Saturday, July 24, 2010

Visa – The Journey

Days prior to my trip down to Toronto I had my route planned and Google maps printed out as well as my mom’s GPS to guide me. 

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I found out that morning thanks to a facebook post by my mom that NUMEROUS roads were closed due to the Queen being in town as well as the Shriners parade. 

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These roads of course consisted of many of the roads I had planned to travel on my way to the Eaton Center.  So all my planning was out the window.  My mom told me the easiest way was for me to park at Yorkdale and take the subway.  Easy for her to say.  I wasn’t keen at being in large crowds and even less so about being in a small subway car with them.  But with no other option that’s what I did.

My trip to Yorkdale mall was uneventful.  The most interesting thing about Yorkdale was the parking.  They had electronic ticker signs that told you how many parking spots that were available in each section and they constantly updated almost every other second.

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My biggest question, is how did it know?  Was there someone somewhere pushing buttons when someone parked or moved out? Were there sensors under the parking spots?

I found my way to the overpass to the subway, paid my fare and waited on the platform for the subway to come.  All the time trying not to concentrate on the bizarre things flying through my head.  Is someone going to try and mug me? What if I fall on the tracks? Will I have enough time to get on before the doors close?

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My mom gave me specific instructions on where to exit underground to ensure that I came up to street level on the right corner.  Of course after all the excitement of the subway ride I completely forgot which staircase I was suppose to take.  I ended up coming up at Dundas Square.  After walking up the steps I was suddenly in awe how the buildings were so tall and there were huge billboards everywhere.  I might as well had “Tourist” stamped on my forehead, because my jaw was on the ground and I’m sure very obvious I wasn’t from nearby.  It’s not like I haven’t seen tall buildings but it had been years since I had been around so many.  It was more the extent of the billboards that caught me off guard.  I didn’t take a picture for fear of labelling myself as a tourist even more.

As I was trying to figure out which direction I needed to cross the road I noticed a something I had never seen before.

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I believe it was called “Pedestrian Priority Crossing”, but I could be wrong since I didn’t catch the sign in the picture.  After each traffic direction had its turn the lights all turned red and the crossings all showed walk with an audible signal.  This allowed people from any corner to walk across in any direction.  Notice the people in the photo walking diagonally through the intersection.

It was 42 degrees Celsius in Toronto that day.  Very hot for a “northerner” like me.  It wasn’t going to stop me, a huge book lover, from walking the block over to the…

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Worlds Biggest Bookstore, a branch of Chapters-Indigo and located at 20 Edward St.  It was indeed huge.

 

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This is as far as you can see in one direction.

 

 

 

 

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This is as far as you can see in the other direction.  This was also only the first floor.  There was another floor and mezzanine area as well.

 

 

After I finished looking around the bookstore, I headed back to P7060265the Eaton Center.  I didn’t have enough time to go into the actual mall area but the entrance between the mall and the office tower had a large mural of geese flying made of up little pictures.

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Here’s the close up view.

 

 

 

It was time to head up to the 25th floor where my appointment for my Biometrics was.  Apparently booking an “appointment” time merely means an appointment to take a number.  I ended up waiting about half an hour or more for my turn. 

The fingerprints were taking by pressing my fingers to a machine with similar to a scanner.  I pressed the fingers from one hand then the other, then both thumbs together firmly to the glass and the computer captured the image.  The attendant wiped the glass plate between each capture.  I then had a “facial scan” which seemed identical to taking a picture, but I guess they can call it whatever they want.

The delay at the visa office put me slightly behind schedule to get to Pearson International Airport to pick up my friend and her 2 year old.  So I hurried back to navigate the subway system to get back to my car.

I got on the southbound subway to get to Eaton Center so it would make sense to get on the Northbound subway… TORONTO-1

Except as you see from the map.  I got on the southbound subway from Yorkdale, went around the bottom loop and got off at Dundas.  So going northbound from Dundas is the wrong way.  I didn’t figure that out until after I had gotten on the (very crowded) northbound subway though.  Once I heard "next station – College”, I knew something was wrong.  So I got off and got on the southbound subway.  Lucky for me the southbound subway was much much less crowded and therefore more comfortable for me.

I finally made it back to my car in the Yorkdale mall parking and made it to the airport not too far behind schedule.  I picked up my friend and her cute little girl and started the 5 hour drive back home.  It was uneventful and I made it back by 2130.  Only 12.5 hours after leaving that morning.

VISA – Everywhere you want to be, the application

One of the biggest obstacles to moving to Scotland was obtaining a UK Visa.  There are various kinds of UK visas you can apply for.  Settlement, skilled worker, prospective student and student are the most common.  I had to apply for a “Tier 4 Student Visa”.  It is considered a points based visa.  You need 40 points to apply under this visa category.  30 of those points are obtained from receiving a “CAS” letter (Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies) from your chosen university and the other 10 points is proving that you have the money to support yourself without resorting to public funds.

Part of the visa process is travelling to the nearest World Bridge office to have my biometrics taken.  The nearest one for me was 5 hours away at the Eaton Center in Toronto.  They call having my fingerprints taken as well as what was referred to as a facial scan as biometrics.  It wasn’t just my finger prints though, they copy your whole finger almost right to your palm.

They required a great deal of paperwork in the application process.

  • the general application
  • the original CAS
  • any of the original documentation (transcripts) that you send to the university that they based your admittance on.  I had to submit my college transcript and my university transcript.
  • original bank statements from any account that you were using to prove you had the funds.
  • original loan letter from the bank
  • a passport photo
  • your actual passport

You have to submit all of the above (plus anything I have forgotten to include) as well as photocopies of all of it. 

The purpose of the bank statements is to prove that you have the funds to pay your tuition (£22,200) for a year as well as “maintenance funds”.  Maintenance funds are living expenses for the length of your program or 9 months, whichever is longer.  Since I was going to be living outside of the city of London this amount was £600 / month.

That catch though is that the funds have to be in your account for 28 consecutive days prior to you submitting the account statements.  With my loan letter and my bank account statements counting in the current currency conversion I had only about 200 dollars extra.  An amount that could quickly disappear if the pound-dollar conversion changed much more.  I easily had that much money from the sale of my house but it had not been in my account for 28 consecutive days.

I submitted my documents and included proof of my house purchase three years ago as well as the sale of it, just in case.  I’ll never know if it had any affect or not.

But I can happily report, I received my passport with attached visa in it today.  :)

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Friday, July 16, 2010

The long list of things to do

After finding out that I had gotten in to Vet college I instantly had a million things to do.


  • Find the money to pay for this adventure
  • Get a UK visa
  • Sell everything I own (not a small feat!)
  • Sell my house
  • Quit my job
  • Get rid of my car
  • Find a way for my bird to get overseas , and all that entails
  • Get myself overseas
  • Find a new apartment
  • Figure out transportation over there
  • Buy textbooks / school supplies / protective clothing
  • etc
  • etc
Many of the above are considered significant life changing stressful events.  But i'm excited more than anything else.  

It's amazing how as soon as you tell yourself that you are moving across the ocean that it's a lot easier to get rid of the things that you have accumulated over the years.  There is a method of decluttering that involves taking ~$50 in loonies and "buying" the things you want to keep.  Having to pay to ship things overseas works the same way.  Suddenly that thing you didn't want to get rid of, you want to get rid of and fast.


Thursday, July 15, 2010

Hello again!

I know I've been slacking off and haven't been posting ANYTHING. I promise I will post some stuff tonight.

It's been a crazy few weeks but i'll go into detail tonight.

I fixed the comments to it should be super simple to post a comment and just add your name.