(Halfway) Around the World in 3 Days!

So what was involved in getting our little family from San Antonio to Northeast England? Quite a lot of paperwork and a monumentally complicated journey!

For starters, as an American, Alex needed a certificate of sponsorship from a UK company in order to receive a work visa. Having never really been involved in an immigration process, all we really had from the beginning was a vague idea that it's expensive and complicated. We were soon to discover how true that is!

After the brewery offered Alex the position, they had to apply for a license to be a sponsor. That was not something we were involved in at all, but I can imagine the form to fill out wasn't just a short page of multiple choice questions! They received that license about 4 weeks after submitting their application, and that's when the real waiting game began. The type of sponsorship certificate they needed for this particular position falls into a general category that has an allocated number of slots each month (varying depending on the season). It's a system where each application is assigned a certain number of points, mostly based on the position's intended salary, and the more points assigned, the better the chances are that it will be approved in that month's review. For some time, the system had been so overrun with applications that the chances of a beer brewer getting approved was pretty slim. However, right at the time when Alex's employers were getting ready to submit his application, some changes were made that opened up a lot of slots, which we really see as God's providence over the whole situation. That said, it still took a lot of work on the brewery's part to get the application submitted properly and in time to be reviewed before I was too far in pregnancy to be able to move. We waited (often rather impatiently) from July until September, anxiously counting down the weeks until the baby's due date and doing what we could to prepare for a big international move on both the Texas and England fronts.

In retrospect, we were very thankful for the time we had during that waiting period, not only to handle logistics, but more importantly to invest time in our family and friends. Leaving them behind has absolutely been the bitter part of this transition, and having to rush off in a few weeks instead of a few months would have been very difficult.

Finally, on the morning of September 11, Alex received the highly anticipated phone call from the brewery, saying that their certificate of sponsorship for his position had been approved! We had said all along that if we could move to England by the end of September, we would still be game to attempt it before the baby comes, and lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. Not ideal timing, by any means, but we figured it would probably still be simpler than trying to move with a brand new baby. So that day, the mad scramble to apply for the work visa and finish final preparations for the move began. I have to say, in moments of pure chaos like these, you can't stop and analyze how in the world this is all going to work; you usually just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until it's done!

Because we had the entire day at our disposal, we were able to submit our application for our work and spouse visas, get our fingerprinting done, AND ship the whole package off for review on September 11, which was quite a feat, to be sure. (By the way, the cost for all of that was, to quote Bing Crosby's character Bob Wallace in White Christmas, "right in between 'Ouch' and 'Boing!'") We celebrated afterwards with a quick bite at Chick-fil-A and then dove right back into the chaos.

Our goal was to leave San Antonio on Wednesday, September 26, which we thought we had enough time for, since we'd paid for an expedited 5-day decision on our visas. The strong recommendation, though, is to wait and book your travel once you actually have your passports returned with the visas in them (even though that often involves buying last minute plane tickets with prices that could make you queasy just looking at them!), just in case there is a delay. In our experience...yes, that is a good plan, because that dreaded delay definitely hit us. Apparently at the same time we were submitting our visa applications, it was the season for all the international university students to submit their applications as well, and wouldn't you know it...they ALL also paid for expedited decisions! So the "5 business days to make a decision" quickly turned into 8 business days for our visas, and there's no way to find out where in the queue your application is, nor how long they expect to get it done. The other caveat we learned about quite painfully was that the visa office makes no promises on how soon after they make their decision that they will return your visas and passports to you. We later found out that our applications had been processed on Friday, September 21, but the parcel was not handed back to UPS until Wednesday, September 26. So, as I said, if you're ever in a situation where you are applying for a visa, I would echo the official recommendation that you hold off on booking travel until you have those items back in hand!

We had gone ahead and moved out of our house in San Antonio completely and turned it over to the property management company who would be handling renting it out while we are overseas. Because international shipping costs are just this side of ungodly, and because we didn't own a lot of items that we were determined to hold onto, we opted to sell or give away most of our household goods and just store a few keepsake items. When our visas and passports finally arrived back to us on the morning of September 27, we frantically booked our travel for that weekend, finished up a few final details for the move, packed as much as we could into 6 suitcases, and got ready to leave on Saturday, September 29. Side note to insert, we owe a HUGE thank you to everyone who bent over backwards to help us make this move happen; we could not have done it without them, especially our family!

