The past few months have been crazy. The amount of paperwork and logistics involved to get one's family overseas is unbelievable. If it weren't for the help of my beautiful wife(BW, from now on), I would not even have a prayer.
In addition to getting passports, shipping straight, health forms, school recommendations and all we had to do something this year that is new to outsiders moving to Doha. All of our documents(degree, certifications) had to be authenticated by 4(count them!!) four organizations. Let's take my degree as an example:
First, I had to request my transcripts from UMASS. No big deal, right? Except that it had to be notarized. Okay, I can live with that. They have that readily available at the university. Upon receiving the transcripts, I would have to mail them back to Massachusetts and have the Secretary of State authenticate them. Once those are sent back to me I would need to send them(in this case take them) to Washington D.C. and have them authenticated by the Secretary of the State there. Afterwards, I would need to take them to the Qatari Embassy in D.C. and have them authenticated one more time.
Whew..more traveling for the document than I have done in years!! These steps would have to be repeated for my certifications and all of BW's documents.
In spite of all of this, the excitement of moving and the regular welcoming emails from ASD keep us motivated and uplifted. The folks there are so nice and accommodating. I cannot wait for our family to join the ASD family there in Doha. The days are ticking.
