... we chickened out.

It's actually very difficult to get permission to emigrate to New Zealand. With a finite amount of land and a small population, they have to have very tough rules. You have to build up immigration points based on merits. It's not easy unless you have a "critical needs" job on the New Zealand list -- which (as a bone marrow transplant RN) I do!

You get demerits for age, large numbers of family members, etc -- and the overall age limit for immigration is 55. New Zealand does not want retirees to come and glom off their prosperous government system -- they want people who want to become lifelong Kiwi citizens and add to their economy.

Anyhow, I had enough NZ immigration points, had filled out my paperwork, and was ready to go to a nice little BMT clinic at Christchurch Hospital (the only BMT program on the South Island). We had even selected a little suburban town 30 min away to live in and were thinking about real estate. Then, the little town we picked was WIPED OUT by the big Christchurch earthquake.

My family decided that either I was trying to get them killed, or conversely the earthquake was a message from God waving us off of that move. So we did not go, and I am still an American.

As for Poland, I've always had an interest in that country -- probably because I'm a mad Frederic Chopin fan. I know a good bit about the place and even a little bit of Polish, which I am working on expanding. We'll take some vacations to Poland anyway. They don't stand for all that snowflake EU crap in Poland -- so it's now the safest country in Europe (crime, terrorism). And they like Yankees there. 50% of all Poles speak at least some English, BTW.