Quick update from the north

As I am writing from an AZERTY keyboard this will be a quickie post just to inform you that I had my visa appointment at the embassy yesterday and everything went well! Fingers crossed my passport will arrive back home (to my parents’ place) before me on Thursday! I am hoping to fly back to Puerto Rico on Sunday, but until then I am enjoying Stockholm – meeting up with old and new friends.

Thanks for all your comments about the Skane photos and will reply as soon as I have some more time (and have adjusted back to the Azerty – actually it is the touchpad that annoys me even more as I keep erasing what I have just written!).

A geographic reminder

This post is dedicated to my Australian brother B in Sydney who wrote ”Where on earth did I get Costa Rica from???”… Don’t worry, you are not the first one!!

For those of you who are still confused about where I am located in the world, and who didn’t read my post on the same subject in October…

Remember:

• I live on an island – Costa Rica is located on the mainland in Central America… Puerto Rico is actually the 4th largest island in the Caribbean (after Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti & Dominican Republic) and Jamaica)
• Puerto Rico starts with a P, like my name!
• Puerto Rico is a song by Vaya Con Dios
• The capital is San Juan, not San José (which is the capital of Costa Rica).. Ok, I admit that it can be a little confusing
• However, Nina lives in Costa Rica and blogs in Swedish if you are curious about CR instead of PR

And now, listen to the Belgian band Vaya Con Dios sing about Puerto Rico:

 

Puerto Rico – here I come on Saturday!!

I came back from Stockholm this afternoon – and my passport was already waiting for me at the local supermarket*! My passport was sent from the US embassy already on Thursday, the same day as my interview, by registered mail and arrived to Eslöv before me today!

I am now the proud possessor (??) of an American visa – not something I ever thought that I would aspire to, but hey, life is full of surprises!

Six months of stress, panic, worry about the future and of grinding my teeth in my sleep –  I can’t believe that it is over – I can join O in Puerto Rico on Saturday as planned. My second cousin E and her boyfriend will be relieved as well to hear that I will be there when they arrive next Tuesday from New York

*) You might wonder why at the supermarket… well, you see in Sweden we don’t have post offices anymore.. The commercial Svensk kassaservice (Swedish cashier service) has taken over from the traditional post offices and you now have to go to the supermarket to pick up your packages, buy stamps etc. I have just read that the man who was in charge of dismantling the post offices in Sweden, Ulf Dahlsten, is moving to the UK to do the same thing to the British mail… I feel sorry for the Brits… (He has worked in the European Commission for the last few years and I have met him a couple of times, he made some stupid remark about my Skåne accent so I am not a big fan!!)

Filling out a visa application…

I thought that I was a pretty intelligent person, with a higher university degree and speaking several languages – however, filling out forms is not always so easy. Or for that matter to chose the right alternative when calling to an automatic voice system.

For example calling the American embassy in Stockholm is easier said than done… (not to mention the US embassy in Belgium, they charge you 15 EUR for every phone call). They have telephone hours between 13-15 Monday to Thursday, except local and American holidays. The first times I called I just got an automatic message repeating their phone hours – hello, I am calling at 13.20 on a Thursday, and what I know there is no American or local holiday today!? Frustration…

Last week I tried calling again and another automatic message tells me their phone number: Well, I am calling this number, so you don’t need to repeat which number I have just dialled… and then gives the different options: dial 2 for English, dial 3 for Swedish, please stay on the line. Should I press 2, 3 or stay on the line?? I listened to the options a few times, pressed 3 for Swedish and was told that all operators were busy, thanks and goodbye! Was I not supposed to stay on the line? But how can I stay on the line if the line has been interrupted?

I dialled again and chose 2 for English – and a Swedish guy answers, and despite my frustration, I could acknowledge that he was actually very friendly and helpful!

Now to filling out those forms: I don’t know how I can fill out all the countries I have visited in the last 10 years including the year?? Especially when the form allows me to mention THREE countries (the computer kept going “ping” every time I tried to write more)? Should I write “Denmark - every year, Germany - probably every year, Switzerland – can’t remember but probably almost every year, etc.” I travel a lot and I don’t keep track of every time I have visited Denmark which takes 20 minutes by train to visit from Malmö! Ok, so in the end I added an extra sheet of paper and mentioned all  the non-EU countries and when I have visited them, plus wrote all the EU countries I have visited without the year… I have been to 31 countries – most of them in the last 10 years…

Why are the boxes always so small on forms? The only box that was too big was the one for family – I only have two parents and two siblings, there was so much space left over – couldn’t they have left me some of that space under Education and Countries visited?!

Oh well… wish me luck next week when I have my visa interview! You are not allowed to bring mobile phones in to the embassy building, so I have made a mental note to leave everything at my friend’s place in the suburbs where I will be staying. My plan is to write down her phone number on a piece of paper and find a phone booth (they do still exist, don’t they?) after the interview to call her so that we can meet in town afterwards (she’s on maternity leave, very practical!)… with my mobile phone I have also bought a thick wool cardigan to wear as you need wait outside for your turn – it’s November now and it might be pretty cold in Stockholm!

