SnowyTater

All of South Carolina is a no go area.

Driving from Columbia to downtown Charleston at night can be a bit terrifying. The road's usually abandoned, there's very few exits to stop at for gas, you start seeing a lot of deer and getting scared they're gonna jump out in front of you and you'll hit them and die and no one will find you for hours, or someone will come out of the woodwork with a pitchfork and a hungry look. Kind of Texas Chain Saw Massacrey.

The crime is pretty bad too, I think much worse than upstate SC....I don't know. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me, I mean it doesn't personally affect my life as crappy as that sounds. Most people in downtown won't walk around at night by themselves but I do it all the time. I've never really had much contact with N. Charleston but it is meant to be worse.

Unfortunately I think if you're from the UK you're probably in for a little culture shock no matter where you go in the US. Just because of the gun thing if nothing else. (well I don't know, maybe isn't London kind of bad, too, or Glasgow or Manchester or something?). But yeh our household at least is one of those where you have a gun for 'just in case' stuff though that doesn't really make sense, and then there's my dad's hunting guns, and then my mom keeps a gun in her car because she goes hiking a lot and bad things happen to hikers. First time Iain saw one around he seemed properly freaked out for awhile.

Oh it's right at Waterfront Park? o_O Wow I have to say I have no idea where/what this place is, doesn't ring a bell...there's a couple hotels and a barber's and really schmancy restaurants just there. Bet it blends in with one of the schmancy restaurants.

I never get to go out

Omg Thomas, yes, THE reason I went to church so many years when I was little (I figured out the taste was worth the evil even then) was for those potluck sunday dinners from all those old people Oh...oh oh oh. Hopefully everyone moving around here has a good family basis to go eat all the food of on Thanksgiving and Easter and whatnot. Everyone's in for it

I think we do fried fish pretty good too...I'm not a seafood person at all though so I can't say. All you fish and chippers should maybe try our fish camps when you get over here Iain was horrified at the idea but I think they're awesome. Partitioned penitentiary plates, big hunks of deep fried and battered fish, chips, slaw, or whatever southern sides you want probably (in the state where mac and cheese is found under the vegetable section ), and of course the very best thing about fish camps is the hushpuppies Mmmmm.

If ya'l are all tea drinkers you have to see how you like iced sweet tea too...it took Iain awhile to get used to it but now he drinks tons of it. But I think every town is going to have it's great southern food place to go to, just it's not going to be a chain and you have to find out by reputation where you're meant to go...like in my hometown it's Wade's, which was started in like the 50's by one little old lady for her husband so he didn't have to eat cold lunches at work, and then the other men wanted in on the cooking, and it grew and grew So cute. And also can't ignore the slightly different also awesome black/cajun/whatever cooking you'll find too. To be honest I'd think they probably do the fish fries and things like sweet potato pie better than the regular southern places.

31 cents? That's really weird...

It was like "customer appreciation day" or something at BR yesterday and they do it at all locations, or are meant to, but I thought they were all FREE. Ours is free

And it's very cute come on, one scoop of whatever flavor and you get a cone if you want and I went for the first time ever, always bypassed before...expecting a mad rush but it was actually very nice. I don't even think you could probably buy other ice cream if you wanted to that day, think the register was shut...

I like the way ours did it better than this 31 cents stuff, seems silly :\ Ours was just free, so tons faster I reckon, but still charity set up so most people that aren't complete ahems drop in a buck or two.

OOHHH You know what I just realized ours was Ben and Jerry's not Baskin Robbins. No wonder. Pssh BR never even been there.

Ben and Jerry's rocks They're also the ones here that give you free ice cream for going and donating blood. Their PR people are nice and smart

I heard the news talking a few weeks ago about someone possibly having found a really huge load of oil in Alaska that would like...more than double our domestic sources, or something big like that. It was a really excited, though cautiously so, story, and then I never heard anything else...

I'm glad all of you think the economy's getting better because I don't know jack about this stuff but trying to pick up on what I can from the news sources scares the heck out of me. I am/was starting to believe that it wasn't simply a recession but was pretty much permanent, since so much of it is meant to be hinged on oil, which I don't think is going to go back down that drastically, and not anytime soon.

