Expat life is wonderful because it’s new, it’s different, it’s so often everything you’d define as “strange” back where you come from. Which is precisely why I love it so much! So my tip for embracing expat life today is a short one: Say Yes. Say yes to the unusual food, say yes to the…
Maybe it began this way for you: you were frustrated with you life, fed up of small town life in your home country, or maybe done with big city life there. Your job was going nowhere and you weren’t sure what to do with yourself. The relationship had just ended, or maybe there was just…
The flat we lived in together in Brussels when we got married, was in a kind of unique location. You’d walk out the door and turn right and within a block there were nice restaurants, trendy bars, boutique shops. Turn left and you’d find a park where Roma gypsies would gather at the end of…
If you come from a Western culture, chances are you’ve been brought up with the value of independence firmly planted in your mind. We pride ourselves on being able to do things for ourselves, figure it out, no need to ask for help. Even if you’ve embraced a more gentle concept of interdependence, it can…
When you arrive in a new country, your first tasks are generally figuring out your way around, registering, and trying not to make any major faux pas in the meantime. You might think it’s enough to remember the way to the post office and how to pay on the bus, let alone worry about public…
(Apologies for being two days behind now! I had a crazy busy end to the week which included something called pecha kucha which I might tell you about sometime. Now to catch up a little…) I want to talk today about something you might have been well practised at back at home, but are tempted…