Next stop ... Singapore

Dubai layover on the way to JFK

With a month+ stopover in the USA first ...

packing and moving day @ Valley Lodge; stuff to go to our apartment in Singapore & storage in the USA

safe flight to Singapore, Lou & Serge!

Passport control at JFK

My recent trip to NY afforded me my first experience with automated passport control upon arrival at JFK and it was awesome!

After entering the US passport queue, you are guided to one of many monitors where you are instructed to insert your passport. The machine reads it and displays your basic information for you to approve. Then the camera takes a snapshot of you. You get to approve that too.

You are then asked to answer a few of the same questions you just answered on the passport control & customs form which you just filled out on the airplane - number of family members traveling with you, are you bringing in any fruits or vegetables, etc. I am assuming that means that someday soon you will not have to fill out those forms anymore. Woohoo! No more fumbling for a pen in your carry-on luggage.

Then the machine prints out a receipt with your snapshot and info. Finally, you bring it over to a customs agent who stamps your receipt and your actual passport. No questions. No conversation except for "Welcome home." After you pick up your bags (always happy to reunite with my bags), you turn the receipt in on your way out of the customs hall and bam, Welcome to New York. It was the fastest I have ever been through customs. Me likey!

Sandy & Athena & The Consulate Clock

Things were chugging along according to THE PLAN in October of 2012 at the Kasten house. We had submitted our visa application package to the Great Black Hole as we had started referring to the South African Embassy. We had filled two dumpsters with absolute crap and had carted them away. We had held a very successful garage sale and rid our basement, attic, closets, shed and garage of years of accumulated detritus that we had been hanging on to because basically we had the room and we could. We had engaged our real estate agent and we were checking things off of our handyman list working towards a listing date in late January/ early February.  We were feeling really good about our progress when BOOM! Sandy hit.

Sandy was a hurricane superstorm which clobbered the New York metropolitan area and destroyed entire communities in Staten Island, Connecticut and along the Jersey Shore. Second in damage cost only to New Orleans’ Hurricane Katrina, Sandy would prove to have similar long-lasting consequences to the tri-state area. Our town was relatively lucky. We did not experience the flooding of the coastal community nor the natural gas fires of Brick, NJ and Breezy Point, NY but the high winds knocked down trees and power lines which resulted in a power outage that affected the entire town and lasted for 9 days at our house. 

We had experienced our fair share of tropical storms and nor’easters in NJ before and we were used to the resulting power outages, water restrictions and uprooted trees but these were usually isolated and of a short duration. Sandy had a wide-ranging affect wiping out power to the vast majority of JCP&L and PSEG customers in the state. And to add insult to injury on the heels of Sandy came Athena, a nor’easter which dumped snow and dropped the temperatures in our unheated houses to below freezing.

While we knew that we were really lucky, the timing still stunk. THE PLAN grinded to a complete halt. The painters could not work inside because we didn’t have power. Manhattan below 34th street was also powerless so the South African Embassy closed shop for a week. One of the boats we were trying to sell which had been stored at our hard-hit yacht club was severely damaged. None of this was terminal of course. Just a setback during an already very stressful time. 

But we had to look at the bright side. Nobody died. We had lost a couple of trees but neither of them fell on our newly painted house. We had sold our beach house two summers ago in a part of the Jersey Shore which had been particularly devastated by Sandy. Even though the old beach house was still standing and relatively unscarred, it would have been a bitch to put on the market right after Sandy. Our yacht club sailing head instructor offered to repair our boat and use it to teach sailing to underprivileged kids if we were willing to donate it outright. Done.

Eventually we got back on track. Power was restored and the painters, handymen and floor refinishers returned. The South African Consulate re-opened and starting reprocessing our application. Vince began stopping in weekly to check on the progress. Always the same conversation. Vince: “I want to check on the progress of my Exceptional Skills Work Visa and my wife’s Living Visa applications.” Stone-faced receptionist behind the glass plate window: “It is being processed. We will call you when a decision is made.” Vince: “Is there anything additional you will need? Any clarification?” Stone-face: “No. We will call you.”

