Update on the final part of my immigration process.

I entered the US in April using my CR-1 visa. I entered on our 2nd wedding anniversary so was able to have it changed to IR-1. I pretty much came straight back to the UK to finish my teaching year and to organise shipping etc. We finally relocated to the US on July 9th. Our final destination was Florida but we flew into Pittsburgh to pick up the car and visit my wife’s family and friends. So, our flights were Aberdeen-Pittsburgh via Manchester and Boston. I vowed after a terrible experience last year that I would never fly with Thomas Cook again but the flights were so much cheaper than all the others so we took the chance. It did not go according to plan.

The first leg of our journey was with Flybe (also known in the UK as Flymaybe) and of course there was a 2 hour delay on our Aberdeen-Manchester flight. We made our connection with 4 minutes to spare but when we went through transit, they had to recheck us and give us new boarding passes because we were so late. The Thomas Cook rep was less than friendly and did not give us our luggage stickers which were on the old boarding passes. We forgot to ask for them because we literally had run from one terminal to the next and were somewhat in a tizzy. She also told us our luggage had no chance of making it on the flight and that it would be sent on the next available. I wanted to note also that the Flybe checking in agent asked to see my green card because my visa had expired. She didn’t seem to know about the wee bit on the visa that explains the one year PR status but accepted my explanation. My green card hadn’t arrived by this point.

I was also questioned about my green card when we went through immigration in Boston but the officer was polite and knew that the stamp was basically my GC. Our luggage wasn’t there so because our next leg was with JetBlue, we had to wait until we got to Pittsburgh to file the delayed luggage report. This was on Monday 9th of July and we didn’t have our luggage tag numbers so locating our bags took days. Numerous phone calls to each airline were fruitless and at this point, I thought our bags were lost along the way. Our bags were finally located on the Wednesday but only because I had my friend, who has a pretty important job at Edinburgh airport, pull some strings for us. We were driving from Pittsburgh to Florida with some stops along the way so JetBlue had our luggage rerouted to Tampa and delivered to our vacation rental where we were finally reunited with them on the Saturday. My wife was starting her new job on the Monday so at least it worked out in the end.

Because we are in a vacation rental at the moment, I can’t sort out my driving license or open a bank account but we decided to do it this way because it was a few less things to organise as soon as we arrived. My wife has active US accounts so it wasn’t such a problem. We have since viewed a few houses and had an offer accepted one our favourite one. It is being inspected tomorrow (Monday) and if all is well, the closing is scheduled for the 21st August so I will be able to take care of all of that then. I will also be able to apply for my FL teaching license. I could’ve done this from the UK but decided that I would spend a few months getting the house in order before looking for a job.

The one thing we do still need to organise this week is health insurance. My wife’s insurance through her employer (and subsequently mine) doesn’t start until 60 days after her employment starts. Before I left the UK, I managed to get travel insurance for immigrants that covers me for 31 days. We will still try and get short term policies for the next 2 months in the meantime. We are both still being paid our teaching salaries until August in the U.K. and my wife will be getting salary from the end of July here so the short term health insurance options available to us are expensive but obviously worth it rather than go without.

We have now been in Florida for a week and are absolutely loving it so far. It does seem like a vacation right now because we just got here and we are in a beautiful vacation rental on a canal leading out to the gulf. We know that will change when we move a little further inland to be nearer to my wife’s school but so far, so good. I also checked my USCIS account and as of Friday, it has been marked as complete and that my PR card was mailed out so I will have it very soon. Interestingly, it also said in brackets (NON-DACA) which I wasn’t expecting and I was wondering if this was a new thing or if it always states this.


This forum has been invaluable to us so I will continue to contribute as there is always a post that pops up asking questions about things that pertain to my immigration process, which was DCF from UK as a CR-1 (now IR-1).

Yes indeed. My wife started officially today in her new school but three weeks of that is new staff professional development and planning. We didn’t finish in Scotland until July 6th so she ended up getting only two weeks vacation and most of that was spent travelling and house-hunting. She is a very positive person though and sees the upside as finishing at the end of May next year.

We decided that she would find a job here before we left the UK because she has taught in the US previously for over 20 years and we knew she would find a job easily. The plan is for me to be at home, organising the new place if the sale goes to plan and being on hand for deliveries and getting our shipment from the U.K while waiting for my teaching license to be approved. We budgeted for me to hopefully start work in November. I had no intention of teaching here but my wife has retired from teaching in Pennsylvania and is therefore only given a few years of experience when it comes to determining salary. I will now be looking for a teaching post so that we have somewhat of a financial cushion (hopefully!). We know that our earning capacity would be much better in other states but we love the outdoor lifestyle and having worked in Abu Dhabi for two years - winter heat is now a must.

Thanks for the good wishes everyone. We are loving it so far. Being able to watch Wallace, Maddow, O’Donnell and Williams all live is an absolute joy for me too. Bonus :-)

Welcome to the Sunshine State, are you staying in the open minded bay area or headed into the gun loving, bigoted 'Christian' interior of the state?

That reciprocity stuff sucks, when my good lady looked into relocating to South Carolina they initially said that she would be starting as a first year teacher, despite over 22 years here in Florida, when they read her resume they revised that to starting on a 12 year grade. As it happens we're screwed with staying in FL until she's done 25 years as relocating out of state before she's got 25 years under her belt knocks her pension something rotten.

We really wanted to move to South Tampa but nothing ever came up within our budget, sadly. The house we are in the process of trying to buy is in Land O Lakes. It’s not too far from Tampa and not too far from the coast. It’s also very close to my wife’s school. The research I’ve done suggests that it should be okay for us. Would you agree? Please tell us now as we haven’t closed on the house yet!

I understand what you are saying about the pension/salary. My wife worked for 24 years in Pennsylvania and her salary was not far off of being double what she will get here, hence the need for me to eventually find a teaching post. Shopping in Publix is not like shopping in Tesco in the UK ;-/

We questioned our decision to move to Florida a lot because we really wanted to live somewhere more liberal. We will give it some time, and if it’s not for us, we will move. We’re travellers at heart so it will just be another adventure if we do move but we really hope it works out here.

My wife’s situation was a little different. When we first moved overseas for work (and to be in the same country), she was offered a sabbatical year. At the end of the year, she had to either resign from her post, go back to her post, or retire. Financially, because of the benefits and accrued sick pay etc, she chose to retire. We were also staying overseas to work. Her monthly payment is less than what it would’ve been had she waited another ten years, but she had worked in PA for over 20 years and her monthly payment is still decent. She won’t touch the lump sum for another 13 years at least, when she intends to retire completel so she won’t lose any % of that for taking it early.

She has tried to explain to me all the ins and outs of how your social security is an average of the last however many years worked. This will also be important to me because I had to freeze my UK teacher’s pension when I relocated, so I need to work for a good few years yet too to be entitled to social security in the US - as far as understand. I haven’t completely understood everything so far but I will when I start working I’m sure.

This first month in the US has been interesting. My wife has gone over our mortgage documents with me at least 3 times and I still don’t fully understand ESCROW, or closing costs, or who pays what. So, she is taking care of that stuff and I am googling things like ‘how to mulch your yard’ and ‘how to paint a pool deck’! It works well for both of us :-)

Brewing beer instead of teaching....that sounds like a fabulous idea!