Read the story of our journey on how we met and when we met together with our first meeting in real life!
Dated: 12 July 2010
This page will unfold the incredible love story of Stein Eikesdal a.k.a. Stone Oakvalley (36), Norway and Cherry May Saflor (27) , General Santos City, Philippines meeting for the first time in real after 1.4 years of 24/7 Skype and webcam communication. Since April 2009 we have waited to join hands. Since 12th July 2009 we have been engaged and since October 2009 we have waited for UDI to process our Engagement / Fiance Permit to become a reality. In addition to that, our application had missing papers and a appeal was forwarded on 26th of July 2010 (after we get denial on 19th July 2010)...and finally we get our approval confirmation early July 2011!
We are so happy that we managed to endure the long wait, but those who wait for something good can wait forever, until forever happens to become today!. Now we can focus on getting married.
Under: 10th July 2010, a everyday capture of how we have communicated for the recent 15 months. You can’t imagine the wait we had to endure. It’s beyond anything a human should be put through. But we are strong. We are in fact superheroes now.
Under: 11th July 2010. Stein waiting at the norwegian airport, ready for the flight to Amsterdam-Manila-General Santos city.
Under: 11th July 2010. Stein waiting at the Amsterdam schiphol for around 4-5 hours before the dreadfull flight to Manila that will last for 12 hours or something. Cherry May is notified when possible about my wherabouts.
Under: 13th July 2010. After a very hard flight trip with almost no or bad sleep for 30 hours since the departure from Nedre Vats, Stein and Cherry May finally can join hands and relax. And, oh, my old crappy Nokia 3510i cell phone stopped working after Amsterdam. Here we are at the Hotel Tierra Montana in General Santos City the first two days. Temperature: 30 degrees. We call it our first date, with many dates to come every day. Everyday is dating day now.
Under: 13th July 2010. Going to Cherry May’s home and having some drinks and meet relatives and local friends. We had a good night, singing into Cherry May’s awesome Video Karoke system, its a real party gadget! hehe, then we teach Cherry's mother to take the photo for us!
Under: 14th July 2010: Here we are at Cherry May's home where it all started...behind a web camera. Feels strange and good to be on the other side now after the horrible wait we had gone through. Later today we'll go back to hotel and also visit Cherry May's home where she grew up and lived for 21 years which was near the sea.
Under: 15th and 16th July: Its time to find a taxi, trikes we call them here. A motorbike with a house attached to it. Cherry and Stein outside the hotel in the street to find a ride back to Cherry's family again. Or maybe we just throw the driver out and take care of the matter ourselves:-)
Under: 18th July: We went to a river resort to eat, drink and relax. It was very hot and we had to keep mostly in the shades. A lot of action in this place, people swimming and doing a lot of karokee singing.
Under: 19-25th July: After some issues with our VISA case, we had to go to the embassy in Manila to straighten some things out regarding what appears to be missing papers in our Engagement Permit which got lost either in Cyberspace. So all we had to do was apply for an appeal on 26th of July 2010. Now we wait. Additionally, in September we sent even 36 pages of additonal papers to conform with the new requirements and we should receive a positive answer within 9-11 months.
Under: 26-29th July 2010. Change of hotel room due to a noisy airconditioner which gave us a better view of Manila, Makati City, and its time for Stein to head back home to Norway. Cherry May cannot join me this time as we have to wait for a re-appeal for our engagement permit due to missing papers in the original appplication. We do hope and wish for that we can meet and hold hand again before Christmas 2010 in Norway.
Stein and Cherry May plan to go back to General Santos City and meet up with their family again as a married couple in 2012. Not only will we go back to visit Cherry May's hometown again, but we will also marry down there to get everything right and let her family experience the marriage in their own way too.
