I can hardly believe it, but it’s already time to make plans to go the other way.

Yep, James and I are moving to England. So just a few short years after navigating the UK-to-US immigration labyrinth, we now get to experience the joys of US-to-UK immigration. I’ve been told that it’s not as complicated or time consuming as immigrating to the US (in fact, I was amused that the British Embassy website admonishes applicants to submit one’s application in good time since not all visas are issued on the same day that the application is received), but I guess we’ll see, eh? The application instructions and requirements are, I admit, a little intimidating. But hey – we were successful with James’ US immigration, and that certainly had its intimidating forms and procedures too. Not to mention the hulking guy in the little cubicle at the Detroit immigration office.

So over the next ten months or so we need to get the house ready to sell, decide which furniture and other belongings to take and which to sell or otherwise get rid of, sell our car, find a place to live in the UK, find jobs in the UK, hire an international moving company, and take care of that pesky settlement visa. There will of course be many other details to think about. And to complicate matters, we’re also planning a trip around the world that will take up about six weeks of next summer. Tentative stops include cities in New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. We’ll send our stuff east, and we’ll head west to the other side of the world, meeting back up with our stuff in England sometime in August, of course in time for Greenbelt.

Don’t expect a sudden rash of blogging from me, but over the next year I hope to be cataloguing our onging immigration adventures. And then there will probably be plenty to write about as I adjust to life as an expat.