A new life; same as the old life?

It's officially 4 weeks to go 'til my last day in the UK office, and things are definitely hotting up. If you have been following my exploits, then you will know I have my visa , and have just booked my flights too. The Global Mobility Unit (GMU) is now on the case arranging accommodation, car rental, etc.. One of the first things I will need to do is to get a social security number, which apparently can take a month or two, which means that I cannot get a bank account, rent a property or car, pretty much nothing! So I am trying to amass a reasonable cash fund here before I go. Again, most of you will know that I am selling all my worldly goods, because it is too gosh darned (expletive removed for my US audience) expensive to ship them. The latest quote I have is £2.5K, to move about 3 books, a bed and a chair; money for old rope! So look out for more stuff for sale, including most of my furniture. Apparently I am not allowed to move anything flammable, any food stuffs or any ...

L is for ..... ...line (waiting in) - the 90 minute line I had to wait in, in sub zero temperatures this morning, outside the American Embassy before spending a mere 10 minutes between waiting in various lines, actually being interviewed for my Visa application. ...letter paper - that bizarre size of American stationery, of which I currently possess a ream related to my Visa application, which was prepared by a very expensive lawyer, and the Visa people spent about 2 minutes looking at. ...L-1A - the visa classification I have been granted for the next three years of my career in the US. Apparently it is quite a good one, and means that it should be much easier to get a green card if I want it. ...land Of Lincoln - one of those sometime hard to explain "tag" lines that all American states have. This one at least makes some sense, apparently Lincoln was born somewhere in the state of Illinois. As I mentioned above, the process of getting the visa itself was remarkably simple....

Let's go to Chicago for a week to find somewhere to live, I said...easier said than done! Before we even arrived, the diary was full of commitments, dinner here, lunch there, Super Bowl party, leadership dinner on Monday night, I was beginning to think that we would never actually have any time to look at property. It was an uneventful flight, although there was a odd looking woman, who spent the entire flight in a hooded top and wearing a duffel coat with the hood up, at one point she even covered herself completely (head and all) with a blanket! All very odd, fortunately though, she wasn't a terrorist. It's amazing how your mind works after some of the recent global events; before I would probably not even have noticed her. Picked up by a limo at the airport we felt like royalty, except the guy couldn't fit in all of our luggage, so we had to resort to punching it and jumping on it; surprisingly small boots, limos! We had fun (well I did) playing with the toys, CD, DV...

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