Then one week while doing his check-in Vince noticed that the clock in the office behind the glass plate window was an hour off. It had not been changed since daylight savings time had fallen back an hour a couple of weeks ago during the Sandy power outage. So he brought it to Stone-face’s attention. Vince: “Hey your clock is wrong.” Stone-face: “Yes I know. No one here knows how to change the time.” Vince: “I can change it for you if you like.” Stone-face handed him the clock which he set to the right time and handed it back to her. Vince: “How’s that for an exceptional skill? I’ll bet there are plenty of people in South Africa who could use someone with a skill like that.” Stone-face cracked a slight smile.

The next week we got the call that Vince’s Exceptional Skills Work Visa and my Living Visa had been approved and we could pick them up anytime.

Lou and Serge’s Excellent Adventure

Lou and Serge are our four year old miniature doxies and they are coming with us to South Africa. Oh boy! Lou Reed is a wire-haired dachshund and Serge Gainsbourg is a red long-haired teckel.

So first stop, look up the procedures for pet immigration on the South African Consulate website.  I started reading through the volumes of instructions and if possible, it seemed even more complicated than getting our human visas to emigrate. Timing seemed to be very important. This test must be done no more than … but no less than… Vaccinations had to be completed a month before travel. Final vet examinations must be done no more than a week prior to travel.  I started getting bleary-eyed with confusion reading about how to set up an agent to receive them, bank accounts and wire transfers, certifications, etc.

So I did what I do best and I threw some money at it, a lot of money actually. I decided to seek out a Pet Relocation Service. After some interviews and estimates I settled on Sally at Airborne Animals in nearby Blairstown, NJ. The first thing Sally told me to do is to find out if my vet was USDA-accredited. If not, I would have to change vets since the South African government will not accept pets unless they have been certified by the USDA and the USDA only worked with accredited vets. Sadly, Dr. Schaeffer at Scotch Plains Animal Hospital was not. He had been our vet for 4 years with Lou and Serge and had been our vet for 13 years with our first pair of family dogs, Boris, an English Springer Spaniel and Natasha, a Brittany, now both deceased. 

We had to say woof woof and goodbye to Dr. Schaeffer and move on to Dr. Perez with the Plainfield Animal Hospital.  Not only was Plainfield Animal Hospital accredited, they had Laurie their pet relocation specialist. Laurie, meet Sally. Sally, meet Laurie. Darlene, stand back and let the pros take over.

Microchips, Vaccinations, Blood tests, Heartworm tests, Parasite tests, … Dr. Perez oversaw and certified the results. Sally told me when to go to the vet, she made the plane reservations, filled out most of the paperwork with Laurie who filled out the rest.  All I had to do was take the paperwork to the USDA Veterinary Department in Trenton and have the application certified and we were ready!

Sally came in her van to collect the dogs for their flight out of Newark to Jo’burg. I started drinking. The dogs had to fly in cargo in crates with only a mat to sleep on, in our case their doxie sleeves, and water. No balls, no toys, no sedative. I did get them some natural anxiety tablets. Not sure if they helped but they couldn’t hurt. Besides I was the one who really needed a sedative!  I put some food in a Ziploc bag which Sally taped to their individual crates for breakfast the next morning. They could not share a crate unfortunately on Lufthansa, but I was assured that they would be right next to each other since they were on the same manifest. They could not take a direct flight (16+ is too many hours to be confined in a crate in cargo) so their flight had to be broken up into two 8 hour segments. In between they would be the guest of the Lufthansa Animal Lounge in Frankfurt. A world class animal lounge, it had seen the likes of Siegfried and Roy’s tigers and exotic circus and zoo animals. I guess it would be good enough for Lou and Serge.

It was a very nerve-racking couple of days but it would have been worse had I not received status texts from Sally throughout. She texted me when the dogs were checked in at Lufthansa. (PS being German dogs and extremely cute, Lou and Serge became the beaus of the ball at the Lufthansa Cargo. If you have a poodle my advice to you is to fly it Air France!) 

Sally texted me when Lou and Serge were received in Frankfurt, when they were received for their Jo’burg flight in Frankfurt, when they were received and their paperwork was certified by the South African Department of Animal Immigration in Jo’burg and when Vince had been contacted on the ground. All I could do myself was follow the Lufthansa website’s flight status monitor which only gave me info about the flights themselves, take-off and landing, but that was it.

