As many of you may know, I am in the US on a temporary exchange visitor visa (J-1), and my stay has been extended for an extra year. My visa, however, expires on Sep. 30th. This is usually not a big problem since I am formally allowed to stay in the US even after my visa is expired, as long as my fellowship is valid. However, without a valid visa I’m not allowed to return to the US.
Applying or extending a US visa has to be done outside the US, and requires leaving your passport at a US embassy for at least a few days while your visa is processed, so it is recommended to do so in your home country (in my case, Israel) to avoid being stuck at a foreign country with no passport at all.
No problem I thought, I will go to Israel for the High Holidays right at the end of September and extend my visa then. The problem began when I realized I have a conference in Beijing, China right at the same time (end of September till the beginning of October), which means I will not be able to return to the US after visiting China without a valid visa.
I checked the option of flying round-the-world SFO-NRT-PEK-AMS-TLV-AMS-SFO, however that was too expensive. The only option I had was to fly round-trip to China and then to Israel the long way through San Francisco. Due to my visa problems, I will make my stay in San Francisco only a few hours long and so I could use a transit visa instead of my expired J-1 visa, which will hopefully not terminate my J-1 status. My final itinerary will therefore be SFO-NRT-PEK-NRT-SFO-AMS-TLV-AMS-SFO, that’s 30,000 miles of flying, crossing two oceans twice, with the PEK-TLV part being almost 10,000 miles longer than the direct route, and 7,000 miles longer than the reasonable Amsterdam connection.
As far as booking is concerned, I have already changed my return flight to Israel and I will be arriving on Yom Kippur, October 10, 2008 at 1:10 AM. Hopefully, the flight won’t be full of religious folk…
June 11th, 2008 at 03:07
Posted by
epsalon |
Bureaucracy, USA, Travel |
2 comments
After finally submitting a paper to the Computational Social Choice workshop in Liverpool, and some advances with our computational pool player, I decided to head North to the Hiller Aviation Museum at San Carlos Airport. I arrived just on time for a guided tour of the museum and went on to use the flight simulators to try and land a Cessna 172.
Now, you probably ask why this post is titled SQL. Well, it turns out that SQL is the IATA code of San Carlos Airport (and no, it’s not because Oracle’s head office is nearby). Anyway, I managed to fly a simulated airplane from SQL to SFO and then under the golden gate bridge and finally land at PAO (Palo Alto Airport).
Speaking of museums, this Monday I have visited the Computer History Museum, which was closed, and finally donated our old DRAGON-32 computer for display there.
June 8th, 2008 at 01:18
Posted by
epsalon |
Leisure, Academia, USA |
3 comments
You may think I’m being inconsiderate, but it seems that the title of this post was actually uttered on radio here in the US. Memorial day, a federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May commemorates the dead of the US civil war and further deaths of US servicepeople. However, due to the long weekend timing at the beginning of summer, it has become an important time for outing, picnics, and other fun activities.
In contrast, memorial day in Israel is not a holiday, and it is a day before independence day. To ensure the correct atmosphere, all entertainment venues are closed by law, and the TV and radio screen sad films and documentaries, in addition to live broadcasts the official ceremonies.
Back to the US, I spent this year’s memorial day weekend at KublaCon, the annual bay area gaming convention. The Convention features all types of non-computer gaming, from miniatures to LARPs, boardgames to RPGs. The convention lasted four days Friday-Monday, but I decided not to go on Monday. It was held in a hotel near San Francisco airport. I registered onsite for $50, and got a badge and a wristband. I spent most of the weekend playing dozens for boardgames with many different players of all ages from 8 to 80.
On the second day of the conference I registered for a Settlers of Catan tournament. After winning two of three games, I broke to the semi-finals that were held the next day. In the semis, in a very close game, I came in tied for second with 9 points (out of 10). Later that day, I have then spent many more hours playing all kinds of boardgames with people I could find, including a very smart 11 year old girl, who managed to play very well and come in second in several games in a row, until finally winning a game of Tsuro. It turns out that her father, who joined us for some of the games, owns a game store nearby and can get me good deals on games.
All in all, KublaCon was lots of fun and well worth the money. Now I have memorial day to rest before going back to work tomorrow.
May 27th, 2008 at 05:09
Posted by
epsalon |
American Culture, Gaming |
2 comments
… But what an eventful week it was! For those of you that don’t know, last week I have flown back from Israel, and this week I’m flying to a conference in Portugal.
Some people (ahem, ahem) have commented on the lack of personal perspective in this blog, and it being just a dry collection of facts. Hopefully this post will be an improvement in that regard.
I know I haven’t posted in a while. This is a result of a combination of two seemingly contradicting things: there was nothing to write about, and I was too busy. Well, now, from my first class seat on NW272 SFO-MEM, I can tell you all the news.
BREAKING NEWS: I was just notified by a flight attendant that I have left my passport in SFO. This is very bad since my next flight is international. I will check with the staff at Memphis about how to get it back.
Until we land, I’ll tell you about our planned German family reunion. It seems that 4 out of my 5 immediate family members will be at Saabrücken with me the coming weekend touring around and playing boardgames.
I’m now really worried about the passport issue and hope I could board the SFO-AMS flight without it and also pass the passport control at AMS, since my I-94 has already been affixed to my boarding pass.
May 13th, 2008 at 04:36
Posted by
epsalon |
Portugal, Frequent Flyer, Personal, USA, Travel |
one comment
My 11B seat in the KLM 747 was comfortable, but the flight was delayed for about an hour while they tried to fix the broken entertainment system. The entertainment system on the KLM 747 economy cabin consists basically of TVs around the cabin that play some bad movies — not a big loss. In fact, it’s easier to concentrate without those stupid TVs.
However, KLM thought this was a serious discomfort and offered all passengers compensation vouchers for 2000 miles and a 50 EUR discount on a future KL/AF/NW flight of 150 EUR or more. I already cashed in the miles voucher, and will try to sell the discount voucher on eBay.
In between the flight I had a long layover (about 11 hours). I started my layover by visiting the KLM lounge and checking my e-mails and stuff. Then, I left my bag behind and took the train to Amsterdam, where I started to walk aimlessly among the canals. At that point I decided I have to actually go somewhere, and looked up the address of the ILLC using an open wifi hotspot, and using Google Maps mobile, I got directions on how to get there.
After about half an hour of walking I arrived, uninvited, at the ILLC. I walked among the corridors looking for recognizable names, and found a former colleague and co-author of mine, Khalil Sima’an, who was meeting with an Israeli student of his. After they concluded their meeting, they came over to talk to me. We talked about my whereabouts and my current academic direction, and concluded when they both had to leave. I finished my visit by walking towards the general direction of the train station, and then back to the airport.
In the airport, I rested at the lounge and went (too early, as usual) to the gate. After a small delay, the plane was boarded and took off. However, as the plane was almost full and lots of people were religious jews, it took forever for the cabin crew to hand out all the special (mostly Kosher) meals. The problem was, that they would not start beverage service, or even give water until this was over, which means I was basically dehydrated for more than two hours. I have written a complaint to KLM.
In the flight itself, I was seated next to two young women who were flying alone. One was connecting from New York to visit family for passover, while the other was a dutch citizen coming to visit her long-distance Israeli boyfriend. The nice conversations and sleep compensated for the lack on an entertainment system on this flight (which is standard for KLM 737s).
Now I’m in my brother’s house in Hertzeliya, and will come home for the “Seder” tomorrow afternoon.
For my detailed travel plans and locations, see my travel calendar.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:40
Posted by
epsalon |
Frequent Flyer, Family, Academia, USA |
2 comments
