Welcome to the future!
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Our first trip to the US as Visa Applicants was our honeymoon. We went to Florida for one week and it kind of felt like a trip to our own future. Okay, we are not planning to move to Florida, but anyway going to America felt like stepping into Doc Brown’s Delorean. It started when we arrived at Miami International Airport. Us waiting in line for the passport control made every officer suspicious. We were giggling like little children, while imagining us standing in line at the US Resident counter next year. On the drive to our hotel I started to pick out the car I want to buy when living in California. And that was just the beginning of our holiday. We couldn’t stop connecting every little cool thing to our life abroad. A trip to the supermarket ended in our little “Do we have this in Germany”-Quiz. It was a joy to watch TV Series like Desperate Housewives in english and “live”. And in the movies our only thought was: “Yes, we don’t have to watch bad translations anymore very soon”! This wasn’t a normal holiday for us. It wasn’t a relaxing honeymoon like it should have been. It was exciting. We actually made plans for our future life. For our American Dream! And when we finally read the word Greencard on an ad on the highway which said that Greencard owners (along with tourists and US residents) were allowed to travel to the Bahamas for a day, we nearly freaked out. The moment we arrived back in Germany depressed us both. For the first time in my life I wasn’t happy to return home. Because in my heart America already kind of feels like home! This makes the decision we both made for our future a bit easier. Yes, it’ll be brutal to leave our families, our friends and our lifes here in Germany, but we already left pieces of our hearts in America and I guess we will have to pick them up very soon! And this actually is the only thought that keeps us going right now: We will be back soon, America!
Do you remember the moment you found out that you were among those lucky few people who won the Greencard? Me and my hubby do! We were watching TV when the little bell, that told us we had a new E-Mail, rang. First we didn’t really understand the long E-Mail, but eventually we found this one important sentence saying “You are among the lucky winners of the lottery”! Then it hit us: Our American Dream will come true! My hubby had tears in his eyes, I was smiling like a lunatic and then we decided to make some phone calls. This is were the funny part begins. Because the reactions to our Greencard win were more unexpected than the actual win! My mum said “Oh cool, but you are not actually going to use it, right”? My mother-in-law was a bit more excited “Wow, great! Where and for how much can you sell it?” and my best friend begged me not to leave her. To sum up all the other reactions: No one really expected or wanted us to actually move to the US and work there. All those people who knew that this was our dream. Who knew that my husband took part in the lottery not just for fun but to actually get that chance. And now they all wanted us to give up this dream? Fascinating, right? In fact not really. Because many winners have to give up this dream before realizing that they won. Statistics say that the lottery picks about 100.000 winners a year. But only 55.000 of them actually become permanent residents of the US. You ask yourself why? The reality kind of hits you when the info brochure from American Dream arrives and you see that this is not only a win but some kind of new job you have to work for. First you have to meet many demands such as having the right school education or not having certain diseases. If you are healthy and well-educated you have to fill out dozens of forms, have to sit at your hometown’s bureaus for hours to get all the required documents and then you have to wait and wait and wait. This whole procedure is kind of nervewrecking but I guess it’s a good school for what is expecting us when we actually move abroad – because it’s worth it!
Hello fellow aliens, american residents or whatever brought you to this blog. I am Janina, fiancee of a lucky greencard winner and future alien. For a start why don’t we take a trip back a few years to when we all first heard about this thing called Greencard. For the record: the Greencard was first given away in 1940. I don’t know about you but I guess I haven’t heard about the Greencard for the following 50 years. I don’t remember the actual date I heard the word for the first time, but I remember the first question that popped into my mind: “Is the Greencard actually green?”. It’s no surprise it isn’t, but when thinking about what I want to write about in my first blog entry I realized that till now I don’t know why the so called “United States Permanent Resident Card” is always referred to as the Greencard. For there is no official statement about why the Greencard is called Greencard, I took a short trip through the internet and found one of the lamest explanations ever: “The name Greencard refers to the green lights and free highways waiting for it’s owners when moving to the U.S..” Come on, really? I thought there would be a cool explanation like: “Immigrants are referred to as aliens and the aliens coming from outer space are expected to be green.” Or “People moving to the U.S. are some kind of greenhorns, so let’s call their immigration permit Greencard.” To not to be too disappointed I told myself that apparently even for the Greencard the following lame saying works: “Don’t judge someone by it’s looks!” Neither the Greencard, nor it’s owner. And that would be us, fellow aliens! So we should be lucky that we don’t have to paint ourselves green or play the dumbass when moving abroad. But to be honest may come what may I will never get used to the Greencard. Neither in my pocket, neither in my mouth, nor in this blog. Congratulations to us! And welcome to Alien in America!