Just back from a five week trip to India which was strange because my trip was initially supposed to be only three weeks. What happened?
Well, my PR card as well as the kids PR cards had expired in October 2011. We applied for new ones saying that we were travelling to India mid December. Our new cards arrived with dates to pick them up in January and February of 2012!! So we left for India, without our PR cards, thinking we would just apply for one way re-entry visas to come back into Canada.
Once in India, we applied for our visas, but because of the Christmas holidays, they told us that it would take instead of the usual five days, anywhere from ten to fifteen days. We were booked to leave India on the 9th of January and thought we would get our visas in time. Well, the day after we applied, a huge cyclone hit Chennai city which shut down offices across the city. Not sure if this had anything to do with our visas, but we never got them in time and had to change our tickets from the 9th to the 17th. Then...................
On the 14th of January, we get a message saying our passports have come to the nearby VFS office and that we could go and have them picked up. We go to the office and sign that we have received the passports and immediately scan through them to take a look at the visas. Guess what...none of our passports had visas in them.
Panic sets in......what on earth is going on! Then we see a letter underneath the passports that says they need a letter from my husband authorizing my travel with the kids to Canada as he was not one of the applicants for a visa. (His PR card was still valid and therefore he didn't have to ask for a visa)
So he makes a letter, sends that in to the embassy along with all our passports, change our tickets to the 26th of January...and wait.
January 23rd we get our passports....look inside....they have the visas...........yea!!!
Can't tell you how relieved we were. In the meanwhile, our kids had missed two weeks of school. I had emailed and telephoned both schools from India to tell them about the delay. Our sons high school was so accommodating and allowed him to write his missed exams after coming back to Canada and our daughters middle school eased in her with a little extra work everyday to catch up on everything she missed.
All is well that ends well as they say! Of course our family back in India were happy we were there those extra weeks. Now........back to work, school and of course winter! So far it has been really mild though, with hardly any snow and many days with above zero temperatures which is not normal for this time of the year.
Give me a week to get back to routine, clean the house, get some cooking done etc and I'll start blogging regularly again.
Thanks to all my readers who emailed me...sorry if I have not replied yet. Have a safe winter everyone!!
Well, my PR card as well as the kids PR cards had expired in October 2011. We applied for new ones saying that we were travelling to India mid December. Our new cards arrived with dates to pick them up in January and February of 2012!! So we left for India, without our PR cards, thinking we would just apply for one way re-entry visas to come back into Canada.
Once in India, we applied for our visas, but because of the Christmas holidays, they told us that it would take instead of the usual five days, anywhere from ten to fifteen days. We were booked to leave India on the 9th of January and thought we would get our visas in time. Well, the day after we applied, a huge cyclone hit Chennai city which shut down offices across the city. Not sure if this had anything to do with our visas, but we never got them in time and had to change our tickets from the 9th to the 17th. Then...................
On the 14th of January, we get a message saying our passports have come to the nearby VFS office and that we could go and have them picked up. We go to the office and sign that we have received the passports and immediately scan through them to take a look at the visas. Guess what...none of our passports had visas in them.
Panic sets in......what on earth is going on! Then we see a letter underneath the passports that says they need a letter from my husband authorizing my travel with the kids to Canada as he was not one of the applicants for a visa. (His PR card was still valid and therefore he didn't have to ask for a visa)
So he makes a letter, sends that in to the embassy along with all our passports, change our tickets to the 26th of January...and wait.
January 23rd we get our passports....look inside....they have the visas...........yea!!!
Can't tell you how relieved we were. In the meanwhile, our kids had missed two weeks of school. I had emailed and telephoned both schools from India to tell them about the delay. Our sons high school was so accommodating and allowed him to write his missed exams after coming back to Canada and our daughters middle school eased in her with a little extra work everyday to catch up on everything she missed.
All is well that ends well as they say! Of course our family back in India were happy we were there those extra weeks. Now........back to work, school and of course winter! So far it has been really mild though, with hardly any snow and many days with above zero temperatures which is not normal for this time of the year.
Give me a week to get back to routine, clean the house, get some cooking done etc and I'll start blogging regularly again.
Thanks to all my readers who emailed me...sorry if I have not replied yet. Have a safe winter everyone!!