Meh...top priority in a couple weeks when I'm out of college and actually have the time is going and getting all the How to Not Be an Idiot in Life for Dummies books that'll tell me what all this stuff means and how to play it. The extent of my hopes just now is very small-scale like "Gee I hope the exchange rate stays crappy a little bit longer so fiance's savings are doubled ".

I can't have very high prospects about my salary, I don't think. No idea what I'll end up doing but I'm an English major so I'm not going to be anywhere close to six figures like...ever, probably I bet you can still make some pretty good investments on $30k though, right?

I'm scared of it though. My mom screwed up somehow big a few years ago and lost five figures worth, basically her entire savings for my and my sister's college education, I think I don't think I want to do anything that risky.

I'm so not reading this Omg.

Your dog looks really drunk Very cute though

I think you should name her after someone in your family, someone's parent or something. My fiance's mother had a pet pig for awhile that she named after her mom and she also had a bunch of clucky chickens that she named after all of her mom's gossip friends

I'd help if you want because I'm so close to being done with college forever and it'll give me great pleasure to know that someone else is doing homework while I'm totally not

But I don't think I'd be much use. SO is British and we're still early in the process - thoroughly uninteresting subject.

Why don't you use VJ's stats? Make a note that they're not professionally done or 100% accurate, but they are pretty dang good indicators. I think USCIS probably has a lot of stuff up too.

Just use your dad as the co-sponsor.

No G325 for your dad, just the I-134. Nothing else to fill out but he (as well as you) need to provide evidence showing your income. This means tax returns (lots of people send in the past 3 years' worth), a letter from employers, letter from the bank, paystubs, etc. If your dad's well over the poverty limit then he doesn't need to send every single piece of evidence in, only "sufficient" proof of his salary. Tax returns is usually best bet and I'd send in the letter from his employer too.

Yeh...

..there ain't nothing in Anderson xD

Stick it behind all of them, I wouldn't separate the four forms, might cause some confusion. Put yours behind your 325 and your SO's behind his/hers. In little ziplock baggies is what most people do, I think.

I've never seen that golden syrup stuff here, no...Gah, I was so mad the first time I had to have that. Was just last summer I think. Me and Iain made french toast and went out to get syrup for it. Silly me thinking we were buying REAL syrup, not thick honey beeswax shite. Ah

'fraid not, sorry

Baby's got his medical TOMORROW though Aaahhh.

Amber if you're still dieting you might have seriously shrunk. Mine did. Seriously seriously annoying

Oh dear you're in the Highlands...I wonder how thick your accent is. You're doomed xD

Lots of Scots down in the south though, historically or ancestrally or whatever. You might be nagged into the Highland festivals that take place yearly in lots of places around here

As for the Griffin in Charleston, I'm pretty sure I've passed it and know what you're talking about. Is it a pub on Broad street with big wooden tables and wooden bar and everything?...I've actually always thought it looked very nice and like a 'man's man' bar, not stuck up at all. I've actually wanted to go there a few times but I never have anyone to go out with. But yeh if that's the same one it's still there and I reckon it is english though I don't know if they have any of the traditional english pub food or imported beers or anything.

There is a lot more religion down here, you'd better be ready for that. Lots of baptist churches every quarter mile with sometimes obnoxious signs telling you how you're going to burn in hell. But I don't think it's a big obstacle, you can assume most people you bump into are religious but it doesn't like run their lives or anything.

Myrtle Beach does suck but I've heard the suburban areas around it are actually pretty nice. Maybe you should look into those?

and finally...

I cannot begin to tell you how much Cracker Barrel SUCKS and isn't like southern food at all, what's wrong with you all My goodness.

Read another story of it this morning on msnbc.com, it's probably still up. I was under the impression that she'd been in there her entire life - like somehow maybe the mother thought the baby had died in birth, and the father stole her away or something :\ But no he "lured" her in when she was 18, it said, yeh...