Why are they making life so complicated? The most annoying thing is that I don’t even want to go to the US – I am going to Puerto Rico! I know, I know, it’s part of the US… but still!

Puerto Rico or Costa Rica??

I think that almost everybody I have spoken about Puerto Rico with, has at least once (if not every time) mixed up Puerto Rico and Costa Rica! I don’t blame them, I also used to mix up the two countries, but for obvious reasons I don’t anymore! Actually, I had already started to understand the difference between the Central American country of Costa Rica and the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in 2005 when I on my way back to Europe from Trinidad had a lay over there… of course I had no idea that I would 2 years later move to the island of Bacardi rhum (I bought 2 litres of rhum and then realised that I was only allowed to bring 1 litre into the EU… my first experience of smuggling)!

One trick to remember where I am going is to think of the song Puerto Rico by Vaya Con Dios – which a lot of people do, especially here in Brussels. Lots of my friends & colleagues have started singing or humming the song when I mention Puerto Rico. It is quite fitting, because Vaya Con Dios is a Belgian band, despite the Spanish name, and the song is from 1987 (10 20 years ago already). I have of course bought the Greatest hits album of Vaya Con Dios – a perfect memory of the 2 countries!

Here are the lyrics for Puerto Rico:

Wake up Angelita, your mama just turned off the light
Manolo is already waiting by the old water-pipe
Her shoes in one hand she carefully walks down the stairs
Holding her breath ’cause there’s danger and love in the air.Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico
Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico

Your papa will beat him if he ever finds out
Begging the Virgin won’t help when you hear Manolito shout,
Manolito shout
He’s already standing under the starlit sky
You run to his arms and you laugh and you cry as he holds you tight

Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico
Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico

He says he’ll be leaving you soon still you beg him to stay
But he wants to make it somewhere in the U.S.A.
And though he’ll be far he promises he’ll write every day
When time will be right, he’ll come back and he’ll take you away

Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico
Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico

Your papa don’t like him, he says he’s no good
He steals and he fights and he never behaves, like a young man should
Angelita she knows, he’s not that bad inside
She takes the medal, she wears on a chain, and presses it into his palm.

Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico
Aie aie aie aie aie aie Puerto Rico

 

Rain, rain and rain again

Brussels seems to get greyer and greyer with every day, or maybe that’s just me longing for the Caribbean sun? Everybody seems to have a cold in Brussels at the moment, I’m on my 2nd one which has now lasted for a week… For those of you who know me and my colds, I can inform you that I now have my dry, very annoying cough again – the one that can last for weeks (I think the record is 2 months of coughing)! At least I don’t have a throat infection AND inflammation at the same time like my friend J, who is going to be my hostess for the next few days together with her boyfriend P. It will be fun to spend some quality time with them before leaving Brussels.

But I’m trying to not feel too miserable, only a few days left to work, the movers come on Friday morning to pick up my last things and on Saturday we have a girls’ night out planned. Next week I finish work on Thursday and I am organising a big farewell party on Saturday the 13th before I head to Sweden on Sunday the 14th. Puerto Rico will have to wait a little, especially as O is heading to Europe for two weeks at the end of the month.

I will be very sad to leave the friends behind, there are so many people dear to me here – but I will be back, at least for visits… And I know that I will keep in touch with everybody; through email, facebook and the blog! Information technology is great!  

(O tells me that it rains in Puerto Rico too and according to the weather forecast, it will rain every day this week in San Juan – but at least he gets to go to the beach every now and then)

A quickie

Home from work with a bad cold, which is not fun but I decided to not be so damn Swedish and go to work… I did yesterday and all my colleagues told me to go home, first of all because they thought that I looked really bad and secondly because they don’t want to get contaminated! It’s quite a moral dilemma actually, that I have everytime I’m a bit ill – should I stay at home and get some rest, or go to work, spread my germs and not be very productive?? I know that some people would never stay at home, if they are not dying, but I prefer staying at home for maybe 1-2 days and get better quicker… especially as I’m going to Milan on Friday with my friend P No 1 

I’m now staying with P and M, the Swedish-Cypriot couple and it’s lovely, they are great hosts – we’ve been having nice dinners infront of the telly watching Prison Break (Season 1 on dvd, we’re probably the only ones who haven’t seen it already on tv) – four episodes per evening!!

It’s O’s birthday today – and he got his social security number yesterday – horray! And today the air shipment with all his/our things will be delivered after more than a month in customs (due to the lack of SSN) – isn’t that a great birthday present! He’s been eating paëlla-style rice every day for a month now as the kitchen was only equipped with frying pans and no pots for pasta/rice boiling. Strange. He’s also looking forward to getting a bank account, internet and phone connection, and a Puertorican mobile phone number!

