Leaving Vietnam, POE and marriage

[james&nicole 2]

152 pounds, 69kg, that is the weight of her life. Neatly folded, stacked and packed into three red Samsonite knock offs freshly purchased at Cho Ben Thanh. Of course the weight of all our hopes, dreams and fears adds considerably more, although its not reflected on the scale. 152 lbs? I know I couldn't whittle my life down to that. Hell I can barely clean out my garage, and when I do, it mainly involves moving stuff from one box to another. I gotta hand it to all those who give up so much on the visa journey. 152 pounds plopped on the scale, tossed on a conveyer at the airport and gone out of sight. We are all in now.

We had a decent flight. Got to LAX on a weeknight. Not much of a line to enter the US, we were asked a few questions about how we met, where we will live and when we will marry. They opened our brown envelope, it had our consulate case stuff and medical paperwork. They never asked for our x-ray stuff. They took finger prints and we were on our way. Reasonably fast and painless. We picked up our bags and hit the freeway. It felt great.

We got married at the courthouse, knocked that out in about 30 minutes. It would have been faster than that if their computer was working well. We have about a ten day wait to pick up the marriage certificate. After the ceremony we hit the Social Security office. That took about an hour and fifteen minutes. Filled out a form then waited for our name to be called. The card should be in our mailbox in about a week. We will probably go back to get the married name put on it. I wanted to get the number ASAP, didn't want to wait for the marriage cert to come in. It may be easier to westernize her name in the long run. The name order thing gets very confusing for the form filler out people, who in turn confuse me. Last middle first to first middle last is quite the shell game. Almost as fun as the month day year to day month year game.

Anyway thats our story so far, things are going well. We are happy to be together. Soon as we find a new place to live we can settle in and begin the AOS process in earnest. Looking forward to it.

[Que Saudade 284]

Loved your story. Well written and the whole analogy of life compacted down to 69kg was just brilliant.! One of the best posts I have read in a long time.

Congratulations on your new life together.

Best wishes on your future endeavors.

John and Marina

[jmack 1]

congratulations on your new life together....good luck

[HuklerYenny 21]

152 pounds, 69kg, that is the weight of her life. Neatly folded, stacked and packed into three red Samsonite knock offs freshly purchased at Cho Ben Thanh. Of course the weight of all our hopes, dreams and fears adds considerably more, although its not reflected on the scale. 152 lbs? I know I couldn't whittle my life down to that. Hell I can barely clean out my garage, and when I do, it mainly involves moving stuff from one box to another. I gotta hand it to all those who give up so much on the visa journey. 152 pounds plopped on the scale, tossed on a conveyer at the airport and gone out of sight. We are all in now.

We had a decent flight. Got to LAX on a weeknight. Not much of a line to enter the US, we were asked a few questions about how we met, where we will live and when we will marry. They opened our brown envelope, it had our consulate case stuff and medical paperwork. They never asked for our x-ray stuff. They took finger prints and we were on our way. Reasonably fast and painless. We picked up our bags and hit the freeway. It felt great.

We got married at the courthouse, knocked that out in about 30 minutes. It would have been faster than that if their computer was working well. We have about a ten day wait to pick up the marriage certificate. After the ceremony we hit the Social Security office. That took about an hour and fifteen minutes. Filled out a form then waited for our name to be called. The card should be in our mailbox in about a week. We will probably go back to get the married name put on it. I wanted to get the number ASAP, didn't want to wait for the marriage cert to come in. It may be easier to westernize her name in the long run. The name order thing gets very confusing for the form filler out people, who in turn confuse me. Last middle first to first middle last is quite the shell game. Almost as fun as the month day year to day month year game.

Anyway thats our story so far, things are going well. We are happy to be together. Soon as we find a new place to live we can settle in and begin the AOS process in earnest. Looking forward to it.

No story about what happened during the flight? How long was it? Was it pleasant? Good food? Nice looking flight attendants? How was the lay-over(s)?

By the way, tell her to come in here to say hi and "thanks", if she cares to. She can speak English, can't she?