We found out on Monday that we have been issued residency in principle! It wasn’t unexpected, but its still a relief not to get the job search visa. So what’s next? In the near term, we send our visas to London where they put our residency stickers in them and send them back to us. In the long term, it means the “easy” part is over and the real planning can start. Not that the application process was easy, but using the immigration agent smoothed things out significantly. Now we’re entering the phase where we’ll need to do the research ourselves and navigate a whole suite of unfamiliar services, deadlines, and yes, more paperwork.
Of course I’ll outline more of the logistics as we move along, but for now we’ve had a small celebration to mark the first major milestone (we had a nice NZ sauvignon blanc while Hopscotch celebrated by refusing to fall asleep for an extra two hours after she was put to bed. This may have been unrelated to getting the visa…). We’ll catch our breath, and start putting together some more timelines, spreadsheets, checklists, and start looking forward to our lives as Kiwis.
Kiwi Bound 