My friend Nuria flew back to Costa Rica Friday. The trip from Richmond, Virginia to San Jose, Costa Rica took about 14 hours. That included layovers in Chicago and Houston.
Now I'm home. The house is quiet. But I video chatted with Nuria twice today, and we had a Duolingo Spanish language session via Skype. It's nice to be able to do those things. It hasn't been that long ago when, if you wanted to talk to a distant friend, you wrote a letter to them and in a few days you might receive a reply. Or you picked up the phone and made a long distance call. I don't know what a long distance call from Virginia to Costa Rica would have cost in those days, but it probably wasn't cheap.
Nuria wants to return in November and stay for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But her plans are at the mercy of USCIS: United States Customs and Immigration Service. They can be capricious. You can have your visa and passport and everything is in order, then an immigration officer doesn't like your accent or the look of your clothes or whatever, and he says to you, "You can't enter the U.S. this time." And just like that, you are sent back home. I'm sure that breaks the hearts of many would-be visitors.
Sunday is a half hour away. I'm 30 minutes from midnight. I think I'll look for an evening news video on YouTube and watch it before I go to bed, because an 11:30PM bedtime still seems early for me.
Goodnight, all.
1 comment:
Buenos días. Sorry to hear that your friend is back to her country. I bet you miss her, she has been a great company and help for you. She will be back. I'm glad you think positive and she needs that too. Good luck with your plans, you deserve to be happy.
Nice post!
TA
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