Like car parts, when plans fail they often do so in a dramatic, last-minute way that leaves you standing on the side of life’s highway wondering how you didn’t see that coming. When we returned to Canada our schedule looked a little something like this:

• July 14: secretly fly to Toronto
• July 16: even secretlier fly to Vancouver and surprise Amber’s family (missions accomplished by the way)
• while in BC submit all of our visa paper work as it must be done from your province of residence
• August 10: return to Ontario for a few super important weddings and celebrate with friends and family
• meanwhile, back in Vancouver, our visa paperwork would be processing away for us
• September 6: return to BC where both of us will stand in a wedding AND retrieve our completed visas!
• September 18: back in Poland and ready for action

Then glitch met plan.

We had hoped to leave Poland with a document called a “Promise of Work”, which we need to apply for our work visas, but delays and bureaucracy stopped that. Very long story short, we’re still waiting for that document and at this point we have done everything in our power to get it. Polish law required us to apply for these visas from Canada and we thought it was great how it coincided with three weddings we would never miss. Divine? We thought so.

Now we are set to return to BC as planned and this is where the plan changes course (and this is independent of the looming Air Canada strike). Since we lack the document, we weren’t able to apply for our visas while in BC the first time. So now we head to BC with the eager anticipation that the Promise of Work will join us there shortly so we can show it off at the Polish Consulate like it’s Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket.

Being stuck in Canada is not the worst thing, but whenever we are in one world we are away from the other. There are some logistical issues to work out (moving flights, but to when? – our electricity is pay-as-you-go, so hopefully that lasts until our return to Poland) and we don’t want to lose ground in the relationships we’ve built, but there is lots to be done on this side of the pond too: meetings, doctor appointments, speaking engagements. It’s not quite a surprise vacation.

There is an element of flexibility in our line of work and we’re okay with that. As for our plans, they now look like this: return to Poland ASAP (whenever that may be).