This is for everyone who is a winner of the DV-2011 and is right now nervously waiting for his or her interview date at the US consualte in Frankfurt. Our date there was nearly exactly one year ago and now Flo and I can laugh about it! I already told you that our interview wasn’t very nice, but hey – it all worked out positive in the end and we now are proud owners of our very own Greencards.

You shouldn’t let yourself get freaked out by that date. The most time of it you will be sitting there and wait anyways! But there are a few things that you can do to prevent the worst. First you should have all certificates, passports and other stuff required with you and more important organized and by hand all the time! Make sure to have the money in cash, to have pictures of yourself and to have copies of everything as well! If you are well prepared you are on the safe side I would say! You should also bring some money, something to drink, something to eat and perhaps a book to read. You are not allowed to bring a mobile phone, a laptop or any other electronic devices with you so make sure to leave those things at home or in your car!

If your english is not very good, you should ask for a person to translate everything to you. This is your right! Even if the consulate staff doesn’t recommend it! If you aren’t very secure with speaking english, you should print out some sentences and learn them. You will be asked after your education, your work situation and your plans for everything regarding the US. Make sure you are able to answer questions about that topics!

As you know I didn’t win the Greencard myself – my husband did. At the consulate I wasn’t treated as a actual winner, but only as the wife of my husband. I wasn’t allowed to speak, if I weren’t addressed specifically be the consulate staff. So if you are not the Greencard winner but “only” a spouse, try to keep yourself low profile. If anyone wants to know anything from you, he’ll ask!

I don’t want to scare anyone away or make you insecure about your interview, but always have in mind: The US doesn’t give away those Greencards for fun! They only want to give them to people who are serious about an emmigration and who will follow their dreams in the near future! So even if that may be the case don’t act insecure about your emmigration at the consulate or even come up with your doubts about the whole thing! Because this will not help you at all!

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them! You also may check the American Dream winner forum, which actually helped us a lot with our questions!

I wish everyone with an upcoming interview the best of luck, I keep my fingers crossed for you guys and am looking forward to meet you all in the US one day!

I have never been one of the people who let’s go things very easily. Friends, boys, cloths or other things that have been in my life for a while – I always had to think it through and through before I kicked anything out of reach. Since I moved together with my husband I kind of had to learn the hard way, because Flo has tons of stuff and cloths and I had to give in a lot during many fights about who could use which spaces in our flats.

Right now our biggest issue with letting things go is our flat. I think that we should give it away, but Flo would love to keep and sublease it. My point is that I don’t want our parents to have to handle all the business with subleasing the flat and that I maybe wouldn’t want to move back into the flat anyway, if we may come back after one or two years. I do love this flat and I will always keep it in good memory as the first flat Flo and I lived in together. But this flat is expensive and a flat with only one bedroom, so we couldn’t have kids here one day.

Flo on the other hand loves this flat and is not able to let go of it, yet. Flo has a much harder time when letting things go than I do. This is why we have 2 bikes noone rides, tons of toys and books that Flo loves and wouldn’t give away for any reason. Flo actually would love to rent a container, pack all of his stuff in it and ship it to the US, so he can have all his stuff when we live there.

I am a bit worried that Flo might have hard times abroad without his stuff. But luckily I know my husband very well and am sure that all the cool stuff he will find and buy there will heal his broken heart pretty fast! This may him learning to let go the hard way, but I think it is the right decision.

So this week me and my lovely colleague Kirstin realized that I will not only be working less than 16 more weeks at my current job, but that I will not spend more than 20 more weeks in Germany. That thought didn’t freak me out as I expected it to, but made me so excited! I can not wait for our dream to come true and for us to open a new chapter in our lifes!

Sometimes I feel like we are being stuck right now. Nothing very big regarding our emmigration happened in the last months and we had our heads full with planning our wedding. But now I realize that 20 weeks is not a long time and that these 20 weeks will most likely fly by in a second. Especially, because we still have a lot to do! We have to get rid of a lot of stuff and furniture, we have to sell our car, have to figure out what to do with our flat (we are thinking about subleasing it for a year) and most important we need to get jobs.

Yesterday – when I was cooking dinner – I said to Flo that we have to make a list of things that we want to bring to the US from Germany, like certain shampoos or candy. It is a real strange feeling to talk about stuff like that, because normally I am the one who prepares lists of things I want to take back to Germany from the US and not the other way around.

In the last weeks I often caught myself thinking that I luckily will be in the US very soon in special situations like when I watch my favourite TV series long after they aired in the US. Or when I order clothes from my favourite US brands, which costs me a hell lot of money and time right now.
I guess that in a year I might laugh about this post, because it may be the other way around! But for now I am just so curious and excited for the future and really count down the days of my last 20 weeks in Germany!