About Me
Welcome to An American Expat in Deutschland, a blog about my thoughts on life, the universe and Germany. I’ve been living in Germany since May 14, 2002, and in Laaber, a small Bavarian village just outside of Regensburg, since December 6, 2006.
Who am I?
I was born in Northridge, California, but grew up in Oak Hill, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. I grew up mixed race (Thai mom, white dad) in a pretty much completely white neighborhood. But that all turned around when I got into the local science-oriented high school where it was something like 25% Asian (oh yeah). Yes, I was a bonafide nerd and to top that off, I was also a band geek. Just how nerdy was I? I was jealous of my friends whose parents let them have a dedicated phone line to run their own bbses, back before the whole world wide web phenom came around. I was also a shot putting she-woman, so I’m sure you can guess, I was quite the hit with the fellows.
I went to college at VCU in Richmond, Virginia, where I got a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematical Sciences. In 1999, I began a PhD in Statistics at Duke, where I met my husband, Rainer; he was doing a post-doc in the stat department. Then my dad got sick, Rainer moved back to Germany, my dad died, and it was generally a really bad year. Rainer and I spent nine months dating long-distance before I decided to expatriate and move to Berlin. I got a job at a German company, we got a posh apartment in Mitte, I took six months of intensive German classes, and worked on planning our wedding. We married on May 24, 2003.
I left my industry job at the end of 2003 in order to work in research. I figured if I was going to get back into academia, I needed to do it sooner rather than later, and there were no open positions in Berlin. I moved to Rostock, and Rainer and I spent a year and a half in a “weekend marriage,” shuttling back and forth between Rostock and Berlin. This wasn’t to either of our likings, so I moved back to the Berlin area in 2005, became a woman of leisure, we settled down in Potsdam, got a Bernese Mountain Dog named Charlie, and an apartment with a garden (which is why we went to Potsdam, gardens are hard to come by in Berlin).
After living in Berlin, Rostock, and Potsdam, we’ve now moved to a tiny Bavarian village in the Oberpfalz region. I gotta say that I love it here. Rainer is a professor at the university, and in July of 2007, we had our first child, Oliver. Now I’m a SAHM (stay at home mom) and blogger. Life is good.
Where else can you find me?
I founded and write on a parenting blog called Mamas Worldwide. I’ve also got accounts on Twitter, StumbleUpon, MySpace, iLike, and Shelfari.
If you enjoyed this article, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up to have new articles delivered by email. Thanks for visiting!
Christina Geyer has lived in Germany since May 2002. In addition to blogging on AmiExpat.com, she founded the site 
{ 1 trackback }
{ 64 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
p.s. could you tell Allison about it as we just opened a plant in Australia and HER cards would use the Australian postal rates.
Thanks…..I’m trying to get the word out about this great company.
Hi Christina,
My name is Candy and I’m a Chinese Malaysian who married an American. We had just moved to Weiden, 1 hour north of Regensburg because of the military. I’m having such a hard time adjusting to life in Germany and your website is a great help as we are expecting our first child and are lost trying to shop for maternity and baby stuff.
Also, I was wondering if you are able to help supply me with names and locations of Asian store that you know around the Regensburg area. We can’t seem to find any in this rural area and Regensburg, apart from Nuremberg are the biggest cities close to us. If I’m not wrong, we are living in the Oberpfalz area that you used to live in.
Would greatly appreciate your help. Thanks!
@emilie: Sorry, I don’t have any suggestions, but maybe my readers will. Good luck!
@candy: I still live in the Oberpfalz
There’s a decent Asian shop in Burgweinting (Hartinger Str. 3) that has the best prices. For anything you can’t find there, head to Hong Kong Shop in Regensburg on Obermünsterstrasse.
Hi there, I am a German expat in Florida and I very much enjoyed reading your blog. My husband is American and we are finally reunited last december. Now I am Tampan and I am so happy you love my home country - Bavaria. We will be visiting Bavaria in Summer maybe we can meet. Paula & Skip
Hi Christina, great blog! I left Germany when I was 20, met my husband in New Jersey (he is German too..) and after spending 10 years in this great country they offer my husband a job in Hamburg! Now we will be moving “back home”. Although I am German I think it will take some time for me to feel “real” German again. And after reading your comments about how to dress like a German I need to seriously reconsider almost everything I have in my closet :-)
We are Americans. We have lived in Germany for about 30 years. I teach for DoDDS. I was in the army my first trip over. We love it here. I love biking. My wife is asian american. My daugher is moving to Thailand next month. lloyd
Christine I a decendant of Wilber Geyer, Just wanted to conect and maybe fill you in on his family and see if you have found anything about Frank, seeing that you in his homeland.
Love you page Shaking the tree Gregg
Hi Christina, I just found your blog and enjoyed reading it very much. I’m blogging as well, but it’s the other way around for me: I’m a German girl living in the U.S.(Chicago). Looking forward to reading more about your life in Germany! Kristina
Sorry for the late response to some of you guys, sometimes these things get away from me
@paula: That would be great! Love your blog too.
@anne: I know I would have difficulty moving back to the US and I’ve only been in Germany 7 years. Good luck!
@lloyd: Thanks for commenting! I love hearing from Americans who are happy in Germany. Good luck to your daughter on her move, I hope it goes/went well!
@gregg: I’d love to hear all about your family. I’ve made a little headway with Frank
@Kristina: You’ve got a wonderful blog. Thanks for linking to me, I’ve returned the favor and look forward to reading more about your life as well!
Hello there! Just stumbled across your blog while searching for Cheerios on the internet. I’m also an American living in Germany. I’ve been here for almost 8 years now. My husband is German and we got married in 2003.
I’m in the Allgäu region of Bavaria near the city of Kempten. If there are any other expats in the region, feel free to contact me. I get together once a month with a group of native English speaking women who all live in the area. It#s so nice to speak “real” English!
I’ll be bookmarking this site and checking back often. Looking forward to reading more and possibly making some new friends!
@heidi: Nice to hear from you!
Guten Tag: That’s all I can say after being in Kaiserslautern for a month. We moved from Northampton Massachusetts and today our goods arrive to our new home in Fischbach. I awoke this morning feeling incredibly homesick and I looked on the internet for advice and I found you. Today my daughter turns 8 and in the middle of our stuff arriving I need to go to her school to celebrate. I also have a son who is almost 11 and is hating me right now for “ruining his life”.
Well, any advice would be appreciated—-Renee
PS: We are not a military family so no built-in support happening here.
@renee: I’ve been there, and so have a lot of other expats. It’s a difficult adjustment at first, but eventually it gets better. I’m not sure if this tactic will work for you, but when I came over, I decided on an amount of time I needed to live in Germany before I’d feel like if I went home, I could be proud of having lived that long overseas. I settled on two years. I would live here for two years and if I still wanted to go home, I could do it then with my head held high. After two years, I still missed the US, but felt happy enough in Germany to stay on. That was kind of the turning point. Once I decided to make my life here, things improved a lot. Try looking for other expats in your area. See if there’s an English language book club, or kids group. Check out the German-Way Forum. Read expat blogs, maybe start one yourself! And remember that despite what your kids say, in no time at all they’ll be speaking German and have a much broader view of the world. Good luck and hang in there!
i am moving to potsdam in august and wondered if you know of any good lettig agents i am struggling to find any advertisments for apartments to rent
← Previous Comments