And We’re Back!

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Globalistan Party@Palmenhaus, Burggarten. More pics soon.

A long hiatus, forced by circumstances, comes to an end and Globalistan looks to start another turn at the crease.

The past few months have been ridiculously complicated and frustrating for me, leaving no time for Globalistan. To cut a long story short, I was denied travel documents by the Canadian Embassy in Vienna to visit my parents in Edmonton. I was finishing an internship here, and was holding a Canadian permanent resident card. My parents have been living in Canada since 2008, and I have visited them frequently while pursuing a masters degree here in Vienna. On the expiry of my card, I was told that I could not have travel documents of any sort (including tourist visas) to visit my parents. The reason was that I had not spent an obligatory two out of five years in Canada, which apparently leads to automatic loss of residence. This despite communications to the office that I was studying  here during the period that my parents moved to Canada.  At that time my Austrian visa, as well as my money, was running out, and my plan was to stay in Edmonton while looking for work.

However, since then things have been working out for the better. I could still not visit my parents, meaning that I am in Vienna at the moment, and am appealing the decision of the Embassy in an immigration court in Canada. In the meantime, a film project that I started here is working out well, more information about which shall be up soon.

Like other things in life, Globalistan too had to be put on a hold. However, with all that we are now looking to restore Globalistan as a platform for conversations on the theme of global living. We held a Globalistan party in Vienna this weekend, partially to restore interest in the website, taking over the Palmenhaus in the Burggarten for the event.

There are a number of foreseeable changes, which we shall elaborate upon as things progress. There is a need to do some more fund-raising for maintainance. However, our focus right now is, as it has been always, is to encourage submissions that elaborate on the basic theme of the website. So please keep writing in with your thoughts and ideas, as it is central to our aim to build a conversation that explores various aspects of life in the globalized world.

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