A lot has happened so far this year, and a lot more is about to happen. I have pics, so it did happen. TL; DR: I saw K’s Choice again, went to CERN again, went on the JoCo Cruise again, and will be moving to the USA in August. Just read the blue ‘Visa news’ section and the August part if you want to know how the US visa process went.

January: K’s Choice in Gent

🇺🇸Visa news
In mid-January, I got an email that began ‘Thank you for being a valued U.S. Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) customer.’ indicating that I’d finally got past step 1 of the 12-step program for me to quit Austria and go move in with the lovely Joey Marianer in the USA. Thus began a new phase of filling in forms and collecting documents.

On January 26, I went to Gent to see K’s Choice, one of the bands I have seen a fair bit at various places in Europe. I hadn’t them them since they were last in Vienna in 2017, so I missed them. A friend I know from JoCo fandom had suggested we go together. Unfortunately, she was too sick to go, but I did reconnect with someone I met at my very first K’s Choice concert, in Hamont-Achel in 2009.

Sam Bettens, the lead singer of K’s Choice, recently published a book which described (among many other things) his experience of moving to the USA to be with a spouse, as I am about to do. Even though the marriage didn’t work out, living in the USA did, so that was comforting to read about, as I mentioned to him after the show. I had too many things I wanted to say in a short time, and was a little flustered, so I forgot to ask for permission to post videos of the show, but they’ve always given it in the past, so here you go:

February: CERN Third Collisions

🇺🇸Visa news
In early February, I was notified that my Immigrant Visa Case had become Documentarily Qualified, meaning I’d completed step 9 of the process and just had to wait for my interview to be scheduled.

From 9–11 February, CERN had an event called Third Collisions, where CERN alumni could socialise, see some talks, and visit the new Science Gateway exhibits and the LHC experiments underground. I visited ALICE, because it was the only one of the four main detectors that I wasn’t 100% sure I’d seen before.

I haven’t put too much from the CERN visit online yet, but here’s a playlist where I will add videos:

Among other things, the Science Gateway had this tactile model of a particle detector, with an audio description to guide the visitor in feeling around the different parts of it. The various parts of the detector were differentiated with high-contrast colours and textures. Before visiting the Science Gateway, I happened to talk to someone who was involved in developing this; they had many ideas and prototypes for ways to explain particle detectors to blind and low-vision folk, and a lot of feedback from such people, and this is the only finished product that ended up in the exhibit.

Ironically, since I’m editing this post on my iPad, I can’t figure how to add alt text to this picture, but I think the audio description does a better job than I would have.

When I arrived in Vienna ten years ago, I assumed that I would soon forget French to learn German, so I did the DALF C1 exam to have proof that I once knew French. When I arrived in Geneva and had a conversation with a stranger at a bus stop, I realised I neither forgot French nor learned German — it was still so much easier to communicate in French. I did not make the most of this opportunity to learn German. This is partially because of circumstances (having to stop in the middle of four different B1-level German courses for different reasons, spending most of a year in NZ, and another few years hardly going outside due to the pandemic) but mostly because I didn’t put as much effort in. Or at least I didn’t listen to as many podcasts or read as many books in the language. Oh well; my level of German might still impress people in America.

March: JoCo Cruise (and a little MarsCon)

I shouldn’t need to tell you what JoCo Cruise is again. It’s where I met Joey, and thus, ultimately the reason I’m moving to the States. Joey and I stayed in Minnesota for a bit before this year’s cruise, because the flights from there to the cruise were more convenient, and it also gave us a chance to hang out with people we know from the MarsCon Comedy Music Track. As is often the case, MarsCon was on the same weekend as the start of the cruise, so we didn’t get to go, but at least we got to see people who arrived early.

We also saw a Jonathan Coulton and Aimee Mann concert with some friends from MarsCon and the cruise. At the show they mentioned, but did not play, a song Aimee Mann wrote based on a ChatGPT-generated title of a typical Jonathan Coulton song, ‘The Ballad of Captain Quark’. As someone who’s quite interested in quarks, I mentioned to JoCo on the cruise that I’d like to see it, and Aimee sang it at the final concert. Simalot posted video from the red team show and b$ shot this video of it on my camera in the gold team show.

Here is a playlist of the 25 hours, 5 minutes, and 17 seconds of unique JoCo Cruise 2024 footage captured by my cameras (some filmed by Joey on my second camera while I was at other events, some filmed by b$ while I was isolating in the cabin.)

🇺🇸Visa news
On the second-to-last day of JoCo Cruise, while Joey and I were holed up in our cabin getting over whatever lurgy we had caught (Joey tested negative for COVID, but it was an antigen test that didn’t come with instructions, so who knows?) we heard that my immigrant visa interview had been scheduled, which is to say, we’d reached step 10 of the immigration process.

April: US Visa Issued

Okay, I don’t have a video of this, but unless you’re an immigration officer working at the Port of New York and New Jersey in August, you’re not the people I have to prove it to. I heard that my visa was granted almost exactly 24 hours after leaving the visa interview (where they’d already told me I met the requirements, so it was not an agonising wait.) I then picked up my passport with the visa in it during my lunch break the next day.

I have six months from the date of issue to enter the country, at which point they will validate the visa and it will be good for a year, during which time I will receive an actual green card in the mail which will be valid for longer.

I then gave notice at my job and my apartment and figured out a moving company. Joey flew to Vienna not long ago, to help me with moving and then take me home. I am not keeping any of my furniture, so if you’re in Vienna and want some tables, bookcases, or other kinds of shelving or storage, let me know. Most of it has been claimed by now, though.

August: Moving to the USA

Joey and I will take the Queen Mary 2 from Hamburg to New York City, because that seemed like a sufficiently ridiculous way for me to immigrate. In NYC we plan to at least visit Ellis Island (it seems appropriate to do that after immigrating by sea) MoMath, Central Park (mainly because I love the Apple TV+ show by that name), 826NYC, and maybe Club Cumming, if JoCo Cruise 2024 and 2025 guest Daphne Always will be performing there. If you have any other suggestions on what to see in NYC, let me know! We haven’t decided yet when or how we’ll get from there to Joey’s place in the Seattle area.

After that, we’ll likely go to FuMPFest at Con on the Cob in October and MathsJam Annual Gathering (back on this side of the pond) in November, but the future hasn’t been written yet!