Hannah-NL
20th January 2006, 10:11 PM
Hello all,
As the subject line says, we got them!!! :raebanana
Here's how it went in “short”. A very tragic incident on the way in, but we were very excited on the way out of this little 3 day adventure.
We left for the airport at 5 AM. Not too far from the airport we were suddenly stopped by the police, well all traffic was... There had been a serious accident not too far ahead and all traffic had to wait until...well lots of things they do then. Fire brigade, ambulances, police cars, lots of them came to the rescue, but alas a white van had collided with a viaduct and the two passengers were almost instantly killed.
We had to wait for almost 1.5 hours, on the one end anxious to get to the airport in time, but on the other hand very sad this had happened... We talked a lot about this, since it happened only some 100 meters ahead of us.
Anyway, after what seemed a long time, the left driveway of the road was cleared and we were allowed to move on, passing the wrecked van that had been cut open by the firebrigade. Well you can imagine the thoughts we had.
After that we had to be very quick as the last check in time was approaching fast, and we werent even there yet! But in the back of our mind we had those poor fellows, so we drove carefully...
Ok to speed this up, we got there, parked as quickly we could, ran into the wrong building, were directed the right way, checked in - in time and left on time for London, where we had a great time. Three days, 2 nights, the hotel was a bit shabby, old, but clean. We had adventures on the underground and in the big red double decker buses, saw lots of sights, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, went on the London Eye (what a view! even tho it was raining),Tower Bridge, saw the changing of the Queens Guards, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and lots and lots more.
And in between all this we had the interview at New Zealand house with our Case Officer. She was very nice, positive and the questions were not hard at all, at the end of the interview we casually asked her how long it would take, since we were all here anyway and had all 4 passports handy…She said she would go for the Permanent Residence Visa but it would take a week for the decision to go through, so that it was not in her hands, but if she could she would speed it up. And if we would have to send our passports over, it would take another 2-3 weeks for them to be processed. Well hubby needs his passport in 2 weeks for a workjob in Berlin, so he mentioned that. After that we said our goodbye’s and thanked her for her time etc etc.
After that we went through London some more, we almost lost youngest when we went on the tube, cause some old people (he said) got in the way with their suitcases and he was still standing outside on the platform when the doors were closing, I quickly stepped between them and pulled him in, a lady standing close by helped me open the doors again and we could all travel together. Youngest was a bit afraid to lose us after that and I made sure I was behind him whenever we entered a train or bus again!
Oh and hubby lost his reading glasses, which was a turning point for our trip in the end.
The last day of our trip arrived and we had planned to go see the Changing of the Guards at 11 am that morning, so we were on our way, when I said “Lets call New Zealand House, maybe you lost your glasses there”, because they had deep (laid back?) chairs in reception. So we called our Case officers number, got her voicemail so left the message. We got one back from her saying "if we could make it around 2 …to come over, she had already approved our Visa’s in principle and if we could make it, we could get them in our Passports and it would all be done with"! … Well we went to see the Guards very triumphantly. :clap
We were walking along London’s streets when we suddenly saw New Zealand house again and decided to hand over our passports early, so they could process them before 2 o’clock, because we had a deadline of 3 o’clock to leave for the airport!! We could check in until 4.20 pm, plane would leave at 5.
Got that all done, met our officer at 2 again, she handed us over our pretty passports and all the diploma’s and stuff we would need back, and off we were! It was around 2.15 and we hurried to Liverpool station where we had “parked” our suitcases. Picked those up, bought a ticket for the trains to Stansted airport and off we were, all in good time to land on Dutch soil again at 7 pm!
Slept like a log, brought home a horrible cold, well same weather as over here I suppose but we had days with rain and a day with temps of around 15 celsius! Made about 250 pics and all, I have to process those and will show them off in an online album I think. Home sweet home, today the kids and hubby are back to where they belong (school and work ;)) and we got the nice blue stickers in our passports!
Now it's time to clear out some of the mess, get the laundry done, etc. Oh and we have to take the cat to the vet, cause he is breathing very weird… don’t know what’s up with that, he was ok when we left. Got to pick up the doggies this evening too…it’s very quiet without them here. Will start thinking about the "things to do next" this weekend, but who knows where we will be in about 2-3 months time :cheers
Hannah-NL
p.s. Have to mention this was all a rollercoaster esp the 3 days in London, and we spent a lot of money to get them this way, but hey, it's worthwhile we think and we didnt have a holiday last year so....
