Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We talk about
our life in Nelson, New Zealand.
As we've already said, to solve the total annoyance with all the waiting, one of the best parts about the immigration process was being able to keep on top of the progress via the NZI web site. Applicants from the United States send their materials to London for review. The London office keeps their web site updated as to the progress of applications assigned for review. When we submitted our materials on 12 October, London was in the process of reviewing applications received sometime in late August. In addition, the assignment-and-review process is always slowed down for Skilled Migrants who do not have job offers, because people who receive offers at any point during the process automatically move to the front of the line.
For awhile, as each week passed, we were on target with the London office: every week that went by in Colorado, the London staffers were moving one week ahead in their applications. Come Thanksgiving 2005, we watched the process slow a bit, but London finally dipped their foot into the October applicants.
Life for us slowed to a crawl at this point. Because all we could do was wait and talk about New Zealand, it felt like we were living between a dreaded reality and a complete fantasy world. Our lives were really not that bad, but next to the possibility of something so exciting, we grew restless and unhappy with our current existence.
During this time we told only our parents--no siblings, grandparents, or friends--of our plans. We didn’t want to tell anyone should we fail to obtain residency. Besides, we drove ourselves crazy enough just knowing our own situation, it became almost unbearable with parents asking, “Have you heard anything yet?” The more people who knew, the worse that would have been for us. We were hard enough on ourselves!
Finally December 2005 arrived, but we had heard nothing. Angela decided to send the Marketing Director in Portland an email: could he find out the status of any applications? Did he have access to the system? Turns out he didn’t but he said he would ask London anyway. It was how Angela came to learn the name of the London immigration officer assigned to our application. We had been assigned!!
No sooner had we been assigned than the immigration officer herself sent Angela an email to introduce herself and say that she was going to be reviewing our application for residency … and she'd be starting a two-week holiday over Christmas and New Years tomorrow. All her work would be put on hold until her return.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Timing is such a killer. Stupid Christmas!
back to Part 5: Invitation to apply for residency...and wait
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