Visa. It's everywhere you want it to be.

Visas.  We have them!  Javier and I made a quick trip to the Ecuador Embassy at the end of June to secure our much needed work visas for the big move.  As many of you know, Javier is usually the calm and laid back member of our party, but when it comes to some things, he can get a little stressed.  Our visas were one of those things.

In truth the whole process was exceptionally easy due in large part to the paperwork that Colegio Menor had prepared and sent us.  All we had to do was get a quick background check and provide the embassy with our passport photos.  We took a day off from work and went downtown to get our background checks. (I won't hold you in suspense...we both passed!)  And then made copies of all the paperwork we had gathered for the embassy.  (Aside: when Javier and I first considered moving abroad, we quickly learned that it was the VISAs that each country required that would keep us from successfully gaining employment and moving.  They are incredibly difficult to get on your own and the mountain stack of paperwork we received from Colegio Menor confirmed for us that it would have been all but impossible to do on our own.  Thank goodness they are helping us out!)

We arrived at the embassy and were greeted with the World Cup game (playing in the waiting room = good sign!) and a huge smile from...Javier who would be issuing us our Visas.  He quickly glanced over our paperwork, took our money and said to come back in a couple of hours when they would be ready (easy peasy).

Chile was playing that afternoon (and it will tell you how stressed Javier was about these visas....that he actually left our TV to drive the 7 blocks to pick them up) so we actually had to miss the first part of the game (and by miss I mean watch attentively in the waiting room of the embassy) to go pick them up.  But they were already good to go when we arrived, just as Javier had promised (Ecuador Javier, not Cabezas Javier).  He handed them over and wished us luck! Done and done!