Posts Tagged ‘emmigration’

Today Flo and I decided to drive down to Manhattan Beach and take our bikes for a little ride over to Redondo Beach. We love doing bike rides down by the beach, but somehow don’t find the time to do it often enough. I love being by the beach and I love riding my bike down there even more. Every time we get to the beach it kind of hits me again. We can do this whenever we want. We don’t have to wait for those 2 weeks of vacation every year to see the sea. We now have it on our front porch.

Every emmigrant who moved to the sea might know this feeling. You live in a summer state, you live by the beach. But you just don’t appreciate it enough, because you have an every day life to live. We try to cherish the amazing things LA and our new life here has to offer. And it always makes me so happy to see what moving here has brought us. The sun, the sea, amazing new friends and the greatest opportunity of all: To live our dreams! Sometimes it seems like the little things in life really make you realize how lucky you are!

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 am a really organized and structured person, so I am always open for having a Plan B for everything I do. Yesterday we went to dinner with some lovely friends and talked about our upcoming weddings (these guys will marry in two weeks) and about our futures as married couples and as future parents.

I told them that lately I have been thinking a lot about what Flo and I would do without the Greencard in our pockets. I think that we would move to another city like Hamburg or something in Europe, because we both don’t see Cologne as our future hometown – both for private and for career reasons.

When I told them about that, our friend Elodie got kind of excited, because they also think about moving to Hamburg in the future, because this city offers better career opportunities than their hometown does and is one the cutest citys in Germany. Elodie suggested that if we may come back from the US in the next few years, we all could move to Hamburg together!

I actually like that idea. We see the whole emmigration thing kind of easy. If we won’t make it in the US that will be fine. But I like the idea of not coming back to Cologne, but move to another german country instead! In this case America wouldn’t be a defeat, but the beginning of something new!