My parents are in town and we decided to take them for a walk at the Crystal Cove Beach near Newport Beach today. It’s a really quiet and nice beach and the weather was perfect for a long walk. After one hour we met with some friends from Irvine and had a little late lunch break. We sat on a little hill by the beach and enjoyed some ice cream, milk shakes and sandwiches. Shortly after we sat down, we noticed some Whale Watching tour boats near the coast. And since they were adding up, we took a closer look and finally spotted some whales.

The last time my parents were here we took them on a Whale Watching Trip in Dana Point. Sadly we didn’t end up seeing any Whales, but still had tons of fun on the boat and watching the dolphins in the water. Today we didn’t even keep our eyes open for Whales, so this was a very welcomed surprise. And for sure it again made us feel so blessed to live at this beautiful place! I sometimes really need those quiet, basic days at the beach to realize how lucky I really am!

So as a little tip for your next walk on the beach: Keep your eyes open. It’s normally pretty easy to spot some dolphins or seals from the coast or the many piers we have down here in OC. And if you are really lucky you might even spot something bigger than a dolphin – just as we did today.

I have to admit, that very rarely but still it happens that I am scared. Scared of the future – which is probably the most human thing ever. But I think I am even more scared, because it is a future in a foreign country. Don’t get me wrong, I never regreted our decision to move here. But sometimes it still is a little bit scary.

Being so far away from everything and everyone you grew up with and also being so far away from everything just being normal. Even after a year in the US, nearly every day is a little journey on it’s own. Every day you learn something new – even if it’s only a new word. But it is still a lot to take in! I actually sometimes enjoy this type of “scare”! It is a being scared that wakes you up and reminds you that you fulfiled a huge dream and that you were brave enough to try something new! But other times i have those very brief moments were it is a scary type of being scared!

Moving to a new country is hard! It’s exciting, amazing and totally worth the rollercoaster of emotions – but still is scary! Never forget that my future fellow Aliens! But also never forget that you only have one life to live. One life to live your dreams! And being a little scared is a very low price to pay for how amazing this feels!

This week I thought a lot about what made moving here really worth it. I had one of those weeks where you just feel sad and probably homesick and everytime I feel this I always try to remind myself of what is really good about our new life. And this week I realized that our job situation alone made the move the US totally worth it!

We both already achieved so much over here and made so much things happen that we never even dreamed of back in Germany. It’s kind of weird, because the whole job thing was actually what I was scared of the most. And what everyone told us will be the hardest barrier to take. But for us (at least till now) it worked out so well jobwise. And that alone is a reason I would take this big step again and again and again!

The one thing I got to love about the US so much is that when you work for the right company you can work your way up pretty fast! And we both luckily are in positions and companies where we can take full advantage of that! And in that sense: We gotta go to bed now, get some rest and than face another week packed with a lot of work!