Visiting and Visas

So it’s been a very busy 2 weeks since I last wrote! Our new house is still going really well. We even bought a fridge together and we just managed to fit it down our street with about 2cm to spare!  We’re both loving living in the medina too. It’s so much easier for Karim’s work, he can come back and have a siesta between tours! And in the evenings we’re just a few minutes’ walk from all the cafes, so we finish every day with mint tea and some pumpkin seeds (which I’ve become obsessed with) and sit to watch the world go by. 

I only had a week to unpack and settle in though before I jetted off to England for a week. Although my holiday was nearly over before it had begun because the passport control man nearly didn’t let me in the country! Apparently he didn’t believe I had enough money to support myself because I didn’t have enough cash (seriously, who uses cash these days?) or my bank statement or payslips. It was a very stressful 15minutes and he nearly made me miss my bus. But thankfully he let me through and I was in England!

I spent a few days with my sister in Brighton and a few days with some friends in London. And I was busy the whole week! I got my haircut, went winter clothes shopping, saw Harry Potter (finally!), ate a lot of ham and bacon, ate a lot of Asian food, ate a lot of minstrels (that was for you meags), drank some cider, watched English TV (a lot of ‘come dine with me!’), went out to dinner, went to a comedy night, went to the Camden markets, the list goes on! It was a very enjoyable week! So another thank you to my hosts – Sister Sophie and Ness and Haylee. It was great to catch up with you all and hopefully I will catch up with you again next year!

So with a few essential items from the supermarket (broccoli, cheddar cheese and wraps) and a train, bus, plane and taxi ride later, I was back home in Fes. Driving from the taxi I was struck with how different those 2 worlds are, but how comfortable I feel in both. It was so easy going from dodging donkeys through the narrow streets of Fes to waiting for the green man to cross the wide clean streets of London. Although the cold wasn’t as easy to adapt to. England is cold! And the weather when I was there wasn’t even that bad. But here in Fes – we’re still sleeping with the fan on! So as nice as it was to have a mini holiday in England, it was nice to come back to Karim and to our home here. Still for another 6.5 weeks.

And finally, we had a very momentous day today. For the last 2 months or so we have been trying to gather together all the necessary paperwork for Karim’s visa application to live in Australia. The final piece of the puzzle, Karim’s passport, arrived when I was in England so we put everything together and sent it off today! I have thought of nothing else basically for the last 2 months, and it has already caused a lot of stress and tears, so it’s definitely a relief to have it in. And now it is out of our hands. They say the decision can take up to 12 months, so we still have a long and uncomfortable wait ahead of us with our fingers and toes permanently crossed! Feel free to put in some positive thinking on our behalf and hopefully one day our dream will come true!

The empty cinema for Harry Potter

Pudding time in London with Haylee and Kez!

On the tube with Ness

Waiting for the show to start

Pub meal with soph

Juicy delicious steak and cider

750g of paperwork

Karim and the visa application. Fingers crossed!