Back to the States. At least for three weeks.

So instead of spending $2000 on two new bikes, we just spent $2000 on two fabulous paper e-tickets to the States. Actually it was ‘only’ $1912 for the two of us, which I am very happy about, because finding tickets for Christmas for less than $1000 a person from Germany to Seattle is almost impossible.

Initially we wanted to spend a quiet Christmas alone here in Germany but because of certain rumors (regarding the Army) that have been going around and that I can’t discuss here right now, we decided to spend Christmas with Collin’s family in the States. Collin won’t have seen them for almost two and a half years by then. It wasn’t hard to convince him that it would be a good idea. He, himself, mentioned it one day and I just decided to go ahead and book two tickets. We will be there for almost three weeks, which will give us plenty of time to spend time with family and friends.

PS: Thanks everyone for your comments regarding my immigration issues. I sent a letter to the California Service Center where my application is being processed. I am fed up with the US Consulate in Frankfurt as well as the USCIS hotline because neither of them seem to have a clue how filing from overseas works and how this issue is being treated. I know about the stamp and I hope that Frankfurt issues those stamps as well. So as for now, I am back to waiting.

Dealing with immigration.

Today marks nine months of this deployment. “Only” six more months to go. Six months sounds pretty nice and we have done six months without each other before. So hopefully time will pass quickly.

Today also marks over nine months of dealing with immigration. I have been waiting for my 10-year greencard since July 25, 2007. Last summer my conditional two-year greencard expired and I had to submit my application to ‘Remove Conditions on Residency’. Well, I am still waiting to get approved. My application is way passed the usual processing times and I have been calling the USCIS hotline only to be told that I need to be patient. My extension letter will expire in September which is in three months and I need to know what’s going on. People who are stationed overseas on government orders have done it before. I am not the only person having to deal with it but it seems like noone knows how to help me. I even called the special USCIS military hotline but they couldn’t help me either. A few days ago I contacted the US consulate in Frankfurt and haven’t heard from them since. Usually they are pretty quick about emailing back right away. Well, it is not my fault because we submitted everything on time and even did the exact instructions for people who are filing from overseas. Plus, I am considered a US resident because we are here on orders. We even have a US address, US bank accounts and so on. So I am not really special. I am just like any other US resident. I just hope I will find out more soon.

Time for summer.

Spring is finally here and it feels great. I started running again. In fact I have been since Easter which was about a little over five weeks ago. I have been doing great and have been running almost every other day with a few breaks in between due to my knee hurting. My goal is to just keep going and maybe do a race one day. One of my friends in school asked me if I wanted to participate in this years discrict race that is taking place this weekend but I passed since I don’t feel quite ready for it yet. The Army is having a 5k fun-run next weekend though which I might participate in. We’ll see.

Since my last post it feels like time is picking up again and days are finally starting to go by a little faster. Collin and I have been sending emails to each other a lot but phone calls have been very limited. In fact, we only had the chance to talk twice within the passed three weeks. But receiving emails almost every day makes up for it and it is not as bad as it sounds. We have been discussing about investing into a couple road bikes. Collin’s Cannondale road bike is almost 10 years old and it is time for a new one. And since I like roadbiking too, we are thinking of getting two new ones. The only problem is the price. We want a good one – preferrably Cannondale bikes again - which means paying $1000 or more a piece. I have been looking into a few and there are only three models that we could actually afford ranging from $1000 to $1350 per bike (note: the most expensive one is $9999 and looks amazing).

So we’ll see how much we can save up. It would be awesome for this summer and I could get into roadbiking shape until Collin comes home and then we could go on rides together.