A week has passed and I’m still alive and well in America and so far things are going pretty good. So far it hasn’t really gotten through to me that this is more than simply a vacation and that I’m here for life. I’m sure that’ll change once I’m going to be able to apply for jobs and drive around the place and everything.
This week started with my flight(s) over here. I had initially booked a flight with a 5 hour layover in New York. However, my connecting flight was changed and the layover was now 6 hours. All well and good, I thought, I had no idea how long it would take to get from one flight to the other with the immigration part. As it turns out, it didn’t take much longer than usual. The main difference is that I know had to fill out an I-94 form and wait for a little bit in the immigration office while my visa was further processed.
The first thing I noticed about this office reminded me of a bit about pharmacists that Jerry Seinfeld did:
The immigration officers, too, were sat at a desk higher than the rest of the folks. So after sitting there for about 5-10 minutes, my name was called and I could go up to the desk to get my passport back and be on my way for checking in my luggage for my connecting flight. The whole process, including waiting in line, took maybe 30 minutes or so. <em>A lot</em> less than what I expected. So I spent the rest of my time wandering around JFK airport, resisting the urge to go to Dunkin’ Donuts but giving in to the temptation of a large slice of pepperoni pizza and strawberry Shnapple.
Overall, the flight itself was quite alright. Beyond the annoying people in front of me giving my knees a hard time and the fact that we had shared screens during the long flight over the ocean it was pretty quiet. No turbulence, no crying babies, nothing. Also, it was the first flight I got a pizza-like meal at. That counts for something.
The day after I arrived we went to some tux store to look for a tux to rent. Found a nice and light(light as in, thin fabric) one, because, fuck the heat. Then at night we went to see the live edition of Jay and Silent Bob Get Old. As I write this, the episode we’re in isn’t up yet, but no doubt it will be next week or so.
I made some clips of the more physical bits called Let us fuck, but the quality isn’t all that. My phone decided that it needed to refocus every so often, so don’t mind that.
For video that’s up closer and at better quality, hit up the youtubes.
Rest of the week was mostly spent getting things in order for my stay here. We’ve gone to the courthouse to get our marriage license. It’s quite silly how this place still works with the honour system. I had to vow(right hand up and everything!) I had filled out everything correctly and truthfully and that’s that. Now, the silly part about getting the marriage license is that as far as we understood it, we’d have to wait for 3 days to get it. At first I had thought that you’d have to wait for 3 days before you’d receive the license so they have time to do research on you and actually check if you’re not married or whatever. However, we’ve already got the license and this 3 day waiting period is literally an arbitrary date written on the license itself. Speaking of which, today is the first day it’s actually valid and it’s time to use it too(the 4th and the 11th of april have come up for this).
So, so far so good. Still have a lot to do, like get my license and a phone plan where I don’t pay out the arse for abroad data usage, but one step at a time. In the mean time, I’ll just watch tv and amaze myself at the hilarious amount of food commercials. Surprisingly though, I’ve seen Arby’s, Quizno’s, Subway, Sonic various chocolates and crisps and cheese and beer commercials, but the big ol’ McDonald’s is nowhere to be found. Nor is Brighthouse, for that matter…