Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip...
Okay, so we're not stuck on a desert island... but we are stuck. What was supposed to be a 3 week vacation looks like it might turn into a 20 week vacation.
When Luke accepted this new job back in March he signed the contract and gave notice at his job in Switzerland only to then find out that his new job does not have the license to hire non-European citizens. Back in March it didn't seem like a big deal, and everyone thought that it should be no problem for the company to get the license and our visa's by the end of May.
By the end of May, the company still did not have their license. We had the option of staying in waiting in Switzerland or go back to the US for a vacation. So we packed up all our stuff and sent it to a storage unit in London, and then we headed to the US for what we thought would be a short vacation.
The return flight on our airplane tickets was set for June 28th. When we bought the tickets we thought Luke would already be in England at his new job and I would have to fly with both kids by myself. I didn't like the idea of flying solo with two screaming ninnies, so my mom and dad agreed to fly back to England with me and the kids and then they were going to plan a vacation in Ireland while they were there.
As the end of June neared and we still had no word on the visa's we had to cancel our plane tickets. My parents had to go to England and Ireland anyways since they already had the whole trip planned. So they left for England while we stayed behind. We waited and waited, hoping that any day we would hear news that our visa's had been processed.
At the end of June we finally heard back from Luke's work. They told us that someone from the immigrations department in England had contacted them and said that all non-Olympics related paperwork had been put aside until the backlog from the Olympics had passed. So...they hadn't even looked at our paperwork yet! Geez... it would have been good to know about this a few months back. At least then we could have planned to rent an apartment and pack more things with us.
As it stands we have been living with family for almost 2 months. We each have one suitcase and that is it. Lily has already outgrown everything we packed for her. We packed only summer clothes so if we are here for several months we will need to buy warm weather clothing. We didn't anticipate this "vacation" turning into a several month ordeal. You have to remember, everything we own is in a storage unit all the way across the world...
Since we have no idea when we will finally get to England, we have decided to rent an apartment for 3 months. We have also rented a car (our "race" car as we lovingly refer to it) so that I don't have to borrow my moms car anymore. We are going to try to live a normal life during this transition period. Jack will start preschool in September and we will try to make some friends while we are here. We are all enjoying sunny Colorado and the more time we spend here, the harder it will be to leave. But alas, I still have the travel bug and would love to live in another country for a while.
In the meantime I get to enjoy my favorite Swiss chocolate in my favorite flavor! The Swiss don't mix mint and chocolate so it was a surprise to find this even existed.
Okay, so we're not stuck on a desert island... but we are stuck. What was supposed to be a 3 week vacation looks like it might turn into a 20 week vacation.
When Luke accepted this new job back in March he signed the contract and gave notice at his job in Switzerland only to then find out that his new job does not have the license to hire non-European citizens. Back in March it didn't seem like a big deal, and everyone thought that it should be no problem for the company to get the license and our visa's by the end of May.
By the end of May, the company still did not have their license. We had the option of staying in waiting in Switzerland or go back to the US for a vacation. So we packed up all our stuff and sent it to a storage unit in London, and then we headed to the US for what we thought would be a short vacation.
The return flight on our airplane tickets was set for June 28th. When we bought the tickets we thought Luke would already be in England at his new job and I would have to fly with both kids by myself. I didn't like the idea of flying solo with two screaming ninnies, so my mom and dad agreed to fly back to England with me and the kids and then they were going to plan a vacation in Ireland while they were there.
As the end of June neared and we still had no word on the visa's we had to cancel our plane tickets. My parents had to go to England and Ireland anyways since they already had the whole trip planned. So they left for England while we stayed behind. We waited and waited, hoping that any day we would hear news that our visa's had been processed.
At the end of June we finally heard back from Luke's work. They told us that someone from the immigrations department in England had contacted them and said that all non-Olympics related paperwork had been put aside until the backlog from the Olympics had passed. So...they hadn't even looked at our paperwork yet! Geez... it would have been good to know about this a few months back. At least then we could have planned to rent an apartment and pack more things with us.
As it stands we have been living with family for almost 2 months. We each have one suitcase and that is it. Lily has already outgrown everything we packed for her. We packed only summer clothes so if we are here for several months we will need to buy warm weather clothing. We didn't anticipate this "vacation" turning into a several month ordeal. You have to remember, everything we own is in a storage unit all the way across the world...
Since we have no idea when we will finally get to England, we have decided to rent an apartment for 3 months. We have also rented a car (our "race" car as we lovingly refer to it) so that I don't have to borrow my moms car anymore. We are going to try to live a normal life during this transition period. Jack will start preschool in September and we will try to make some friends while we are here. We are all enjoying sunny Colorado and the more time we spend here, the harder it will be to leave. But alas, I still have the travel bug and would love to live in another country for a while.
In the meantime I get to enjoy my favorite Swiss chocolate in my favorite flavor! The Swiss don't mix mint and chocolate so it was a surprise to find this even existed.
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