Birthday wishes
Today is my birthday and it is kind of a sad day for me. This may be the last birthday I celebrate here in Germany and this is scary! I guess days like birthdays or other holidays will be the days when we realize most how much we miss home. It must be so strange to not be able to just drive by your parents, brothers or best friends houses to get yourself a birthday hug! When we had dinner tonight with my parents and my parents-in-law we joked about having a birthday dinner via Skype next year. I laughed about that, but perhaps it will be what my birthday looks like next year!
I am so happy to not be alone with this whole emigration thing! To be frank, if I hadn’t got Flo in my life I wouldn’t be able to go at all, because he is the one who won the Greencard. But anyway I don’t know, if I would be brave enough to go on my own. Short before Flo and I met I really thought about trying to get a job in the US. I was so bored with my life back then and was desperate for a change. The whole being alone in a foreign country thing didn’t scare me much back then. Perhaps because I hadn’t found the love of my life, yet, and didn’t knew what it ment to be without real love. Or just perhaps it was just a dream and not a dream you already reached for!
They always say that friends are the family you choose on your own. Perhaps I will be with a new found family on my birthday next year. Perhaps I will be alone with my husband. Or perhaps I will be having dinner with my parents and my grandparents via Skype. Whatever it will be, I hope I will be happy with what the last year brought to me. And right now I just can’t wait to experience what this will be!
April 26th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Happy belated birthday! May all your dreams and whishes come true!
Take care!
April 26th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Happy Birthday! Not to make you more sad, but I’m here to tell you that as an immigrant, the homesickness will get worse as you get older. I’ve been in the U.S. since 1991, and after I turned 35 or so, I began to kind of regret it. The reality is that one just can’t go home to see family every year on holidays. It might become less and less, in fact. Then you realize your parents get older, the grandparents die off one by one, and you can’t even go to funerals. Reality is that in the U.S. it is very, very tough to survive. Especially now, with the recession getting even Americans down, and with all the outsourcing, so Americans do not even have decent jobs anymore within the country. However, at some point, especially over 35, there is no turning back to Germany, because nobody will hire you anymore – we all know how that still is! Good thing that the U.S. doesn’t age-discriminate, so here the chances are still better changing jobs when you’re 40, 50, even 60… But, I’d just like to give you some good advice. Be prepared to work hard, harder than you ever have, maybe even have 2 or 3 jobs. It is hard here. It’s not just a Western country, it’s right inbetween 3rd World and Western country. Most people don’t realize this. Not the same as Europe at all. No social safety system, really. Often no health insurance. Barely vacation time from work. If I had to do it all over now, I would not go to the U.S. anymore, but stay in Europe. But then, in 1991, I didn’t know, and nobody knew the European Union was coming.
I don’t want to discourage your dreams, but honestly, the U.S. should be on nobody’s list for a dream anymore. It has become no fun here, and all it is is hard, hard work, and the weeks go by and you are happy when you only can get out for a few days, happy when you get 10 days vacation per year from your company at all. No, at this point, I’d rather be in Europe.
other than that, good luck to you!
August 12th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
i came by green-card.com from google, this is a great forum i will be visiting often.
i’m Nathaniel Moore , currently working in the city of San Francisco .Very glad to know everyone on green-card.com. I guess i will be able to learn much from you guys.