When do we leave?

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The short answer: we don’t know.

Pete’s start date is June 4^th.  We’re not totally sure how flexible that is, but we’re treating it as pretty fixed for now.  Also, it turns out my Mom will be visiting us in Luxembourg for a few days beginning June 7^th.  She was able to extend her trip to England that she’d scheduled long before we knew we were moving.  So she’s going to just pop on over for a bit since she’ll already be in our neck of the woods. 

Huh.  That’s probably the last time I’ll be able to use that phrase for a while - “neck of the woods.”  Is there a way I can add a “y’all” to that?  Not that I normally say "y’all."  But if I’m fixin’ to say it, ain’t now the time to get it out of my system, y’all? 

Clearly, this is the long answer.

Anyway, we hope to be in Luxembourg at least a week before Pete starts.  That means we’d like to leave the U.S. sometime around Memorial Day weekend.

What we’d like to do and what actually happens may be different matters.  It all depends on when Pete’s work visa has finished processing.  We were told this will take 4-8 weeks.  Friday, May 25^th is exactly 8 weeks from when our massive stack of notarized paperwork arrived in Luxembourg.  So we’ll either have plenty of time (and possibly leave slightly ahead of schedule?), or just enough, or somewhere in between.   The movers cannot show up with our sea and air containers until we’ve got the visa (and we’re not allowed to pack ourselves, they’d just unpack and repack).

So everything hinges on how fast the Luxembourgish bureaucracy works its bureaucratic magic.  In all likelihood, we sit and wait, and then everything happens really fast right at the end.

And if something goes seriously awry…my Mom may be hanging out in Luxembourg before we arrive.  But that’s not going to happen.  It’s not.  Nope.

Please think speedy bureaucratic thoughts on our behalf.

Yeah, I know.