I’m moving to GREECE!

Wow – that was a secret that I’ve been keeping for a long while.

Here’s my story….

I’ve always had an interest in teaching abroad. I had a volunteer internship in Beijing; I taught English in a 6th-grade classroom at a migrant school. From that moment on I decided that someday I would want to try this again… but with my content area – music!

Now, it is a bit tough (in my opinion) to find the right job for you abroad. I am a mere 24-year-old with minimal experience and degrees. Knowing this, I decided to dive in headfirst into the process!

I’ve been a part of a Facebook group for international teachers and I had been seeing posts about schools abroad for a while through Facebook. I saw some information about an Overseas Education fair taking place in the midwest. Being from Wisconsin, I looked into it further.

I was too late. I had missed the deadlines to register and submit my credentials. BUT I didn’t give up! I gave the organizers of the education fair a ring and explained my situation: I just found out about the fair. They gave me an extension and were very kind to approve my submission, YAY!

I registered for the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) Overseas Education Recruiting Fair. There was both an online portfolio portion and an optional in-person fair to attend. I took advantage of the opportunity and chose to partake in both! I decided to take my 2 personal days a year that I’m allotted and drove down to Cedar Falls, Iowa.

The fair took place from January 31-February 2, 2020. All of the schools represented at the fair were considered international schools, which meant that they have certain requirements to meet. It was quite a unique experience; everything was all extremely fast-paced and a bit overwhelming. I scouted out the positions and schools I had an interest in and scheduled interviews.

Throughout the weekend I had a few positions I was interested in, and I went through with 4 interviews. I definitely learned and practiced good interview skills! Previously, I had been offered my WI teaching job after having just one interview, so this fair was great practice! From those 4 interviews I went through with, I walked away with 3 different job offers! I was ecstatic! In the end I had 2 offers coming from Kuwait, both from 2 different schools. I was also thrilled to have been offered a third position at a school in Greece!

It was a very tough decision, given that I felt like I had my dream job back in my Wisconsin hometown; I wasn’t even sure yet if I was going to move abroad! I gave it a few days of thought, and decided to accept the offer from the school in Greece!

After accepting the music faculty position, along came the PAPERWORK! My oh my, did that take a long while! From February up until my departure, there was quite a bit of paperwork and documentation that was completed (and quite a bit of patience that was practiced!). But all in all, it was worth it to have this experience of course!

I worked hard on completing all of the paperwork, getting documentation, having documents notarized and authenticated with Apostille stamps, and having things translated. The next step was to schedule an appointment with the Consulate General of Greece in Chicago.

My original appointment was set for mid-July. I was pumped! To have an appointment you must present a flight booking alongside other paperwork (PS, my school books the flights and the beginning and end of my contract). My flight was about to be booked for the first week of August! I couldn’t wait. BUT THEN, the pandemic decided to change those plans.

My appointment got canceled. I struggled to get in contact with the consulate to reschedule; Visas weren’t readily available given the travel bans (c’mon US, you need to better with this COVID situation!!). I was pretty sad when my original flight date came around, but I continued to make my attempts to reschedule.

Finally, I was able to make an appointment for late August! Now, by this time the 2 other new teachers coming from the US this year, one of whom is my roommate, had already arrived in Greece (they were in the district of the LA consulate), so I was even more eager to arrive!

I attended my Work Visa appointment at the Greek Consulate in Chicago, and brought my large (it was a LOT) stack of paperwork I had prepared. Everything went smoothly there, and my passport and with the Visa was going to be mailed back to me.

The day my Visa arrived back in the mail I was filled with joy! I reached out to HR and they began the next step of the process, booking a flight!

My flight is set for later this week with a brief layover in Copenhagen. I am prepared with multiple masks and bottles of hand sanitizer for making my way safely over to Greece.

Alrighty, this was pretty long. I just had a lot to share! If you’ve made it this far, THANK YOU for reading! I hope to continue to share exciting content during my life abroad these next couple of years.

❤️
~Anna