Day 12 (prologue): Culture Shock, or How to Pump Gas

Early Morning of October 25, 2014 In South Africa, when you pull up to a gas station, they have service attendants. This concept is mostly foreign to Americans, unless you live in New Jersey. So when I stopped to get gas on our way to Destin, he started asking me all these questions about the process…

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Days 11, 17, & 18: First Halloween

First Halloween Halloween this year was pretty stretched out for us because there were a number of events I had to/wanted to participate in before the day of Halloween. This being Efrem’s first Halloween EVER, I was pretty hype, but before he even arrived here I got a lot of pushback about participating in Halloween–mostly the whole dressing…

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Day 12: Meet the Parents

October 25, 2014 Throughout our two years of dating and these last 10 months of paperwork to obtain the fiancé visa, my parents still had never met Efrem. Sure there was kind of a phone call here, and a skype conversation, there, but Efrem had never come to the US and my parents had never…

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Day 11: Getting a Social Security Number

October 24, 2014 I’ve been making myself nervous to go to the social security office, fearing that they would give us a hard time, not understanding his status and his paperwork. I looked up what I would need on the social security website for a noncitizen, and whether he would be eligible, and when that…

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