As for noise, it was a separate bunker sort of building and apparently soundproof. News said the other 3 kids that were taken out of the bunker would be playing soccer and such right there in the yard above/beside the building He left the first two boys that were born ini there and then I reckon he realized when she kept getting pregnant (SEVEN TIMES) that all those children wouldn't fit in there. Had the babies left on their house's doorsteps with a fake note from the daughter (or maybe he forced her to write it) saying that she was off like...screwing around somewhere and couldn't take care of the kids. The mother thought she'd ran away.

Sadly much much more horrible things DO happen on a daily basis I know this is enjoying lots of company up there with the worst of evils. MSNBC's story had some quotes from the town saying they should all be ashamed of themselves and that neighbors are turning a blind eye, and did cite the other kidnap sort of stories from last year. I don't think it's Austria's fault at all but you do wonder...that many years and no one, especially the wife, saw the husband going down into the bunker with lots of food and emerging empty handed, or presumably with trash sometimes. Lots of times with diapers from babies...kind of scary.

But yeh no the 3rd world sex trade deals that go on in mass, and that mostly anglo men are taking advantage of, are on a much grander scale than this, I agree. And we don't hear nearly as much about it.

I don't get one because my mommy claimed me as a dependent!!!!

Then it might have been deported O_O

No idea who that is, sorry o_O Try PM'ing him?

....

That's great lady Hopefully your case will go a lot faster now.

In any case, you're almost through to the Philippines where things are meant to move a lot faster. You'll be together soon

Hi David,

You sound good to me on your affidavit evidence I don't think you need paystubs but if you have any throw them in there, why not. But the London Embassy's site says it wants at least two of four pieces of evidence (tax returns, bank letter, employment letter, or "other") so you're totally good to go. Sounds like the tax return basically is the biggie guarantee people usually use.

As for the signature question...so your co-sponsor is married, you're saying? I don't think this means that the co-sponsor's spouse also has to sign at all. Your co-sponsor presumably makes a big enough salary to meet all of the requirements, so his/her ties to his/her spouse shouldn't matter as far as I know, even if they have joint bank accounts or something.

If you can't get a definite answer, you can always do this: Have just the one co-sponsor sign, and then attach a sheet to the form saying that the co-sponsor's spouse is fully supportive of the sponsorship as well, and then have them sign and date it. I wouldn't have them both sign the form though, definately, that doesn't seem like the proper procedure to me and might get rejected.

...LOL xD

They're not going to look at all that, come on. If you want to condense it to just a couple represent sections of conversations, I think that's fine. Just highlight the dates if they appear anywhere so they see 'oh this is when'. Other than that they don't care. Emails will also work, but I think they'll be more interested in seeing pictures, new flight details if you're going to have any, phone records, etc. too. Just try to have as wide a variety of samples as you can without overdoing it. Either way you're going to be fine.

But don't give them 130 pages of conversations.

People keep getting danged BOOKS published on their online relationships and making bunches of money just off of their old chat logs...kind of makes me mad just because I didn't get there first

Hi again.

I've never "officially" heard much about the HPV shot, let alone it being free. But in the US we have health departments in every town (or most towns I guess) in every state that give free treatment to people that are uninsured. They especially do this for things that will like...help prevent bad things happening or help general society. For example, I'm about to be uninsured because I'm about to graduate college (omg doom), but I can start going to the health clinic in my town to get free whatchamacallit lady's check up thing with the big scary metal clamps and Q-tip and free birth control pills, rather than paying tons at my private doctor's.

So since this is also a sex STD prevention sort of thing it probably will be available for free in many areas. I think it will depend on what state you're going to live in, so just try googling your SO's state's health department site. Whether or not they do it will depend on their funding and state legislation.

Here's a link just to an old article, for example: here

About halfway down the page it says that there's already a program for the vaccination to be free for teenage girls. Then the last sentence is like I just said, that some state clinics will be offering the vaccine for free. This article's from 2006 so there's probably a good few of them doing it now.

Hope yours is one

Can we make a topic on like every single food and drink we can think of? I'm so glad other people get excited about food too.

Irn bru's alright...ginger beer omg blegh I'm going over in two weeks, can't wait After seeing baby it really is all about going and getting that british curry and chinese and coronation chicken salad stuff and mmm ...

What if I'm not really in love with fiance but just associate him with all the food?!?!?!? :'(