I have it!

Yesterday I got my Green Card in the mail! I am now officially a Permanent Resident in the United States of America!

With the letter I also got a folder pointing me to a guide called "Welcome to the United States - A Guide for New Immigrants". I am now officially an Immigrant.

In the folder, under the heading "Getting Involved in Your Community" I read:

The U.S. government is a government of, by, and for the people. This means that people can shape the government and its policies. Each person has an important role to play in his or her local community. You can get involved in your community through local organizations, your place of worship or work, your neighborhood, or your children's schools. Welcome to the United states gives ideas for getting involved in your community and learning more about life in this country.

The United States presidential election of 2008 is scheduled to be held on November 4. The average voter turnout in the US is around 50 % depending on what source you quote. These statistics puts it at 48.3% which would land the country a 139th place in the World Cup of Voter Turnout. So right now it seems like the U.S. government is a government of, by, and for half the people.

The short of it: I wish I could vote as a permanent resident.

At the Immigration Office

Our interview yesterday went very well! The interviewer was easygoing and we talked for a pretty short time and he asked us some questions, and that was basically it. Autumn had spent quite a lot of time preparing these photo albums with a lot of photos showing the two of us together and with friends and family. Did they guy even look at these!? No. When the interview was almost over and we realized that he was not going to look at our super nice photo albums, with pictures of mostly us, I pointed it out to him that Autumn had prepared them. He still did not look at the photos.

I had an appointment for the 19th of September for my biometrics (basically fingerprints), but during the interview the officer gave us a new appointment for the same day. So after the interview we went and got the biometric scan done, which saved me a trip back down to LA!

The officer told us that I will have the green card in about 3 weeks. All in all my experience with the immigration authorities here has been surprisingly smooth. The paperwork, rules and regulations have not been that much fun to deal with, but when we have met a person behind all that bureaucracy they have actually been pretty friendly and human.

Thank you for all your support during this time!

Today has been a very warm day here in Pasadena, where we are house sitting until Saturday. I walked to the library and got some work done and now I have just come back from boxing at the YMCA. It was good to see some of the old boxing gang.

Tonight we are going out for dinner to this place with some friends of Autumn that I have not met yet. It is nice that it has been cooling down a bit since the heat of this day.

This is all for now from Pasadena.

Bona Fide Marriage

On Tuesday the 11th of September(!) we are going to our interview at the immigration office in down town LA. The interview is to prove/show that our marriage is a real one. We are putting together all the information we need to bring with us, and it is quite a lot of stuff! And some of it is what I would call 'private'. Such as our email correspondence from last summer when we had first met. But if this is what they need I guess that this is what we will give them in order to show that we have a Bona Fide Marriage. So wish us luck for next week!

Sunny Saturday

We just came back after a sunny day at Refugio Beach. It's a nice weekend.
I hope you are all doing well!

Ps. I will have a headset pretty soon