As the subject line says, we got them!!! :raebanana
Here's how it went in “short”. A very tragic incident on the way in, but we were very excited on the way out of this little 3 day adventure.
We left for the airport at 5 AM. Not too far from the airport we were suddenly stopped by the police, well all traffic was... There had been a serious accident not too far ahead and all traffic had to wait until...well lots of things they do then. Fire brigade, ambulances, police cars, lots of them came to the rescue, but alas a white van had collided with a viaduct and the two passengers were almost instantly killed.
We had to wait for almost 1.5 hours, on the one end anxious to get to the airport in time, but on the other hand very sad this had happened... We talked a lot about this, since it happened only some 100 meters ahead of us.
Anyway, after what seemed a long time, the left driveway of the road was cleared and we were allowed to move on, passing the wrecked van that had been cut open by the firebrigade. Well you can imagine the thoughts we had.
After that we had to be very quick as the last check in time was approaching fast, and we werent even there yet! But in the back of our mind we had those poor fellows, so we drove carefully...
Ok to speed this up, we got there, parked as quickly we could, ran into the wrong building, were directed the right way, checked in - in time and left on time for London, where we had a great time. Three days, 2 nights, the hotel was a bit shabby, old, but clean. We had adventures on the underground and in the big red double decker buses, saw lots of sights, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, went on the London Eye (what a view! even tho it was raining),Tower Bridge, saw the changing of the Queens Guards, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and lots and lots more.
And in between all this we had the interview at New Zealand house with our Case Officer. She was very nice, positive and the questions were not hard at all, at the end of the interview we casually asked her how long it would take, since we were all here anyway and had all 4 passports handy…She said she would go for the Permanent Residence Visa but it would take a week for the decision to go through, so that it was not in her hands, but if she could she would speed it up. And if we would have to send our passports over, it would take another 2-3 weeks for them to be processed. Well hubby needs his passport in 2 weeks for a workjob in Berlin, so he mentioned that. After that we said our goodbye’s and thanked her for her time etc etc.
After that we went through London some more, we almost lost youngest when we went on the tube, cause some old people (he said) got in the way with their suitcases and he was still standing outside on the platform when the doors were closing, I quickly stepped between them and pulled him in, a lady standing close by helped me open the doors again and we could all travel together. Youngest was a bit afraid to lose us after that and I made sure I was behind him whenever we entered a train or bus again!
Oh and hubby lost his reading glasses, which was a turning point for our trip in the end.
The last day of our trip arrived and we had planned to go see the Changing of the Guards at 11 am that morning, so we were on our way, when I said “Lets call New Zealand House, maybe you lost your glasses there”, because they had deep (laid back?) chairs in reception. So we called our Case officers number, got her voicemail so left the message. We got one back from her saying "if we could make it around 2 …to come over, she had already approved our Visa’s in principle and if we could make it, we could get them in our Passports and it would all be done with"! … Well we went to see the Guards very triumphantly. :clap
We were walking along London’s streets when we suddenly saw New Zealand house again and decided to hand over our passports early, so they could process them before 2 o’clock, because we had a deadline of 3 o’clock to leave for the airport!! We could check in until 4.20 pm, plane would leave at 5.
Got that all done, met our officer at 2 again, she handed us over our pretty passports and all the diploma’s and stuff we would need back, and off we were! It was around 2.15 and we hurried to Liverpool station where we had “parked” our suitcases. Picked those up, bought a ticket for the trains to Stansted airport and off we were, all in good time to land on Dutch soil again at 7 pm!
Slept like a log, brought home a horrible cold, well same weather as over here I suppose but we had days with rain and a day with temps of around 15 celsius! Made about 250 pics and all, I have to process those and will show them off in an online album I think. Home sweet home, today the kids and hubby are back to where they belong (school and work ;)) and we got the nice blue stickers in our passports!
Now it's time to clear out some of the mess, get the laundry done, etc. Oh and we have to take the cat to the vet, cause he is breathing very weird… don’t know what’s up with that, he was ok when we left. Got to pick up the doggies this evening too…it’s very quiet without them here. Will start thinking about the "things to do next" this weekend, but who knows where we will be in about 2-3 months time :cheers
Hannah-NL
p.s. Have to mention this was all a rollercoaster esp the 3 days in London, and we spent a lot of money to get them this way, but hey, it's worthwhile we think and we didnt have a holiday last year so....