A Travel Hiccough

Now, here is something I, as an American citizen, don't think about every day: with a Green Card, one cannot just leave the country willy nilly and stay away for as long as one likes and then come back. No, I say again, one cannot.

Who knew? I certainly didn't. And somehow, my delightful husband, ye olde Green-card-holder, did not know this either. So our plan to just fly off into the wild blue yonder, free-wheel our way around the globe, and wind up living in a Spanish cave house for the next two years, or in some Italian village where we make cheese from Yak milk ('cause, you know, those Italians are WILD about their Yaks), has hit a teensy little snag.

It turns out that if Steve wants to apply for citizenship in the near future, he cannot leave the country for more than six months, and if he stays out of the country for longer than a year, he could lose his Green Card. Those dirty rats!!!

So we have had to modify our plans a bit, but thank God we realized this now, and not after two years, when we return from our life of Yak-farming, to have Steve stripped of his Green Card at the airport and sent back to England. After being strip-searched, of course. I don't know why.

So we will leave in June as planned, and hit France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Norway, Prague, Budapest, and maybe Croatia and Montenegro, and then, in November some time, come home.

The Yaks, I'm afraid, will have to wait.