A few years ago I reached a point in my life when I just needed a break. I finished university and I was working really hard but I didn’t feel like I was going anywhere. I was tired of everything and everyone and I made a decision, I decision that was going to change my whole life.
I decided to leave everything and go pursuit my dream, travelling. Back at home saving money was hard, the currency exchange wasn’t helping so I thought that the best thing to do was to move somewhere else, work there for a while and like that, I would be able to save money and go travel the world.
First, I had to check my options. I couldn’t go to do one of those work and travel deals to the USA that they offer in the travel agencies because you need to be a student. Australia was another possibility but I was never really interested in going there (now things are different).
Until I found the best place for me, NEW ZEALAND. When I was 12 I watched a documentary about the fauna in this country and I promised myself I’ll go to this far far land one day. So this was my chance, the opportunity to kill two birds with the one stone.
New Zealand has a working holiday visa programme with Argentina and over 30 other countries. This visa allows you to work and travel the country for up to a year, you shouldn’t take a permanent job, you can even study for 3 months and it has different requirements depending where you are from.
The difference with this visa is that is not like the ones you apply to to go to the USA, for example. Basically you just apply for a visa, you don’t have a job offer or anything. So that means that it depends on you when you arrive to find work. You go there with a chance and nothing else.
During a whole year I saved every penny for this. I studied and asked as many questions about it as possible so I was prepared. They didn’t ask for much, at the begging you just need to fill up a form and just pay the fee. Oh and because I’m from Argentina I also needed to present and X-ray to show that I didn’t have TB.
After you’ve done all that and you get your place, you should buy your plane ticket, travel insurance and you need a certain amount of money. They specifically say so because you may not get a spot in the scheme or you could be rejected because of not fulfilling the requirements.
But I was young and stupid and thought that “OF COURSE I’M GOING TO GET IT”. So I bought everything in advance, I even quitted my job. I just needed to wait for the date and get what I thought it was, already, mine.
The day was getting closer, but first it was Chile’s turn. Everybody applied for it, everyone was online and they made the website crash. Because of this, the date for the Argentinian visa got postponed a couple of weeks. I was extremely excited and nervous.
The day finally arrived. The places opened on the 29thOctober 2009 at 8 in the morning, Argentina’s time. I was sitting in my computer ready to do it. I logged in, went to the application link, filled up the first page, saved it and BOOM. The page crashed, it said that it had too much traffic. So I tried again, filled up the first page of the application and when I tried to save it, same thing happened.
After my tenth attempted I started to panic. I realised I had a ticket out of the country in 20 days and, what if I didn’t get the visa. What was I going to do? I couldn’t not go, I didn’t want people to think I failed. I decided that even if I didn’t get it I was going to go and travelled around there until I run out of money, yes yes that sounded like a plan.
Time kept passing by and I couldn’t get pass the first page. The worst thing was that I had the Embassy website opened and I could see the numbers going down. Argentina has 1000 places a year for this visa, and they were, at least, a hundred places per hour given.
My parents were with me, my dad took I day off to be there (Yes they are amazing). I was crying and didn’t know what to do, I was hysterical, I didn’t want to wait another year to apply for it. I was sitting on my bed with my laptop on one side and my sister’s laptop on the other, trying to see if any worked. Four hours had passed and I had made no progress.
My mum kept insisting that I should use my dad’s computer. I was certain that it wasn’t going to work, mine was all new it should be better than a windows 98 one.
After over 6 hours I decided to give it a try, I had nothing else to loose. So I sat in my dad’s office logged in, filled up the first page, saved it and OH MY GOD, I was on the second page. I couldn’t believe it, that entire time that old computer was the solution.
I filled page by page with my mum on my side double checking if I was miss spelling something. I always ask someone to check when I’m filling up important papers.
Almost 8 hours later, I finished completing my form. The last and most important step was in between me and my dream, paying the visa. You needed to pay it and to get the confirmation for your place to be saved.
So I put all my credit card details, pressed confirm and… Oh no, not again. It didn’t let me pay. I tried a few times but nothing. I started crying, AGAIN, I was so close but yet I had nothing. But while I was crying my eyes out, hating the universe, my mum called the credit card company. They said that they rejected the payment because it was made from a foreign website. As soon as we confirm it was us they authorize it and told us that in five minutes we could try again and everything should be ok.
Those were the longest 5 minutes of my life. I put all my details once more and pressed confirm. Then I read the phrase that was going to change everything. YOUR CARD HAS BEEN ACCEPTED.
After 8 hours of torture, I finally got my place and I couldn’t be happier.
The visa wasn’t mine yet. But I’ll tell you what happened in the next post , this one got long.
I think every traveller should live abroad, or may be another city, once in his life time. Doesn’t need to be for a year it could be for a month or less. But experiences like these are the once that make you appreciate what you have and realise how much you care about your family and friends. It opens your mind. It makes you see the world in a different way.
Thank you for following and see you soon 😉