On Monday Flo started his new job. It has only been a week, but I think he already feels very comfortable and good at the new workplace and is very happy about how this all worked out. There is one little downside (at least for now) though: A 50 mile commute. Flo’s new job kinda changed our whole morning routine, because now he has to leave at 8 instead of 10. But so far it is all working out good and I have to admit that I enjoy my free time in the morning a little bit.

That whole week we have been looking for a new apartment in Long Beach and a new car. Our plan is to get the new car in June and find the new apartment in July. The actual move will have to happen in the beginning of August. It’s a lot to plan and figure out, but we are still more excited than scared for this whole new part of our life.

Also this weekend my amazing girlfriends took me out for my belated birthday night. They made me dress up real american style in a minidress and high heels (a total new for me) and took me out in West Hollywood. We first went to fancy Katsuya Restaurant on Hollywood Blvd, afterwards went to a male strip show (my first and last one) and bar hopping after that. I had so much fun, was very very drunk and out in LA for the first time and now have a terrible hangover.

Even if it was exhausting I totally enjoyed this week and am looking forward to many more exciting weeks to come in the next few months.

We have been living in LA for almost 16 months now. 16 months that on the one hand felt incredibly short, but on the other hand I also feel so home here that it scares me sometimes. In a little more than two months we will move away from LA to live in Long Beach and closer to Flo’s new work. And now it really hits us that we will be leaving a city that we have surprisingly fallen in love with so deeply.

All of you that have been following this blog over the years know that I never wanted to move to LA. I always found this city incredibly busy, unattractive, and never expected it to have so many aspects and little hidden gems. Within the last 14 months we have explored so many beautiful, delicious, and convinient sides of LA that I will miss very much once we moved away. It’s a weird feeling to now be sad to leave a city I never wanted to live in. And I am also very scared to not find all the things we love about living in this big city in the way smaller Long Beach.

But also I am very excited for that move, because since I started dreaming about living in the US I always wanted to live in or near the OC. And what makes me even more excited: Our American Dream has been going so well that after a year we move further down and not back.

With moving to the US, comes a lot less vacation days as I as a german am used to. It always makes me super jealous when we have friends or family in town and they tell us what they do all day, how relaxing and nice it is and how much fun they have. I know I am more than blessed to be here all year long, but sometimes I really miss having a few weeks off work and travel through the world.

Whenever this jealousy hits me, I try to make myself some vacation replacement time. I usually do that by going to the beach or exploring the beautiful LA with Flo. But today we felt super lazy and therefor decided to just hang out by the pool and enjoy the warm LA weather. It feels kind of weird to just go to the pool, hang out and go back to your normal life in your own apartment. Sometimes when I lay down there I feel like being in a hotel and on vacation. And that actually is that feeling I sometimes so desperately need. Even if it is just for a few hours.

I hope that once we move to be closer to Flo’s new job, we will live closer to the beach. Right now we drive around 45 minutes to the beach and that can be very exhausting in the morning. So I hope that living by the beach will provide the vacationy feeling on a more regular basis. So the regular work craziness will be a little easier to endure!