Thanks to all of you who sent birthday cards to O, he was really surprised and touched by the attention (I had asked our friends to send him birthday cards as a surprise as he was feeling a little lonely) – so far he has received 8 cards, which is a record for him (I guess birthday cards are not very big in Spain!?).

This is a quickie post as I’m surfing on a neighbour’s wireless and my head hurts..

Hurricane season has arrived…

Tropical storm warnings are in place for the British and US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and St Maarten and Grenada (from BBC News).

Hurricane Dean seems to have missed Puerto Rico though, it’s on the way to Jamaica now. Weird that I have to follow this kind of weather reporting from now on…

Update: I spoke to O yesterday evening when he was driving home from the office (yes, he’s been working all weekend, mostly to see how the weekend shifts work at the plant) and suddenly he said, Opps there’s a tree lying across the road… He said that it was only the tail of the hurricane that had hit San Juan, very windy and wet. Up on the 9th floor he had really felt the strength of the winds and he had shut the hurricane shutters on the windows. Usually the hurricanes come in from the east but are stopped by the mountains in the centre of the island and then continue west – so San Juan normally doesn’t feel much of the winds. Let’s hope it stays that way! 

Officially alone in Brussels…

So, my second evening alone in Brussels and I have been exercising (spinning – I’m friends with the instructor ;-)  who is my personal motivator to get in shape before the bikini-year in the Caribbean!) and soon off to dinner with the two other Swedish grass widow[ers] of the block, P & A!

O arrived late last night to San Juan, via Atlanta (longer route than via NY but cheaper according to his company that paid the ticket so not much to argue about). He didn’t get his luggage when landing in Atlanta so he thought that it had been lost somewhere across the Atlantic, but for some bizarre reason it had been checked all the way through… For the record that is very bizarre as you are always obliged to carry your luggage through American customs at the airport where you arrive on American soil, i.e in O’s case Atlanta. The flight to San Juan was a domestic flight so in the end he never went through customs with his luggage (maybe a good thing as he brought Spanish manchego cheese, Kalles kaviar (Swedish “caviar” in a tube) etc and I had been stressing about him getting stuck and detained in customs!).

Today he gets the keys to our new home in the Caribbean and tomorrow he moves in properly. I’m probably more excited than him, I’m trying to picture him in the apartment and how he will make himself at home. Fortunately I took lots of photos of every angle of the place and I have been studying every detail (maybe I’m weird?). He is also going to try to work out if the company will provide me with my own car, we thought that it wouldn’t be the case and O has been checking out the second hand market of Japanese cars (much cheaper than European ones). However, last week he received an email that was a bit vague on the car issue so fingers crossed that we don’t have to spend money on my ride! He also has to get a social security number, get a new corporate credit card, bank account etc but we have our own relocation manager who is helping him out with all that – I could have used one of those when I arrived in Brussels five years ago and had to do all the paper stuff in French!

Anyway, need to get a shower before dinner with the guys (who didn’t want to join me for the spinning, they are body-pump guys!!).

Oh and by the way, I do miss O but I’m ok – lots of friends have asked how I feel, which is very considerate but c’mon, he has only been away for little more than one day – come back in one month and ask me… And at the moment I’m looking forward to my one-week holiday in Sweden, leaving on Friday evening! 

Moving day!

The movers have been here since 8 o’clock (two hours so far) and I don’t think that things are moving very fast… One Höganäs cup is broken (fortunately I’m going back to Sweden next week so I can replace it), and O was very disappointed that he couldn’t bring his 15 litres of olive oil (I knew it, but he’s always an optimist!)… but we seem to have space enough for all of our things.

I’m hungry and bored, but hopefully they will be done soon (see, now I am the optimist!). I went to bed at 02 last night and got up at 06 to get everything prepared – I hope that nothing will get mixed up and we’ll end up with the wrong things in Puerto Rico or in storage.

It feels very strange that we are emptying this apartment, I have lived here since May 2003 and it’s been a great home. I will still stay here for another month or so, my friend T from Austria is taking over the contract from the 1st September when he moves to Brussels from New York. I have another few months to get used to the move, a phasing-out of my life in Brussels, but O is leaving on Tuesday after 7 years in Belgium!

However, we have been talking about this move since March-April last year so we have had a lot of time to think about it, get used to the idea etc. But, I think that we, and quite a few of our friends, thought that it would never happen in the end!! So, it feels very strange and concrete at the moment.. Well, we are just going for 18 months, hopefully enough time for me to learn Spanish and get used to the crazy traffic.

At first we were supposed to have gone to El Paso in Texas, but I think that Puerto Rico is so much interesting. Especially for people coming to visit us, I will have to find a way to put a “booking calendar” on the blog so that people can see when our “B ‘n’ B” is available! Two Flemish couples might come in January, they found tickets for 500 EUR and they are ready to buy their tickets already.