Nice.
Prowlah tell me more about this getting citizenship in Aus. thing? Can you tell me how it works and why it is taking so long for you? If it's too personal I understand if you cannot divulge such info //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif
The main reason it is taking so long for Mrs Prowler and myself is because we had to start over and re-apply midstream for a different type of visa than we originally were after.
Australia is seemingly one of the most difficult countries in the world to gain citizenship of due to lack of livable real estate. There's heaps of space in the interior where a person could theoretically live but because of the extreme conditions nobody but the most die-hard of bushies (Aussie slang for those who prefer the outback over the city) and the Aboriginals care to be there for any extended period of time by choice. Other than that everyone lives in coastal areas and there is only so much space available there, you know?
When all of this began between she and I the plan was to get a fiance visa (obviously before we were married)
There are reams and reams of paperwork involved and tons of supporting evidence to acquire such as statements from her family and friends showing that they knew about and supported the relationship (basically to prove that it isn't some kind of scam that either she or I was running purely for the purpose of my gaining permanent legal entry into Oz) and the same for folks on my side of the world.
It's such an involved process that you almost have to take it on as a vocation rather than an incidental occurrence to make any real headway in a respectable amount of time and real life has this strange tendency of getting in the way more often than not.
Her job takes up
tons of her time (though she loves it and is very good at it) and it's hard to take the mutiple hours upon hours upon hours that it actually takes to gather all of the required forms and information to get it sent in. Then the statutory declarations have to be notarized and whatnot blah blah blah....
Add to that the fact that when all of this began we were after a fiance visa thinking that we would have it all sorted out in X amount of time. Well, that X amount of time came and went without us having everything completed as needed but we had already set a hard date for the wedding. Now that we're married we basically had to start over from scratch since the fiance visa is no longer applicable. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif
It's dealing with a governmental agency if that gives you any indication of why it takes so freggin' long. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif