From the category archives:

Life as an Expat

The Grass is Always Greener…

January 9, 2012

You can imagine my surprise when I spotted this in the dairy section of my nearby Real supermarket: Yep, that’s grated cheddar! Not only that, over Christmas, in the baking aisle, there was real, honest to goodness, vanilla extract (I’m still going to make my own though). Dr Pepper is now available at the same [...]

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I miss the Autobahn

March 22, 2011

And this isn’t about the lack of speed limits (and in case you’ve never been to Germany, there are speed limits on a large proportion of the Autobahn, so it’s not as exciting to drive as you think). A while ago, a friend asked me, what would I miss most from Germany if I moved [...]

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Raising Multicultural Children

January 26, 2011

Something expat and immigrant parents face, is raising their child in a culture that is different from their own.  I’ve been thinking a lot about how things will be different here for my children than they were for me and my siblings.  I don’t know what it is to be a child in Germany.  (I [...]

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Making Friends in Germany

October 24, 2010

I read a Japanese proverb about friendships a little while back and it got me thinking about making friends as an expat in Germany.  It said something along the lines of, if you are a flower, you will attract butterflies.  Butterflies are there when you are beautiful and in bloom, but when you’re struggling and [...]

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Turning German?

October 8, 2010

I’ve been trying to decide what I want to do with this blog (and my life) over the last few weeks. I’ll oscillate between wanting to quit blogging (actually, I was in this state most of the time) and trying to remind myself that blogging was a big part of my life and gave me [...]

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Q&A: Reverse Culture Shock

May 28, 2010

It’s been a really stressful week here.  My symptoms have gotten worse and Oliver has been sick with a virus and conjunctivitis (pink eye).  Luckily, Oliver seems pretty much recovered today and I’m going to be induced next week, so hopefully by next Friday, I should feel better and we should have a new addition [...]

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Q&A: Working and Living as a Foreigner in Germany

May 20, 2010

No real change in how I’ve been feeling (pretty lousy), except you can add killer heartburn that often keeps me up half the night to my symptoms.  The plan is still that I’ll be induced in 1-2 weeks.  Until then, I thought I’d finally get around to answering some more questions. Michael M. wrote: I’m [...]

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