I went to the beach today. Ok, well, it's not really true, I quickly stopped by the beach today. I just happened to be near the beach today and figured, well, how often does one get to just quickly drop by the beach to wet her feet in the Atlantic and walk on the soft sand of Coney Island??? Maybe it's because I am from a land-locked country, but to me, it's such an occasion to go to the ocean. But I digress. I really went to Brighton today for a very different reason: it was the beginning of my green card saga. It hopefully won't get much more exciting and adventurous than this though.
One of the things one has to do to become a permanent resident of the US is to go through a medical exam, or so they tell you. What they really mean is that this is a way for a special group of doctors - already rich, I am sure - to get even richer without having to do anything meaningful. These medical exams cannot be done by just any good old doctor, they have to be conducted by so called "civil surgeons", specially designated by the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). They have a long list of these doctors on their website, searchable by zip code of course, like everything else in the US. So back when I first found out about my green card victory, I looked up this list, and happily concluded that there were many many qualified doctors in the area who can sign my form when the time comes.
The time has come. And my illusions have gone. After calling almost all the civil surgeons on the island of Manhattan, I had to conclude that this was all a big conspiracy between the US government, the immigration service and doctors! The average civil surgeon in Manhattan charges $200 to conduct this exam, which is a basic physical. Not even: it's filling out an immunization form basically. The only reasonably priced civil surgeon I found on the island of Manhattan was this guy down in Chinatown. His assistant wasn't at all nice on the phone but I figured it'd be worth it if it was going to be cheap. Just to double check, I googled he doctor (as we know, google knows everything!): it turns out he had had a malpractice lawsuit against him in the 90's and had lost his license for 3 years! These are the kinds of doctors the US government trusts! Going down the list, I finally realized that I had to go to one of the outer boroughs to find a reasonable doctor. And finally, I found the one: Avenue X Medical Associates in Brooklyn! The assistant in that office was the first one to speak to me respectfully and kept calling me "honey" and told me to bring all my records and if everything was in order, it would just be $50 for the form. No need to take blood, run tests that have already been run before. Thank god!
Brighton is definitely the closest I have ever been to Russia. It's actually a very cute area of Brooklyn, with small streets lined with single family houses and smaller apartment buildings, children playing ball on the sidewalks, EVERYBODY speaking Russian! It's also super close to the ocean, Coney Island is just a few avenues away and there is a nice, completely separated bike road all the way from Prospect Park along Ocean Parkway.
After 2 trips to Brighton, I now have my medical forms filled out, signed and sealed in an envelope, ready to be sent to the USCIS. I had to pay the $50 in cash, no record this has ever happened - how Eastern European - but who cares? I saved over $100, they didn't have to run unnecessary tests: everybody's happy! As I walked out of the office, they said "dasvidaniya", I said "dasvidaniya" and that was it. I hope the rest of my quest for this green card will go just as smoothly.
I had an hour or so to kill before having to head back to the city so I took a walk out to the beach, dipped my feet in the water, had a Mister Softee cone, listened to sound of the waves. I think I'll take my bike out there this weekend, need to change things up a bit from always riding by the Hudson. And seeing the ocean just makes me so happy :)
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