The plot thickens!
In a happy, politics-free world, I'd be boarding a plane tomorrow at 1pm and be in Caracas in time for dinner. Some last-minute packing on Friday was interrupted by a call from our contact at the US embassy in Caracas. He was calling us in person to apologize; the visas weren't going to be in our hands by Tuesday. We were going to have to push things back for a few weeks. Again.
It wasn't anything to do with us or our institutions - just part of the general mess and political games that is Caracas at the moment. For those not up to date on their Western Hemisphere politics, Caracas had legislative elections Sunday, the 26th. The results have been...interesting (The Economist's article explains it better than I ever could - check it out! ) Needless to say, in the grand scheme of craziness, I'm guessing 8 visas are fairly low on the priorities list.
That leaves us in a bit of limbo for things like housing arrangements. Housing in Caracas is expensive to say the least. Cost of living in VZ's capital rivals some of the most posh (yes, I said posh) cities in the world - Dubai, London, NYC, etc. Banding together with the other ETA assigned to Caracas, we scoured the online classifieds and pooled our limited (though AMAZINGLY helpful) resources in Venezuela to find an affordable and safe living arrangement in the city that DOESN'T involve shelling out 1000USD a month in rent. Last week, something came through! The option to live close to the local University in a house with two other girls for a mere $150USD each per month! Sure we'd be sharing a room but hey, if it means saving HUNDREDS of dollars each month, we'd live in a cardboard box (provided said cardboard box was in a safe part of town)! The room was ours October 1.
Now that our departure date has changed however, we may be in trouble. With so much uncertain, we can't pay for a room we may not see for a few weeks, and of course there is the understandable reluctance of a landlord to hold rooms that he could be making money on. Chances are, we're back to square one with the housing debacle and I'm back to trolling the internet for apartments that won't require me to sell a kidney for rent money.
Apart from those VZ logistics, I've put in awkward calls to AT&T, asking them to extend my contract (again), and American Airlines asking them to cancel my ticket (again). I rescheduled a Foreign Service Test I was supposed to take in Caracas in October for Cary. I'm also debating just not telling anyone when/if I actually leave - I'll just change my facebook status when I'm finally in-country. These repeated goodbyes are just getting sad...
The GOOD news about being stuck in country for a little while longer: MORE NCSU FOOTBALL! The Wolfpack is 4-0 and I've wrangled a ticket to the VT game this Saturday. Looking forward to some solid ACC action.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
...or maybe not?
It seems a bit odd to be posting to a travel blog without actually having left the country. Oh well, the drama that encompassed the last few days is entirely blog-worthy.
Our scheduled date for arrival in Caracas was Sunday, September 12. My seven fellow ETAs (that's English Teaching Assistant, to you) and I, though we'll be scattered around the country for the next ten months, were to start our tenure in fair VZ with a two-day orientation put on by the US Embassy in Caracas. Orientation Monday and Tuesday, with everyone heading to their respective cities and institutions by Wednesday.
Now approximately five weeks ago, we'd all dutifully sent off our passports and visa applications to the Venezuelan Consulate in Washington DC. Liaising with the Fulbright folks in New York and Washington DC, they were going to handle the paper pushing behind getting we eight our visas in time for our September 12th departure. Meanwhile the eight of us bustled around our respective cities getting vaccinations, packing our bags, doing about ten last-minute trips to Walmart (or maybe that was just me), and sharing goodbye lunches/dinners/drinks/parties/coffees/nights-on-the town.
We'd been warned, of course, that these passports might come back to us very eleventh-hourish. Last year's ETAs, we heard, got theirs the NIGHT BEFORE they left. Anything to keep the blood pumping! Needless to say, I was on vigilant 'visa watch' last week, which consisted of dashes to the mailbox interspersed with frantic e-mail threads with the other ETAs. The Fulbright office was wonderful in handling all of us, bundles-of-nerves as we were. Finally on Thursday - check that, FOUR days before our scheduled departure - the contingency plan came in: should the visas not be into the Fulbright offices by late-morning Friday, departure plans were on hold.
Enter a one-night limbo. I decompressed by attending a crew dinner and another party that were good-bye events. For me. Ah well. Friday morning, a bleary-eyed e-mail check confirmed the worst: deadline passed, there was still no sign of our visas/passports. We were literally stuck in the United States until our passports made it back to us. Instructions were to cancel our tickets and rebook for approximately 2.5 weeks later, arriving in Caracas on September 28th. A lesson in learning to be "flexible", as we were told in the e-mails that followed.
So I start this blog sitting in my parents' house in Cary, still seeing the people I'd said dramatic goodbyes to (Goodbye Bash 2.0, anyone?), taking the yippy Chihuahuas for walks, being howled at to improve the status of my room, watching an ABSURD amount of television, and despairing at the amount of assorted goodies I need to cram into my backpack and another suitcase.
Still, in the spirit of being flexible, here's to one more round of Bojangles fries, one more trip to Atlanta, one more NCSU football game, a few more rowing practices, another evening at The Flying Saucer, another night on Glenwood, another couple weeks with a US phone number, and more time with friends. Caracas can wait, for now. :-)
Our scheduled date for arrival in Caracas was Sunday, September 12. My seven fellow ETAs (that's English Teaching Assistant, to you) and I, though we'll be scattered around the country for the next ten months, were to start our tenure in fair VZ with a two-day orientation put on by the US Embassy in Caracas. Orientation Monday and Tuesday, with everyone heading to their respective cities and institutions by Wednesday.
Now approximately five weeks ago, we'd all dutifully sent off our passports and visa applications to the Venezuelan Consulate in Washington DC. Liaising with the Fulbright folks in New York and Washington DC, they were going to handle the paper pushing behind getting we eight our visas in time for our September 12th departure. Meanwhile the eight of us bustled around our respective cities getting vaccinations, packing our bags, doing about ten last-minute trips to Walmart (or maybe that was just me), and sharing goodbye lunches/dinners/drinks/parties/coffees/nights-on-the town.
We'd been warned, of course, that these passports might come back to us very eleventh-hourish. Last year's ETAs, we heard, got theirs the NIGHT BEFORE they left. Anything to keep the blood pumping! Needless to say, I was on vigilant 'visa watch' last week, which consisted of dashes to the mailbox interspersed with frantic e-mail threads with the other ETAs. The Fulbright office was wonderful in handling all of us, bundles-of-nerves as we were. Finally on Thursday - check that, FOUR days before our scheduled departure - the contingency plan came in: should the visas not be into the Fulbright offices by late-morning Friday, departure plans were on hold.
Enter a one-night limbo. I decompressed by attending a crew dinner and another party that were good-bye events. For me. Ah well. Friday morning, a bleary-eyed e-mail check confirmed the worst: deadline passed, there was still no sign of our visas/passports. We were literally stuck in the United States until our passports made it back to us. Instructions were to cancel our tickets and rebook for approximately 2.5 weeks later, arriving in Caracas on September 28th. A lesson in learning to be "flexible", as we were told in the e-mails that followed.
So I start this blog sitting in my parents' house in Cary, still seeing the people I'd said dramatic goodbyes to (Goodbye Bash 2.0, anyone?), taking the yippy Chihuahuas for walks, being howled at to improve the status of my room, watching an ABSURD amount of television, and despairing at the amount of assorted goodies I need to cram into my backpack and another suitcase.
Still, in the spirit of being flexible, here's to one more round of Bojangles fries, one more trip to Atlanta, one more NCSU football game, a few more rowing practices, another evening at The Flying Saucer, another night on Glenwood, another couple weeks with a US phone number, and more time with friends. Caracas can wait, for now. :-)
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