Finally Vince called me to tell me he was on his way to pick them up at Tambo airport and the first pictures of Lou and Serge came across my blackberry. Lou looked a little shell-shocked but Serge was active and alert. Regardless, they were very happy to see Vince!!! And Vince was very happy to see them! And I was very happy to see them reunited!

We have since taken to referring to Lou by his new African name, Zulu. Red-haired Serge should definitely be renamed Maasai because he is so slim and beautiful but so far has not responded when called. We will work on it!

THE PLAN

our visa application

Once we had made the decision to move, a flood of questions and tasks started popping into our heads fast and furious. What do have to do to get the house ready to sell? Where will we store the things we want to keep but not ship to South Africa with us? What is the best way to sell the furniture and housewares we do not want to store? What about the cars? The boats? The plants? How will we ship things to South Africa? What about Lou and Serge? How do we move our dogs? Do they have to go into quarantine? What shots will we need? What additional shots should we get?  

As timing would have it, this came right on the eve of an already planned two week vacation to the Adirondacks and Quebec at the end of August. We decided this was probably going to be our last chance to really relax before we began the arduous process of migrating and we had better take the opportunity and not cancel our plans or we will be really, really sorry when we are pulling our hair out a few months from now. So we brought our laptops with us and spent the entire first day of our vacation in Lake Placid putting together a project plan, something that became known simply as THE PLAN (all capital letters). THE PLAN was going to be our friend and master over the next few months. We would refer to it every day, several times a day in fact, to make sure we were on track and not forgetting something critical. 

Plan complete ... let's party!

Now putting together THE PLAN might not sound like a great way to spend the first day of your vacation but if we had any hopes of enjoying ourselves and relaxing over the next two weeks, we needed to get the questions and to-do lists out of our heads and down on paper, so we could worry about them later.

THE PLAN was actually an Excel workbook with multiple spreadsheets. Each spreadsheet consisted of a list of tasks with a completion date and a responsible party to get the task done. There was a spreadsheet for Immigration Documentation (Work and Living visas), one for Selling the House, Pet Relocation, the actual logistics of Moving, and of course the miscellaneous spreadsheet "Other." Some things needed to happen before other things. Some tasks could happen concurrently. The concept of parallel task paths did add to the stress level though. We were selling off things and getting the house ready to sell while we were simultaneously applying for work and living visas (the job in South Africa was contingent upon their approval.) We were definitely moving. We were still hoping it would be to South Africa.

It took us about a month to gather all the necessary documents for our visa applications, get them certified or notarized, get our yellow fever shot and certification, have a tuberculosis screening done, get our doctor to document the fact that we had no mental illnesses (the irony of this was not lost on me!), get an FBI security clearance and otherwise complete the extensive application requirements. The immigration attorneys took about another month to prepare the application package for us to submit to the South African Embassy in New York and the South African Consulate estimated it would take about seven weeks for them to process, approve and grant the visas.

FBI check

Of course throughout the process, there was never any real assurance that it would indeed be ultimately approved by the South African government. Vince was applying for an Exceptional Skills Work Visa. In essence, the immigration attorneys had to prove that there was no one in South Africa, or in the world for that matter, who could do what Vince was being hired to do.  Basically it was akin to John Payne in Miracle on 34^th Street proving that Kris Kringle was the one and only real Santa Claus. Of course the South African government could always disagree and they didn’t even have to tell us why. 

Uhaul dragging the Bronco

All the while we were throwing things out, selling junk in a garage sale and on eBay and putting furniture on consignment. Luckily, the South African government agreed with John Payne that Kris Kringle had exceptional skills on the Friday before Thanksgiving.

SUV with wine and jewelry

This turned out to be ideal as Vince was able to give his two weeks’ notice to his partners and we could take Thanksgiving week to drive a Uhaul dragging a 1973 Bronco and my SUV, both  filled with unshippables (jewelry, wine, etc.) to family and friends out west to store until our return.





Better yet, it also allowed us to enjoy our last American Thanksgiving for a while with the same family and friends including Vince's 96 year old mother who sadly passed away only a few short months later. The opportunity to be with her on Thanksgiving Day was truly a Divine Intervention for which we remain grateful.

Once again, though frustrating at times and anxiety-ridden throughout, the timing worked out for the best. THE PLAN was a success. We were moving to South Africa after all!