One thing left to do

After a week of waiting around for my visa I finally have it. This has been quite a frustration and at times very stressful considering I've had to pack, book a flight and order Korean currency all without the one thing I've needed all along: my passport. I'll give you a taste of what my last two days were like. Yesterday morning I received a phone call from my employer Mr. Brian Lee, saying that my visa has been issued in Toronto. Not understanding that I live an hour away (and that Canada's transit system is not like Korea's) he asked me to go right away and pick it up. I told him that I had already paid for ExpressPost and that I should receive it in the mail sometime today. This is where the stress began to build for me. First, while checking my tracking number online my heart sank as the screen said: Unconfirmed Status, Tracking Number Not in System. At first I assumed that the Korean Consulate failed to actually mail out my visa. So I phoned them only to be told they had sent it out in the mail, and that both myself and Mr. Lee had phoned them quite enough. As a side note, it's quite something to have the staff at the Korean Consulate-General know my name and situation without me having to repeat it over again (a testimony to the amount of communication between us). But getting back to my visa that now seemed to be lost in the mail. I contacted Canada Post to figure out why my tracking number was not working, but my only answer was that the system was not updated. I also got other unpleasant news: that even if my passport was in the mail I shouldn't expect to see it until Friday at the earliest. This was news to me as I assumed that I had paid for next-day service. So I continued to check the internet every half hour hoping for verification of my tracking number. Around three o'clock my stress was at it's peak. I had no idea where my passport was and I had only one business day left to find it and book my flight. I decided to at least try the post office at three thirty, since that was when the mail usually comes. Amazingly my Express Envelope was there. I'm a little confused how Canada Post claims you can track your shipments online, but their little system certainly came close to putting me over the edge. Now that I have my visa all that is left to do is book my flight, which will be departing sometime Saturday or Sunday (I hope). Before I know it I'll be in South Korea, and then my blog can truly begin.