The Js are Silent

By Rory

We’ve had a lot of excitement in the last few weeks—its kept us busy, so it’s been a bit of a challenge to keep up with the blog. But here we go….

We’re legal!

The biggest news is that we finally received our residency permits, nearly 11 months after applying. Until last week, we were living here on tourist visas, which were due to run out May 1. We were told by those in the know that the processing time for these things is 6 – 8 months, but ours took a bit longer. From what we understand, the influx of refugees from Ukraine and other trouble spots has created cases that are a lot more urgent than ours. So, it took a while. But now we’ve graduated from mere tourists to temporary residents, which will keep us here until March of 2024.

The twist to that decision is that we had to pick up our residency permits in the place where we applied, which for us was the Slovenian Embassy in Washington D.C. In short order we had to get everything together to make the trip in mid-April, which I’ll detail below. That’s a silly policy that comes with its own carbon footprint, especially considering that the permits themselves originated in an office about 3 km from our place, and then mailed overseas to Washington.

On our way: A stopover on the way to Washington in a fancy new terminal at Charles de Gaulle airport.

With the residency permits, we can now get our belongings out of customs, our bank can now list our Ljubljana address (they still have us living in Oakland), we can get library cards, we can go to the doctor for non-urgent appointments, we can get health insurance (not just travelers insurance like we have now), we can get drivers licenses—all sorts of privileges we used to take for granted.

On the first item, we expect a big delivery of the things we shipped from Oakland 3 ½ months ago tomorrow, May 8. This will be kind of like opening up a time capsule of our state of mind when we left Oakland. I’m sure there are a number of things in that delivery where we’ll ask “what the hell were we thinking when we packed that?”

Now, about our trip….

London

We had bought tickets and made tentative plans to see one of our favorite singer-songwriters Laura Veirs in London. So, the need to go to D.C. worked out well—a stop in London is right on the way. Because Krista has never seen London (besides the airport), and because I haven’t been there since the 90s, we stayed there for 5 days. In that time, we went to three world class museums, all of them completely free: Victoria and Albert, National Gallery, and the Design Museum. We also walked around the city a lot, happening on all sorts of stuff all about the Coronation, including a big set up in front of Buckingham Palace.

The Victoria and Albert Museum

National Gallery

The London Underground

Laura Veirs is a Portland-based songwriter who seems to have a big following in London. She played at a venue called the Roundhouse—looked like about 1,500 to 2,000 people, a lot more than she ever played for in the Bay Area. One of the big draws for this show was that she put together something of a super-group as her back-up band that played in only two cities – London and Brooklyn, New York. It was wonderful to hear her songs with the interesting arrangements that the band provided. She was on fire and having a great time playing with the band, it was really fun and energizing to see musicians enjoying themselves so much.

L to R: Charlotte Greve, Laura Veirs, Shahzad Ismaily, Sam Amidon, Karl Blau,

We also caught up with Martin, a distant cousin of mine. We had a great pub lunch (Rory – fish and chips and Krista – veggie curry pot pie and mash) and caught each other up on things. We plan on a return visit in November to visit all the other relatives I have, who are all living in various areas around, but not in, London. We are looking forward to exploring Romsey and environs.

Washington DC

We only had a couple of days in D.C. but managed to take a nice walk around the Tidal Basin, visit the Roosevelt and MLK memorials, as well as spend a day at the new-ish, and great, National Museum of African American History and Culture (also free!). We need to go back and explore more, that museum deserves two days. So interactive and well-curated.

We also got in a nice walk up Embassy Row on our way to Slovenia’s small, quiet embassy—we were the only ones there. And we had a brief catch up and a pint with my colleague Leah from the Pacific Environment days, who we hadn’t seen in many years. Such a nice treat!

From the FDR Memorial

The Jefferson Memorial at the Tidal Basin

From the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This display simulates what it was like to drive while black in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era.

Back Home

It was funny to think that coming “back home” meant flying back to Ljubljana. But certainly, it was good to be back—being in two big, bustling cities was a nice reminder of why we chose this more laid-back community to put down stakes for a while. It felt good to know that for the time being we “belong” here.

And of course, it was good to see Chester again – it was a little unnerving to leave him with a new pet-sitter after everything we’ve put him through, but he adapted well and the sitter was really attentive to both Chester and our anxieties.