The Beginnings in review

 This blog got a late start, so let me briefly outline how we got started with the journey 

After 6 years of retirement and our return to the United States and after traveling around the country we left 31 years before, we realized that in the words of Thomas Wolfe, “You Can’t Go Home Again” Not only had the mood changed, but, things seemed quite foreign. After all, Susi and I had lived more than half of our adult life in Europe and it had become our home. With that in mind, I started researching if there was a way for us to go back.  Our initial choices were Germany, England or Scotland. Susi pointed out that we had done Germany and it was time to do something different. That left England or Scotland. Once it was narrowed down to those destinations it was a simple overwhelmingly vote for Scotland, where we opted to spend most of our vacations.  

The decision was easy, but getting the right to live here was challenging. My first path for getting information to do that was to join the Expats in Scotland group on Facebook.  When I posted my question stating my circumstances the reply was an overwhelming,”you can’t come here to settle!”  Things seemed bleak, but someone in the group said, “well, there was a court case that challenged the discriminatory situation that disallowed the path to citizenship through the maternal line. The case was won and that line to citizenship was allowed  Do you have a grandfather on your mother’s side that was a British Citizen? We’re you born between between 1949 and 1983? If  the answer is yes to both of those questions, you are eligible to apply. As it happens, I was born in 1949 and had the grandfather who was a citizen.

 So, the short version of the very long 2 year process is that I was granted British Citizenship on October 12th of 2021.  It took another year to get Susi’s spouse visa which was granted on September 16th. 

So our adventure began with a flight to Germany on September 25, 2022