Immigration is like Driving...

When I was first learning to drive, my instructor, who had a penchant for the overly dramatic, harped on the concept of making sure you look ahead to find your "Point of No Return". Essentially, the point when crossing a traffic light where if it suddenly turns red, you will no long be able to safely stop in time. I think he was subconsciously teaching me how to run yellow lights, but regardless, I think we just found our immigration Point of No Return.

Looking through the documentation for the ITA, there's a ton of "official" paperwork that needs to be provided:

• Certified copies of passports
• Medical examination results
• Criminal background check (including fingerprints!)
• Proof of employment for all the jobs we put do
• Proof of qualifications, including transcripts
• Proof of marriage, both the certificate and some sort of proof that it's legit (photos are allowed so long as they are dated... wtf?)

and...

• A check for 685£ for the application fee. That's approximately 1336.45 $.

Given that we've already dropped over 500$ on the paperwork above plus 400+ $CDN for the EOI form and there's more to come, we're now at the point where we're "putting our money where our mouths are". Other then the actual buying of the plane tickets, this would appear to be the biggest expense so far.

I think I'll put up a table of all costs incurred at the end of this little adventure.

What's strange is that it now feels real for the first time. I don't know why exactly it takes attaching a price tag to this for my mind to clue in, but it probably says something about the way I'm wired.

It's a terrifying feeling all of a sudden.