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| Emigration Timeline |
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Below you will find the timeline of our emigration:
Vodafone aanounces it will open a second Head Quarters in Amsterdam. Dennis' position is one of the positions that will operate from Amsterdam in the future. This means that Dennis' job will be moving to Amsterdam: our choice is then to move with the job to Amsterdam, or say goodbye to Vodaone. After having talked and thought about it for a long time, on January 9 we made the decision that we were going to move to America. Neither of us felt like moving to Amsterdam, because neither of us think we will be able to settle and feel at home there. Besides that, both where income and housing is concerned we would have to give up more than we're willing to do for this job. Especially with Anna's fibromyalgia, which means she has to find suitable work (limited computerwork), we both believe our chances are much better in America. Hence our decision to move to Colorado in 2008. After reading a lot about the entire emigration procedure, and after a thorough preparation during which we gather more paperwork and documents than we will be needing, on May 19, 2008, we went to the American Consulate in Amsterdam, to file Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative. With handing in this form, the procedure for applying for Dennis' Legal Permanent Residency has officially started. At the Consulate they said that the envelope with the paperwork needed for the next step would be sent within the next ten to fifteen days. Within five days, however, we already received the envelope. The envelope contained the instructions for the next steps, plus the necessary forms (like for instance Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, and Form DS-2001, Notification of Applicant Readiness). Now it was time to get all the necessary tax forms from Anna's mother, needed for my sponsorship. Now that we had all the necessary papers and completed forms, we could send in Form DS-2001, Notification of Applicant Readiness, to the Consulate. After having checked all forms over and over for completeness and accuracy, we sent Form DS-2001 with accompanying documents to the Consulate on July 16, 2008. Now it was time to wait for the next step. We also bought are tickets for our departure on October 28, 2008 that day. The day after we sent in the Notification of Applicant Readiness, we received a phone call from the American Consulate to make an appointment for the Final Visa Interview. The date was set: August 25, 2008, at 1:30 pm. On Friday, July 18, at 2:00 pm an envelope from the Consulate arrived, containing the instructions and forms for making an appointment for the medical exam. Making an appointment was only possible until 1:00 pm, so it had to wait until the next week. The Tuesday after receiving the papers for the medical exam we got a phone call from the Consulate: still no appointment had been made for the medical exam, and it had to be done right after the phone call. After hanging up we made appointments for both the medical exam and the X-ray: July, 31 at 9:30 am for the X-ray, at 11:00 am for the medical exam. On Thursday, July 31 we went to Amsterdam for the X-ray and the medical exam. Unless something was found in the blood. we would hear nothing more from the exam. At the Final Visa Interview at the Consulate the X-ray would be returned to us, which we then would have to take with us to America. On Thursday, August 7 someone from KHZ, the moving company, came by for the volume estimation. Depending on what we would decide on taking, the volume of our goods would be between 17 and 22 cubic meters, or between 600 and 777 cubic feeti. We would receive a quote from the moving company as soon as possible. On Thursday, August 14, we received the quote from KHZ, the moving company, for moving our 22,5 cubic meters: € 6350,-. On Monday, August 25, we had the Final Visa Application Interview at the American Consulate in Amsterdam. At the end of the interview we were told that the visa application was approved. In about five days we would receive the passport with visa, and the so called "mysterious brown envelope". On Wednesday, August 27, the envelope arrived from the Consulate containing the passport with visa and the "mysterious brown envelope", so not in five days time, but within merely two days. |