With the approval of my work permit renewal application, Anya and I need to get new pictures taken and fingerprinted (again, perhaps they changed!?!). I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post that I snagged two cancellations, one for me in Uppsala, and I sent Anya on a 4 hour train ride north to Sundsvall (62°24′N 17°19′E), which is just a little shy of the farthest north she’s ever been (in Tronheim, Norway, at 63°26′N). She has not been out and about in Sweden much with her demanding studies, so this was a bit of an adventure. It turned out to be a bit stressful as the train was delayed along the way. She was thinking it would be impossible to get to her 12:50 appointment. As the immigration office closes at 1:00 pm, would this be an 8 hour trip for nothing–other than the sightseeing? I suggested that she try anyway, perhaps if they are running late with appointments, the door may not be locked, and she could kingly ask to have a 5-minute appointment.
The train stopped, and she ran to the immigration office, which should have been a leisurely 11-minute walk. She arrived at 12:52 and apologized to the receptionist, explaining the train delay. She was well within the 15-minute acceptable late time and the photo station was open, so she was directed to just step up to it.
She got her photo taken, though she says that with the running and being sweaty, it won’t be a great picture! The good news is that the card should come in the mail before she heads off to university. Whew!
My appointment was not such an ordeal. I checked in, and then I went to the bathroom to change my shirt. I wanted to have a nicer shirt for the photo than the sweaty shirt I had on from biking over on the beginning of a hot day. As soon as I came out of the bathroom, I saw my code on the monitor and heard my name called. I didn’t even sit down. I think they were a bit ahead of schedule or the person ahead of me didn’t show up.
While I was over in that area of town, I went to get a few things in the bigger stores with a bigger selection. I needed a 5 mm bolt to secure one side of a bike fender before returning it to the owner, and I needed a HDMI to VGA adapter for Helsinki’s conference. I will have a PowerPoint to help visualize my presentation, and the notification stated that we are not guaranteed access to both HDMI and VGA outputs from our personal laptops for the digital projector. I didn’t want to be stuck without this adapter.
The rest of the day was filled with editing a paper for presentation, a nap, and returning the bicycle (with the 5 mm bolt in place). My editing goal is to accommodate the session leader’s guidance while still saying what I want to say to get the feedback in a discussion time that I’m hoping to stimulate.
Anya crashed about dinner time, and she’ll be up in the middle of the night probably. At least it is cool at night!
With blessings,
Beth
