Stephen's Den

Something I forgot to mention last time is the first thing that happened to me on my arrival to Los Angeles was that I had a digital photo and fingerprints taken. No, it wasn’t my idea, they do that to all non-citizens now apparently. I don’t know why they bothered because they took my fingerprints when I applied for my visa too. I didn’t really care so much, I was just happy to finally be on the ground.

After obsessing over whether or not my baggage would arrive in one piece, I am sure you can appreciate that it was with a great deal of relief that I picked up my baggage and headed out of the arrivals area. Continue reading Los Angeles: Terminal 4 to Terminal 7

Just a quick aside and then we will resume our usual broadcast.

I drove to work today. Well, I did it at 9pm, but I drove there anyway since I need to practice for tomorrow morning. It is 29 miles from where I am living to work. That’s 46 km, or 30 minutes at an average speed of 60 mph (96 km/h). The speed limits on the interstates here are 65mph or 70mph (112 km/h) but everyone does about 5mph over the limit as usual.

I really enjoy driving here in the US. Even though I keep using the windscreen wipers to try indicate and I always grab to my left for the gear / hand break, driving on the right-hand side of the road is not all that difficult. I just need to keep reminding myself and I am ok. It turns out that two facts about American drivers really helps a lot:

Continue reading Driving in the US

Well, I can safely say getting to Dallas, Texas was something of an ordeal. Not quite as harrowing as getting the citizenship, Visa and passport in the first place but certainly bad enough.

This story is a little long, so I have broken it up into the three legs (Auckland to Los Angales, Los Angeles to Denver and finally Denver to Dallas). Sit back, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy. I will add more instalments later in the week.

Sarah and I left for the airport early, at around about 1pm. My flight was scheduled for 5:55pm, so the recommended 3 hour check-in time was at 2:55pm. I sauntered up to the desk at about 1:30pm and asked to check in for my first and longest flight: QF25, Auckland to Los Angeles.

“I’m sorry sir, but you are too early” came the reply “please come back later”.

Too early? How is it I can possibly be too early? We are all told to check in at least 3 hours before departure, which is 2:55pm. The reason we are given is so as to allow for plenty of time for customs to cavity search us on the way through.
Continue reading Auckland to Los Angeles

Hi all, just a quick update. After 10,000 km and 11 hours in flight, I braved the ordeal of American customs. I was searched for bombs, patted down and everything!

It’s very hot here. My flight for Denver leaves in about an hour. My phone also works here so you can call me (in emergencies only).

I have finally received my passport with Visa attached!

It was quite an experience. The immigration consultant called me this morning to inform me that the DS2019 had arrived from Boston. I signed the form and she took it in to the consulate which meant I could have left today (Monday) instead of Wednesday as we previously had thought.

So, I scrambled to get a flight for today confirmed, but it became more and more apparent that it was near to impossible to make it from the consulate at 2:30pm (when they give back your passport) to the airport at 2:55pm (the required 3 hours prior to my booked flight).

So, I am now scheduled to leave at 5:55pm on Tuesday 18th July. This time, it looks like I will actually be leaving! For those of you who are really interested, a copy of my itinerary is below. I checked it very carefully this time because one of the previous versions had me ending up in Houston! Continue reading Finally, we have liftoff

Well, today I had my Visa interview. It was actually surprisingly painless. I left home early so that I could speak with the immigration consultant, the person I spoke to wasn’t the head immigration consultant (Barbara J) and so she didn’t actually have any advice for me around the interview questions for immigration.

The interview turned out to be something of a non-event. After waiting nearly an hour, I got the opportunity to speak to a very nice man who asked me a few simple questions about the kind of training I would be getting in the US and then sent me on my way.

Also, I confirmed something that had been mentioned to me the day before: the DS2109 form has not arrived yet. Now, the DS2109 is an approval form which the CIEE sends to the American Consulate in New Zealand to tell them that my training program has been approved for the purposes of a J1 visa. The J1 Visa is a training/study Visa which allows holders to live in the US for the purposes of training or study. That’s the Visa I am going under.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, because the Visa has been delayed (it was only sent from Boston yesterday) I will most likely only get my Visa on Wednesday which means I can only fly out on Wednesday night. Beca have me booked in on flights for today, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, just in case.

On the plus side, it means that I get a chance to visit with friends and family some more and maybe obsess a little over packing. I also plan on helping out with a photo exhibition in the city which could be great fun.

I have heaps of photos from my many going away parties to upload, I will do so shortly 🙂

Ok, first thing I have done you may not have noticed: I have added subscription functionality to my blog. So now you can receive an email every time I make an update.

Cornelia: I have subscribed you already, because you were complaining before that I don’t tell you what’s going on. You have no excuses now, since you’ll receive an email every time I write anything :p

Another thing I have been working on is my Geographical Positioning Systems. I bought a GPS receiver (the last one on that site) which I have been playing with for a while now. I am quite impressed. It was cheap, only about AU $130, but it comes with all the trimmings: car charger, wall charger, USB charger. Continue reading GPS Tracking

So I am now officially a New Zealand citizen! The ceremony was very nice. There were only about 20 people there so it was quite cosy.

The person leading the ceremony made it out to be a very special (almost spiritual) occasion. I disagreed with him a little there. For me, the special / spiritual occasion had already happened many years ago, the moment I set foot on New Zealand soil. A date I will forever remember: December 5^th, 1997. Continue reading I never swear

Well, after a great deal of toing and froing, my citizenship ceremony is scheduled for Thursday 15th June at 1pm. It will be at the Auckland Citizenship office at the AA Centre, level 6, 99 Albert Street.

The “Texas Counters” on the left hand side give you a good idea of the number of seconds remaining before my citizenship is confirmed.

After the ceremony, I can apply for a passport, that takes 3 days minimum if I pay them money. This means that, allowing for shipping and suchlike, that I can expect my passport by the 22nd of June.

Edit: You know, after showing these cool dynamically updating counters to my family, Arth says: “I’ll just print it out for your Mom”.

^^;;

My hands are still shaking with adrenaline as I write this. Sarah & I were coming home from lunch down Triploi road (A), past a primary school on our right and a dairy (tea room) on our left. I passed a rather unremarkable car on the side of the road. It was a dark blue station wagon. Later Sarah tells me it was probably a Subaru Legacy, one of the most popular cars in New Zealand. He looked like he was meaning to turn out into the street, but he didn’t have his indicators on, so I passed him. Click on the map to the right to the the details of our little trip with markers.

As I passed, I realised he was pulling off in spite of me. So I sped up a little so as to take over smoothly and indicated to the left to signal my intention. Instead he speeds away, Sarah yells “careful!” and I shift over to the right as he bolts past me. I hear his engine hum impressively as he motors past and I try to avoid hitting the oncoming traffic.

“Holy fuck!” Sarah commented sedately as he sped away “Yeah, that was fucking weird” I said. We were considering reporting him to someone when we suddenly saw something that made our blood run cold: the passenger’s door flew open and someone tried to jump out, gave up and closed the door again, or perhaps they were pulled back (B). Continue reading The Chase