Even if we already have the Greencard and live our dream, I am really excited for everyone who waits for the new Greencard winners to be announced. For us this dream came as a surprise. By the time Flo received the winner notification he had already forgotten that he took part in the lottery. But I still think I know how everyone of you guys must feel right now! Since the moment we actually won the Greencard, I couldn’t wait to make this dream come true and actually move out here!

With this post I want to give a short good luck shout out to everyone out there waiting! And it comes with a little advice: If you win, don’t rush things! This is a huge step in life and it should be well planned. Don’t expect everything to be better out here or all your problems or worries to just vanish! Life in the US is pretty, but it can also be pretty tough sometimes! So, use that chance with open eyes and an open mind and fight for your dreams! Winning the Greencard is the beginning of something big, but it’s not the end of fighting for your dream to come true!

Good luck everyone! I keep my fingers crossed for you!

I actually waited for this to happen, but now that it’s really happening it creeps me out a bit. As the headline already says: My language barrier is finally beginning to crack. And with that I don’t mean that i had big problems speaking english before. The only problem was that I didn’t really feel comfortable doing it. I think it is absolutely normal to feel this way in the beginning and everyone who already moved to the US might now what I am talking about: The biggest problem you will have with the language is that you don’t feel comfortable speaking it. I always listen to myself while I talk, think oh my god I sound horrible and then begin to get insecure about it and talk crap.

But this week I had more than one moment where I kind of caught myself speaking english as if it were the most natural thing ever! I found myself in the middle of a conversation before I even realized that I wasn’t talking german, but english. And this feels amazing and strange at the same time! I really waited for that damn uncomfortable feeling to go away for a long time. But now that it begins to vanish I want to hold on to it for a bit longer.

As you may know Flo and I had a real easy start here in the US and so far everything worked out perfect. But there still are things that make me realize again and again that this is not our home country. The language was one part of that. And with every barrier falling down this whole emigration thing becomes more and more real! And that is kind of scary! Even if I still love being caught in this whole adventure!

Even if we now live in California, Flo and I still can’t resist to watch german TV series about people who leave Germany for good. We luckily can watch these on the Internet and try to not miss an epsiode. We really enjoy watching these series as successfull german emigrants, but they always bring up hurtful memories and feelings.

Our own Goodbyes weren’t as hard as I imagined them. There wear tears, there were broken hearts, but it wasn’t as if the whole world crashed down on either our or our family’s or friend’s sites. But still it brings up pain to live through the moment of saying Goodbye again and again when you see those foreign people do it.

The episode yesterday featured a young couple who was about to move to Australia and even if their story was totally not related to ours, the girl said something that nearly made me cry. She said that the thing hurting her the most is to have to hurt other people. My biggest worries always were not my own feelings, but the feelings I am causing other people. I try not to think about it too much, because I know I should focus on my marriage and me being happy, but still it is hard to see people cry because of you. And to have them tell you that they miss you a lot!

You see, there always is a down site to all the fabulous things happening to us right now. But luckily that downside doesn’t kick in to often!