After more than a year, our visa was denied. We hired an attorney to appeal the denial. Unfortunately, the appeal process involved a Catch-22 situation. The attorney said we needed an official stamp on our tax returns and bank statements. The US Embassy said that was not possible. Because the appeal goes through the courts, and the initial application through The Ministry, the document we provided earlier is not acceptable with the appeal process, so we begin again.

We will be on U.S. soil in December, and will once again apply through the official channels to see what happens this time.

If we are again refused residency we are considering the following countries:

Andorra - A small country between Spain and France. We are here now, even as we write, evaluating this country. It is a tiny jewel in Europe, but being in the Pyranees Mountains has been getting a bit cold, and it's only October.

France - The south of France along the Mediterranean (but inland) should be cool in the summer and relatively warm in the winter. We both speak passable French.

Turkey - Istanbul is too big, but there are lots of smaller cities. Cost of living is about half what it is in Spain. Our Turkish would have to be improved dramatically though.

Tunisia - A mix of the above two; Tunisia is an Islamic country where French is one of the predominant languages. Ties are strong with the US, but it is between Algeria and Libia. Yikes.

Croatia - No longer war torn, there are many US and English enclaves in the country. It is rapidly developing a strong tourism trade and real estate is starting to go through the roof.

South Africa - A bit far for visiting Europe, but it would allow us 5 years to explore the south tip of Africa. Also English is spoken here.

Portugal - Portuguese is similar enough to Spanish that we would be able to learn it passably within the year. Cost of living is a bit lower than Spain, but not a lot.

Italy - Culture and history galore; Can anything more be said? Like Portuguese, we know that we could learn the language.

Greece - Maybe Robert has not been the Webmaster for the Peoria Greekfest for eight years for naught. We have plenty of resources that would be available to help us locate a home there.

Germany - While on the list initially, we have decided (since living two weeks in Andorra) that Germany would also be too cold.

Where will it be?

Rather than keeping a blog of all of these adventures, we've decided to send out periodic eMails to people wanting to keep up with where we are. Maybe a blog page or two, but basically eMails. If you want to be on the list, please let us know, otherwise thanks for helping us share our Adventure in Turkey with you.

Robert and Cynthia