The other piece of the puzzle that made this move more complicated, besides my being so far into pregnancy, was our determination to bring our two pugs along with us. They are part of our family and we just couldn't bear the thought of leaving them behind! The first challenge to face, though, is the necessary paperwork for the dogs to have in order to travel: a specific form that must be endorsed by the APHIS central veterinary authority in Austin, and a couple of vaccinations, one which can only be administered within 5 days of arriving in the UK. The other problem is that the UK has strict policies on bringing pets into the country, chiefly that you are not permitted to fly with your pets in the cabin directly there. You either have to fly them as registered cargo with a designated pet air travel coordinator (the cost of which left us reeling), or you have to sail over with them, usually on a ferry from mainland Europe. Since our dogs were under 20 pounds, we opted to bring them onto the plane with us as our carry on and then take the ferry option from Amsterdam. We do not regret bringing them in the slightest--all the trouble was more than worth it to us--but in all honesty, it definitely added a whole layer of complexity to an already stressful process!

One final major wrench in the works occurred just a week before we left San Antonio. Alex sprained his knee pretty badly and had to be on crutches for that entire final week. There's no good time to sprain a knee, but this particular week absolutely set the record for it, especially since I was just hitting 34 weeks of pregnancy. We were quite the pair, let me tell you! Again, major thanks to all who helped us out.

Saying our final, hurried goodbyes, we loaded up the dogs and our 6 suitcases and started out on a journey that could intimidate even the most seasoned traveler. Thankfully, Alex had taken a brilliant suggestion from a friend and reserved wheelchairs for us in all the airports, which were absolute lifesavers! We left Austin airport on Saturday morning and flew to Newark, then did the longer overnight flight from Newark to Oslo, Norway. Exhausted when we arrived, we managed to get through customs with the dogs so I could take them outside to relieve themselves (poor guys had been stuck in their tiny carriers for about 8 and a half hours by that point!). This was when I learned a valuable lesson: ALWAYS have your phone on your person at all times when travelling and NEVER leave it with another member of your party. In my haste to take the dogs outside, I lost track of which door I had gone through, came back into the airport through the wrong one, and spent the next 5 minutes traipsing up and down the corridor trying to find where I had left Alex, having no way to contact him. For his part, it was 100 times more frightening, because when I was delayed coming back to him, he resorted to looking outside for me, and all he knew was that his wife and dogs had gone outside the airport and hadn't come back in! When I finally stumbled back upon the right location, we pulled ourselves together and boarded the final leg of our flight from Oslo to Amsterdam. It felt so good to finish with airports for a while!

Upon our arrival in Amsterdam, though, we hit the most challenging part of the journey. After a short train ride to the central station in the city (narrowly getting all our luggage on and off in time), we discovered a mathematical conundrum: we had 6 suitcases, 2 dog carriers, and only 4 hands between us. Not only that, but train stations aren't equipped with carts and wheelchairs and porters to assist you, like airports are. We finally resorted to dragging 2 or 3 suitcases at a time down the long corridor to the boarding area for the bus that would take us to the ferry, then rushing back to grab the rest of the luggage while still keeping an eye on the ones just a few yards ahead of us. Inching our way down the corridor with no assistance, on a bum leg and a heavily pregnant belly, we literally thought this might be the moment where we wouldn't make it! Oh, but imagine our utter delight when we discovered that the ferry bus boarding areas were at the OTHER END of that long corridor and up on the next floor! Literally at the point of tears, we repeated this inchworm process, thankfully being helped out at the end by a very kind gentleman who noticed our plight. We were beyond grateful once we'd boarded the bus, arrived at the port, and had 3 ferry employees help us get our suitcases into our cabin. Collapsing on the bed in sheer exhaustion, we praised God for getting us that far!

Unfortunately the excitement wasn't quite over, though, because the North Sea happened to be extremely choppy the next morning as we neared Newcastle. Now, I am normally not prone to seasickness and have never had any trouble on regular cruises in the past. But this was a ferry boat, not a cruise liner, and the waves were enough to upset all but the most experienced sailor, so no breakfast for us! We just about kissed the solid ground once we debarked in England. After having to wait 3 hours for our rental car to be ready, we loaded up the dogs and luggage and drove to our AirBnB in a nearby town. I have truly never been so thankful to collapse on a sofa as I was at that moment. Like I said, in moments of pure chaos, you just can't wonder "How is this even working?"; you just do it 'til it's done!

That being said, we are so thankful for a number things on the journey here. Namely, that we were able to line up all the travel (planes, trains, boats, automobiles, and accommodation) for quite reasonable rates, get through all customs with no issues in any of the countries we stopped at, and that the dogs were absolute champions of travel the whole way! It wasn't easy, but it definitely could have been so much worse, so all in all, we are extremely grateful to God for His provision.

All right, that's probably more than enough for now. Thanks so much for reading and congrats if you made it to the end of this part of the tale! Next up, getting settled into our new home....