Not deported!

Yesterday, just one day before leaving Alaska before heading south again to Antarctica, Michiel and I had our dreaded interview with the Department of homeland Security/Department of Immigration for our "Marriage Fraud" interview. Any couple who request a green card after 2 years or less of marriage receive only a conditional permanent residence status. This was the case with us. Michiel received a 2 year green card and, believe it or not, it is time for renewal. (at least for us the time flew by)

We applied for removal of conditions on his residency in January and have been struggling to coordinate the interview appointment with our travel schedule (as you can imagine, explaining that you can't be at an interview in Alaska because you are in Tanzania, Iceland, the Netherlands, etc., etc. is something you can only do once.) We begged the office by US post and phone calls to schedule the appointment before Oct 3, received an appointment for Oct 11 and then finally got our appointment for yesterday.

Over the past 3 months, we have been collecting any evidence of a "real" marriage that we could gather - joint bank statements, beneficiary statements, letters from friends and families attesting to our relationship, photos and joint tax returns, but we were called in for investigation for a fraudulent relationship because we didn't have any of the big items.....mortgage, children, you know....stuff that responsible adults have :)

The interviewer, JR, was a surprisingly atypical federal employee...friendly, helpful and he went above and beyond by doing his background investigation and making a determination DURING the interview rather than afterwards. He appreciated that we were on our way to Antarctica and did everything to be sure that we could leave today.

So you're wondering if he asked us about favorite colors, leaving the seat on the toilet up, which leg he puts into his pants first? He didn't ask any of those things. He DID videotape us, but that was so that his supervisor could evaluate his performance.

He asked us about where we have been in the last several months, why I called from Denver last month, how we met, what we do in Antarctica, what we do in Hope and basically had an easy conversational style that made it easy for us to talk about ourselves.

The real clincher, though, was this weblog. Once we could show real documentation of all the travels we've made together (with photos), he was convinced that we couldn't live this kind of life if we didn't love one another. He also had me translate some of the Dutch on the weblog. When I was able to do that for him, I'm sure he figured that no one would bother to learn Dutch for a "fake" husband!

The result of this positive news is that Michiel will get a 10 year residence permit which allows him to live and work in America. Yahoooooooo!

Dutch Citizenship

Sheri is now a Dutch American! We received a most excellent email from Michiel's sister telling us that I got my official letter from Queen Beatrix. I am a dual citizen of both the Netherlands and the United States. Yippee! or Joepie! (in Dutch)

Just another day in California

Isn't it great to have nice family?
In our great journey across the States we have set up camp in California. Sheri's cousin, Liz, has allowed us to make use of her house in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. At this moment Sheri has returned to the Netherlands to file for Dutch citizenship. Unfortunately, this could only be done after April 26, which is the date that we have been together for 3 years officially (in reality, we yesterday did a phone-celebration of our 4 year anniversary of knowing each other.) We felt it would be wise to apply as soon as possible as you never know what rules could change to foil any attempt at becming a Dutchie. The allowance of dual citizenship for instance; Sheri being an American married to a Dutch person will at this moment allow her to keep both passports. Handy for travels to places where Americans are not the flavor of the month and handy to be able to work throughout the European Union. The process will take about one year, resulting (hopefully) in a letter from the Queen in which she welcomes Sheri to the Netherlands. (earlier Sheri received a letter from the mayor of Amsterdam, congratulating her on her succesful completion of the integration classes).

So what does one do while waiting for the wife to return?

Internet, sweet internet.
At this very moment I am on the roof patio of Liz's building (see picture) enjoying the sun and working on this blog. The internet is unwittingly provided by some neighbor who has not secured his wireless signal. As a matter of fact there are 7 wireless signals within reach of which 1 (one!) is secured. I am very thankful and amazed. The bright sunlight makes it a bit of a challenge to see anything on the computer screen, but that is a luxury problem.


The beach,
The apartment is very close to a lovely strip of beach. I haven't done any swimming or lying on the beach yet, but I did go for a jog - all the way to Muscle Beach (the place where all day long people work out in the sun and work even harder at showing off their bodies). Running in the sand is exhausting.
I've discovered that in the video arcade on the pier there are pinball machines!! It has been ages since I played one so I will be sure shoot some balls later.

Reading,
I finally know who the father is.....
I've just finished; "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb. Great book, very "unputdownable". Now I have started "Shantaram" which already from page 1 is funny and gripping. Sheri loved it, but has already warned me that the end is not so funny.

Cooking,
Even though I will mostely be eating by myself this week, that doesn't mean that I don't cook. The leftover I freeze for our journey up north.

Tivo,
A great invention that I don't think exists in Holland. I don't need to describe what it is because others have done that enough: See Wikipedia description