Hi All!

First off, this is a great forum you guys got here.

I thought I'd introduce myself, since I've been reading this forum for a while now but never actually wrote anything, until today that is.

My wife Stephanie and I met during a school exchange in Germany in 1999. After spending two great weeks with each other, what followed were five years of flying back and forth between Germany and the U.S. and vice versa. In September of ’03 we finally decided to apply for a K-1 Visa and in June 2004 I flew to the States for good.

We got married in August 2004 on the beautiful Indiana University campus in Bloomington, IN, with both of our families present. In October of 2005 I received my two-year conditional permanent resident card and now I just finished the process of removing these conditions.

The next step will be filing N-400 in July of ’08 and then, after 5 years, we will finally be done with USCIS for good.

I'm looking forward to many interessting conversations around here!

Andy

Nice to meet you

Hi Andy,

Welcome to VJ - enjoy your stay!

Julie

Thanks to both of you!

Welcome my friend!!!!
That IS a nice campus!

Welcome Andy. What a nice story!
Good luck with the naturalization process.

Welcome to VJ Andy, good luck on your journey! Chad

Hi there,

Welcome! It's good to see another German-American couple on here.

So I read you are applying for US citizenship next year, I am eligible next year as well. Are you also going to apply for the "Beibehaltung" of the German citizenship?

Stefanie

First of all thanks again to everyone.



Hi Stefanie,

Yes, I will be applying in July, as soon as the 90 day window opens. When would you be eligible? I will also apply to retain my German citizenship. I think I will be filing the papers sooon.

One thing I still need to figure out, is if I can also retain my Italian citizenship. My mom is from Italy and it would be nice to keep my Italian citizenship as well, although not necessary as long as I keep at least one European citizenship.

Andy, hello again!

You def. have to keep us informed about how smooth things will go with the German authorities when you send in your paperwork to retain the German citizenship before applying for the US one.
Although I am not even close to be able to do the very same thing (just got my GC a couple of months ago), I am sure curious about other peoples experiences with it (I read alot about the process already). Since the Italien citizenship is yours by birth, you should be able to retain it as well, right?

I will be eligible in June 2008. So not too far away from your eligibility date. I don't know yet if I am actually going to apply right away or if I am going to wait. I'll see.

Stefanie

I'll keep you up to date once I get started!

I'm not sure wether or not I will be able to retain my Italian citizenship. I'll have to contact the Italian consulate to find out. It would be nice if I could keep it though.



Just a month earlier. I think I'll apply asap to finally be done with everything. Unfortunately it won't be in time for next year's elections.

Welcome

Good luck with the citizenship thingy

Welcome!

Bloomington is a really nice town. I have been there a few times for all the wrong reasons though.

I also got married in August 2004, albeit in Germany instead of Indiana.

Glad you decided to start posting some more and good luck with the citizenship(s).

Welcome to VJ

Again, thank you for all the warm "welcomes"!

I love that area of Southern Indiana and especially Bloomington. My in-laws still live in Bloomington so we go back regularly and Stephanie went to IU so we also have a ton of friends there.

We are trying hard to move back to Indiana (Indianapolis) but so far we haven't been able to find good enough jobs that would warrant a move.

Good luck too you

I have often thought of making the opposite move to Chicago, but I can't find a job that would equal out the increase in the cost of living. Indy is just dirt cheap, spoils me for other cities I think.

I really like the area farther south along the Ohio River. Huber Winery down there in Starlight is awesome. When we go down to Louisville to visit my sister, we go there all the time. The countryside surrounding it is really beautiful. Driving through there this October, my husband was fairly impressed. Louisville is also a nice place, but the weather isn't really my thing. I am one of those weirdos that likes snow and ice and winter sports. Louisville gets very little snow and the summers are even more oppressive than here in Indy, so no thanks for me. Still, that could also be an option for you all. I think it is only also about an hour or so from Bloomington. Just a thought.

Welcome to VJ!!!

The "dirt cheap" factor is, among other things, one of the main reasons why we would like to move to Indy. I mean for god's sake, the cost of living in Indy is even cheaper than in Bloomington. It hurts when I look at the housing prices in Indianapolis and compare them to Chicago. We would even accept a small decrease in salary to move down there.

The problem is that my wife works in retail and there is really only one retailer she could work for and they don't have anything available in her specific field at the moment.

I'm a translator, so I could switch to working freelance full time and thus am pretty flexible. However, right now I'm employed as a full-time in-house translator and interpreter and that comes with some nice benefits and regular pay. I do freelancing only on the side.

Either way, we won't give up and continue to try and make it happen.

By the way, Louisville is nice as well, you're right. We have friends there. However, I don't know if I can deal with the accent.




Thank you very much Nessa!

Well, if you are posting on VJ, I don't have to tell you that where there is a will, there is a way.

I hope something works out for the both of you.