School starts in one week! I have been going in daily to get my room ready. Next week, is the start of PD. I am really excited for this, as I haven't met my co-teacher yet, and I am eager to start to plan and learn about the curriculum here.
This week was full of new friendships. I was able to meet the other 20 new, international hires for Pinewood. It was fun to talk and share our experiences in Greece. Unfortunately, we were given bad news by the HR department. Because I came so early to Greece (mid July), I was lucky and was able to get my tax number. This enables me (and Miller and Ben) to get a phone number and internet here. However, right after accepting my tax number, the Greek government paused the acceptance of all applicants for tax numbers and residency. This means Miller and all other international hires at Pinewood will not be able to get their tax numbers right now (so no phone numbers or internet for them), and none of us will be able to get residency right now. Having residency is important, because without it, we aren't actually hired by the school. Thankfully, my school is a pro at having international workers and has a plan. We will still work, we will be paid in cash, and they will help us with bills and things that we cannot pay ourselves by putting the bills in their name until we get residency (they are hoping by Thanksgiving or Christmas). I am so thankful for the amazing HR department and how helpful they were before we moved to Greece and now that we are running into this issue!
Unfortunately, this really affects Ben too. Ben has been looking for a job here, and has been really good at getting offers from companies. So far, he has had six job offers! Unfortunately, all have been rescinded because of the tax number and residency issues in Greece. This is stressful, because obviously he wants a job, but also he is on a travel visa. Travel visas are only for 90 days, and do not allow users to work. At the end of the 90 days, if he doesn't have a job, he will be required to return to the US for 90 days before he can return to Greece again. We feel the pressure of October 17th creeping up...Ben, being the hard worker he is, is in contact with immigration lawyers here in Greece to see if there is anyway they can help advocate and help him get work easier. The jobs he has been offered all really want him, and have stated that if he can work around the government issues, they would hire him in a heartbeat!
Despite these kind of stressful parts, we are still having fun here! Each morning, when I leave for work, errands, or for my run, I am accompanied by my new friend (I have named her Winky-see below). So far, I have held great restraint and have not adopted her to come live with us and Momo, but we will see if I can maintain that. She is a very sweet cat and loves snuggles.
Winky
I also was able to join my first in person meet up with the Girls Gone International (GGI) group I belong to online. This is an amazing group of girls from around the world. They have chapters in pretty much any major city in any country. I belong to the group as a whole, and also the local Thessaloniki chapter. For our meet up, we went to a local cafe to play games. However, we had so much fun talking and laughing that we never got to the games!
Our GGI meet up!
I was asked to be one of the group leaders for the group recently, and I am starting a book club for the local chapter. There are about 100 of us girls that belong to the Thessaloniki chapter. The leaders of GGI run different events. Some leaders create meet ups at concerts, meet ups at bars, board game playing days, runs/walks, book clubs...you name it, there is a group being run for it! It is so cool to meet other women in who have moved from around the world to Greece. Everyone is so friendly and fun!
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