What have I been doing for the last few hours, days, weeks? I’ve been writing letters and calling companies, governments, departments, divisions and issuing bodies, telling them to take me off their lists, to move me, to update or cancel me, to erase me. My life on one continent is shrinking, is being torn down, dusted off, shredded and recycled. All is being sold off, given away, chucked out, boxed in and loaded on a ship for ports unknown (or even better, if I pick the right shipping company: known).

I am busy, fully conscious of the passing days, the backward-ticking stopwatch, the anticipation and excitement building even as nostalgia and premature longing poke their noses from around the corner behind me. I feel lighter, unburdened and at times exhilarated by the rush of change. Sure, I do feel anxiety — a little, but not as much as you (or I) might think. It’s probably waiting for me on the other end, around some dark corner of the Barri Gòtic or in an eternal lineup at the Foreigner’s Office, but for now I’m too busy savouring my last moments in Montreal.

The weekend consisted of two beautiful sunny days, the reflecting snow and ice blinding me and burning a late-summer glow into my cheeks as I raced around a frozen lake, alone both days, free, gliding, flying. If my visa was so delayed, perhaps it was only to give me such a great gift: a perfect Montreal winter, one like we haven’t seen for years, maybe decades (before my time here, at any rate). So much snow, so little melting, such pleasant temperatures.

As of yesterday, I have a valid visa in my passport, aching for its duty to be fulfilled by an immigration officer’s stamp. The house sale is “in the bag”, the final handoff going down in a couple more weeks, so all else must be done by then. After that, I’ll take a deep breath, spend one homeless week here with friends and then it’s off over the ocean (flying 35,000 feet above my few remaining possessions as they slosh through the North Atlantic) to a new land, a new life, and a patiently-waiting love.

In Montreal, it never rains but it snows. (What do you know? It’s doing just that, right now.)

Note that I’m no longer talking about visas, or about my preparations to move, but rather about the AVE, the Spanish high-speed train, which today (February 20 when I started this post) made its first runs between Barcelona and Madrid. I can’t wait to get to Barcelona, and at some point to give this thing a try — I love zippy trains.

Today’s first-ever commercial departure, packed with more journalists and television crews than regular passengers, left Estació Sants on time (6am), and arrived at Madrid’s Estación Atocha early…a good start! And they run every hour until 9pm (with four per hour during peak hours!), so it’s really going to be moving a lot of people, and quickly. It takes under 2 hours and 40 minutes, moving (for most of the trip) at 300 km/h. The prices are not bad, either (I can only imagine how much such a thing would cost in Canada — just a regular Mtl-Ottawa train can be more expensive than a cheap AVE ticket Bcn-Madrid!). It will definitely shake up the domestic air market, with perhaps six million people expected to use this new route in 2008.

Unlike those ads that used to run on TV here, I can’t go point at the AVE and say: “That’s a Bombardier!” In fact, some of the AVE trains in the RENFE system are made by our Montreal friends, but the ones running on the Bcn-Madrid line are the S/103s, made by Siemens; a train that has the world record for fastest unmodified commercial service trainset (yes, faster than the Japanese Shinkansen, because their record was using a test model). Of course, for a whole range of comfort/maintenance/safety reasons, they won’t run it over 300km/h, even though they could technically go over 400km/h.

Now, if they can figure out a way to keep the Sagrada Familia or Casa Milà from collapsing into an underground tunnel, they hope to open new track all the way to the French border in 2009 (2010, anyone?). There’s been lots of controversy about where it should route under — or around — the city. Last year, many balconies in the Sagrada Familia area had big sheets hanging out, painted with: “AVE per litoral” or “AVE=Carmel”, indicating a few alternatives the locals would prefer (essentially, on one side or the other of the neighbourhood).

Time for a short but sweet quiz… What is 2008?

International Year of the Potato?
International Year of Sanitation?
International Year of Languages?
International Year of Planet Earth?
International Year of the Reef?
Chinese Year of the Rat (starting February 7)?
European Year of Intercultural Dialogue?

Well, yes, actually it’s all of those things. But, it also looks like it may be the International Year of Me Moving to Spain (pending official UNESCO designation). I found out a short time ago that — after all this waiting (more than seven months for something that’s supposed to take three or at most four) — my visa has been approved (in a spirit of Intercultural Dialogue, perhaps?).  I need to contact the consulate tomorrow to see what the details and timeline are, but basically…I guess I’m in the Spanish club.  Or will be, soon enough.  Por fin.

Of course, now that the stress of waiting is over, the stress of totally reorganizing my life begins.  A new adventure awaits!

But the best news of all is that, when people inevitably ask me: “So, have you heard anything about your visa?”, I can actually respond with an answer they haven’t heard before.  ”Yes!  And it’s: ‘Yes!’”

P.S. Interestingly enough, my first-ever trip to Spain was exactly three years ago…isn’t life funny, sometimes?

P.P.S. Also funny was that I was having my teeth cleaned at the dentist’s office, practically next door to the consulate, when they phoned and left the happy message on my machine. And, this afternoon (before I discovered the message), I was on the verge of booking a short trip to Spain for a visit…just as well I held off on clicking that tempting “buy” button.