Well, with our original plans, we should be leaving for Spain sometime this week with Luke to start work on October 1, but that isn't happening. Long story short; We've been delayed. Our new expected departure date is anywhere between now and January 1, and January is probably the more realistic expectation. Although we're not too upset about the delay, it's a bit frustrating for a couple of reasons.
We found out about the delay one day after leasing our house. We'd known all along that a delay was possible, but because we'd already provided all of the requested documents without receiving any updates or requests for more information, we were operating under the assumption (we all know what happens when you assume) that all was on course and October 1 was still our date. We kept lowering the rent on our house, packing things up, etc... in order to prepare. So it's been a bit of a frustrating process; however, we're still so thankful for Luke's company and all they do to help us in obtaining visas. They have lawyers and translators and all kinds of people to help get all of our documents in the correct form with all the required notaries, jurats, etc...So hopefully, everything will be accepted by the Spanish government the first time through. Seriously, I don't even know how we would begin if we were doing this on our own.
Also, I'd already told my company that I would be leaving around the end of September, and acting accordingly to what I told them, they hired my replacement, who started at the end of August. So despite not leaving until potentially January, I'm out of a job September 29th. Although this isn't ideal, it will give me a lot of time to focus on Rosetta Stone, and I've also filled out substitute teaching applications to maybe help keep me busy until we leave. Everything will work out. And truth be told, I'm not too terribly upset about this. :)
Despite those frustrations, being delayed isn't all that bad. First of, regardless of the timing, we are very glad to have leased our house. Even though we may have been able to get more rent for it if we'd known we had more time before leaving, we're glad that we're no longer stressing about whether or not it would rent before we left. And the family that moved in seems to be very sweet and will hopefully take good care of it. In fact, the husband works in construction and seems to be very handy, so we're hoping they leave it in better shape than they found it! :)
We're also really glad that we will (hopefully) be here for the holidays with our families and get to enjoy all the goodness that fall has to offer with them. And a delayed departure date means a delayed return date. We'd love to have 2 summers over there instead of 1!
As of today, the Global Immigration Services team that is working with us has (finally) received all of our documents with the appropriate notaries, copies, etc. Next up, we have to obtain apostille (which Google tells me is authentication of public documents for foreign use) and certifed Spanish translation of all the documents. Hopefully, this process goes quickly so that we can (finally) send everything off. We're expecting a 4 to 6 week wait once everything is received by the government (although I'm not really sure where that expecation was born from). More updates to follow I'm sure.
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