Llorene

After having read Jessica's blog (@ Victoria) about how she contacted her MP to get some Canadian souvenirs, I thought I'd try it too and see what they can give me. And so, I contacted my MP, my MPP, my City Councillors and even the Mayor. I had great responses, for the most part anyway. The only one that didn't reply was the office of the MP- ahem... Alan Tonks, (it certainly makes me re-think whether or not I should re-elect the Liberal Party in my riding) ...lol.

So I am now armed with several Ontario pins, an Ontario Flag and tonnes of City of Toronto pins-- hoping to give away as little memorabilias to the AIESECers in India :)

I highly encourage anyone out there who will be leaving the country to contact their local MP, MPP or city councillor - you can find their email addresses on the net-- and see what free stuff they can give you. I must say that they're extremely supportive and very helpful.

Since I've got an electronic ticket, I can't really take a pic of my ticket to India as Pnut has done with his. Ah well... Woohoo! The countdown has definitely begun. We're leaving in 13 days! And in that time, I've still got to get my Indian Visa, get a new phone, get a haircut :) etc. I'm also in the middle of putting together a little music video of Toronto. We'll see how that goes as I seem to not really have a lot of time for editing and what not-- but I'm determined to do it :D

Last week, I went into a bit of a panic mode because I just realized that I don't have a lot of time before I leave for India. And so, this got me into gear. I got tons of things done.

Flights are booked and confirmed! Yay! Angela and I will be leaving May 9th at 6pm, and will be arriving in Mumbai. Our itinerary for our CEED mandate has also changed. Instead of 8 LCs, we'll only be going to 3 :) Here's the order-- Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore- then we're travelling with Bangalore to the national conference in Goa, then going back to Mumbai with the MC for our closing meeting. Angela and I will be in Delhi on those last weeks since we want to see the northern part of India- most especially the Taj Mahal -- I know a lot of people will kick me if I don't get to see the Taj Mahal. So from Delhi, we'll be travelling back to Toronto. I'm booked for July 23rd, but Angela will be back before me.

Things are definitely coming together. However, a big oops on my part last week.
I finally got my phone unlocked last Wed., which meant that another thing off of my to-do list. However, on Thurs, as I was going out for lunch, I noticed my bag dripping. Yup, silly me-- I stuffed my water bottle in there, but didn't realize that it wasn't closed tightly. And so, my poor little cell phone was drowning in an inch-deep water. So now, it doesn't work. Now I've got more things on my to-do list. *sigh*
But all should be fine :)

Vaccines- check
Book tickets- check
Malaria pills- check
Passport pickup- not yet
VISA- not yet

2 more weeks! The countdown is on! Only 14 more days.

I found this on the internet and I thought it'd be cute to share :)

Inspired by (my CEED partner) Angela’s journal entry regarding India, I thought I should also post something about what’s up one month before we’re supposed to leave.

So I got my vaccines- I had 3 of them all at one time, (which definitely did not help me since I was sick already!) and I had the last one yesterday. I got my prescription for Malaria pills as well. I had to renew my passport since I also recently found out that I WILL be going to Mexico and I need the passport to be valid for at least a year of me going there. Which means that I also cannot get my Indian Visa yet. *sigh* It totally feels like a time crunch, especially since we also haven’t booked our tickets yet.

I know everything will be fine- we’ve got just less than a month to sort things out.

We also recently found out that AIESEC MC in India wants us to visit 8 LCs there! It was totally not what we were expecting since I had asked if we could go to 2 instead of the original 4 that they wanted us to visit; but after some deliberation, the MC has decided that we should visit 8. I’m actually really looking forward to this- not only will we get to see the country having to visit at least 8 different LCs, but we’ll also get to meet tons of new people (which I love doing!).

Okay so—
vaccines- check
plane ticket- not yet
passport- not yet
visa- not yet

I also need to get my cell phone unlocked so I can use it while I’m in India; ooh and also buy a digi cam. (I'm sure there are tons of other things I need to do before we leave.)

Ahhh so much to do and I know this month is just going to whiz by really quickly…

Okay- I’m breathing… :P