brief, month or two, vacation.