little this, little that

I started my day pretty early (as you can see from my previous post)... and I ended my yester-yore quite late. So my eyes have been a bit droopy today. But I'm happy :) Went out for some ME time! Little shopping... little iced coffee... little beach...

Reading the sequel to Infidel now... by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She's a modern-day hero.

I've been looking for feather earrings for weeks. Finally found some!

Hair clips!

Starbucks is a pretty big deal for my Swedish friends.... since Sweden only has one of them in the whole country - the airport in Stockholm. This was just a black iced coffee :)

See how my tan has come along?? Thank goodness.

The process of my immigration status to reside in Sweden:

-began filling out the application in Sweden at the beginning of the year, right after leaving Ethiopia

-found out application could only be submitted in my home country

-flew to Hawaii

- application (size of a book!) was mailed to San Francisco where it sat for a month before I was called for an interview. I was supposed to fly to honolulu (on another island) for a 10 minute interview but I received major favor when they decided to question me over the phone!

-application was mailed to DC where it sat for a month. Not sure why.

- application was mailed to Sweden where it's been sitting for a few weeks

- as of this week -- the application is officially in the hands of a specified agent at the migration board in Sweden!

-now we will wait "up to 4" weeks for a decision to be made -- as long as they don't need any further investigation on our case. That could take up to 9 months - go figure.

-Once my permission to reside in Sweden is granted I must go to either Washington DC or Sweden(they say only DC, but I am an exception since I am a resident of Hawaii and it's quite a distance) to leave my fingerprints. It will take 3 additional weeks to produce and mail me my "resident permit card"

-AND I'm a FAST/EASY-case! I have such sympathy and understanding for immigrants now. Especially those who must be apart from their families for unspecified amounts of time!

So far, we've been waiting 2.5 months. Along with all the other pre-paper-work we've been waiting 13 weeks.

And in honor of the Swedish holiday Mid-Summer..... HAPPY HOLIDAY!