It has been a VERY cold week here in Michigan. The night before Thursday the temperature plummeted down below -4F which causes the snow to squeak in a weird way, the nostrils to become sticky with ice at the first breath, and the river to steam. I have never experienced the last phenomenon before, but it did look amazing (especially when viewed from the inside of a warm bus):
Vi har været noget trætte denne uge. Først og fremmest fordi jeg endeligt (efter at have rykket i et par uger) har modtaget det anbefalingsbrev, jeg manglede til Green card ansøgningen. De første 4 kom i løbet af et par dage, men det sidste, der har været ude hos en tidligere samarbejdspartner, har nærmest skulle hives hjem med trisser og håndsving. Det kom så endeligt frem natten til torsdag i en utrolig dårlig indscannings kvalitet og uden institutions logo på brevet, som der ellers udtrykkeligt var blevet udbedt. Jeg blev simpelthen så gal. Hvis man i virkeligheden ikke vil skrive under på sådan et brev, så må man jo sige nej tak, når man bliver spurgt, i stedet for bare at sende noget lort retur. Der er desværre ikke så meget jeg kan gøre ved det, så jeg må bare håbe på at advokaterne ikke brokker sig og kræver et nyt brev fra en anden person. Det ER jo skrevet under, men hvor er det bare nervepirrende det her.
We have been quite tired this week. Mainly because I finally (after two weeks of constant reminders) have recieved my last recommendation letter for the Green Card application. The remaining 4 letters were back within 2 days of sending out the email with the templates, but this last one, that has been stalled at a former collaborator, cost a lot of effort to get back. It arrived Wednesday late night in a very bad scan quality and without the institutional letter head that was requested. I got fuming mad. If you really could not bother to sign such a letter, then you could actually just say no when asked, instead of sending such a bunch of crap back. There is nothing I can do about it, so I can just hope the the attornies don`t object and demand another letter. It IS signed after all, but this whole process is nervewrecking.
Heldigvis havde vi en rigtig hyggelig aften med een af mine kolleger og hendes mand torsdag aften. De havde taget cheesecake og portvin med. Bedre gæster fås jo ikke ;-) Det var SÅ hyggeligt og de blev hængende helt til midnat. Fredag blev derfor en anelse lang at komme igennem.....
Luckily we had a really nice evening Thursday where one of my colleagues stopped by with her husband. They brought cheesecake and port wine - better guests are hard to find ;-) It was SUCH a nice evening and they ended up staying til midnight leaving Friday to become a little hard to make it through.
I dag viste vejrudsigten plusgrader. HURRA! Det har jo nærmest føltes som sommer, og hvis jeg kan slippe for knæ dyb sne ved busstoppestederne i næste uge, bliver jeg et noget mere overskudsagtig menneske! Vi lagde alle 5 ud med en tur op i lejeforeningens lille fitness rum. Så var der "nogen" der skulle ud at fodre mus og var nødt til at tage på arbejde (og jeg skal da ellers lige hilse og sige, at det er nogle interessante bekendtskaber man kan gøre sig i bussen på sådan helt almindelig lørdag i februar......). Imens fodrede Kristian børn og pakkede skøjter i bagagerummet for derefter at køre op og hente undertegnede og køre videre til Buhr ice scate arena. En lille udendørs skøjtebane, der udmærkede sig ved at have både børne og voksenstørrelse is-rollator (jeg er mildest talt en idiot til at skøjte men med en is-rollator går det bare lidt bedre). Isen var nu noget bumlet og der var temmeligt mange børn og temmelig høj Disney musik, så det er nok ikke et sted vi har stor trang til at besøge igen. For at højne stemningen lidt faldt valget derfor på en cafetur. Vi endte i Whole Foods, da de har en mega lækker kage afdeling, kaffebar og et lille cafe område. Teresa og jeg købte kaffe, mens drengen betalte kagen og fandt et bord. Mums.
Today the weather forecast was on "thaw". YAY! It almost felt like summer, and if I don`t have to deal with knee high snow at the busstops next week I will instantly turn in to a better person! The 5 of us started out in the little gym where we live. The "someone" had to go to work to feed her mice (and oh boy, one does encounter som very interesting people on a bus ride such a common Saturday in February...........). In the meantime Kristian fed the kids, threw our iceskates in the trunk, and picked me up from work when I was done. From there we went to the Buhr ice skate arena. It was quite nice as it was outdoor and had "walkers" in kids as well as adult size (I am honestly a jerk at skating, and having a walker to clench makes my experience a lot less scary). The ice was kind of bumpy however, there were a LOT of kids and very loud Disney music, so it will probably not be a place we would prefer to go to next time, we want to skate. To improve the moods we decided to throw in a cafe trip. We ended up at Whole Foods, as they have an impressive bakery, coffee and a tiny cafeteria. Teresa and I grabbed the coffees while the boys paid for the cakes and found a table:
Barnes and Nobles ligger lige ved siden af. Og vi sluttede af med glade børn, der brændte lommepenge af på lego, bøger og japanske robotter. Vi købte også et par fødselsdagsgaver til en nyslået 3 årig og en kommende 5 årig hjemme i DK. Og så er vi vist nok kommet til at love ungerne en hund, hvis green card`et går igennem, så der sneg sig også en bog om hunde med i posen........
Barnes and Nobles is right around the corner. And we ended the day with excited kids buying books, lego, and japanese robots for their monthly allowance. We also came across a few birthday present for a very recent 3 year old and a soon-to-be 5 year old back in DK. And then we happened to promise the kids to get a dog, should we manage to get a Green Card and stick around, so a book on choosing dogs also made it into the shopping bag.......
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