T minus 48 hours...

Its been a crazy last week.

• Thursday was the last day at work. I have a fantastic boss who went all out to celebrate my leaving, including scoring me a part time job with the compan for the next 6 months. That's right! I'll be working from home for the first stint. Now, the hours kind of suck, working 5am to 10am NZ time but its income, it lets me figure out what I want to do and I get to have a day time social life!! We hit a very good restaurant for lunch and there was cake in the afternoon including a card that was signed by at least 50 people (and a nice gift).
• Thursday was also the closing of the house. We ended up meeting the new owner because of a lawyer snafu. Nice guy, really liked the personalized letter we wrote explaining the ins and outs of the house and was very very understanding about our Passport situation...
  
• Which brings us to Friday: chase the passports day. Our passports had been sent back to us with our visas in them, however because of the mail redirection we subscribed to, our passports ended up being lost by Canada Post for the better part of 72 hours. The were sent registered post, marked as Successfully Delivered in the system but never got to us. To say tensions were high would be the understatement of the year, but in the end a very very nice woman by the name of Christine went into the sorting machines and physically pulled out our passports so we could pick them up at the depot. This is unheard of as far as I know and really blew us away.
• Friday night we had diner with our family here in Ottawa, a wonderful little pub called the Wellington Gastropub (strongly recommended). My uncle ended up lending us his convertible for the weekend so we could travel in style to Montreal.
• Saturday Sunday and Monday were spent in Montreal spending time with my Dad and step mother, Christine, Allison and Damian. Lots of wonderful food was eaten, good times were definitely had by all. It was pretty much as perfect a long weekend in Montreal as I could ever imagine, confirming my belief that if we ever make it back to Canada, that's the town for me
• Monday night we went out with all our local friends for one last night out. Hit up Pancho Villa for some fish-bowl sized drinks and tex-mex food (something I've heard is non-existent in New Zealand). Big thanks to Ryan Ryan Jay Wes Caro May Phil Mavourneen Alice Brie Paul Jenni and Robert! We had a great time
• Tonights plans call for a more intimate diner with Marie Pierre and Timo at our favorite Sri Lankan restaurant, Ceylonta.
  

We fly out to New York on Thursday to spend some time with my mom and Bruce, see NYC and mentally prepare for the concept of being immigrants in a new land!

God I can't wait to set foot in Wellington. I'm ready to go now!!!!