Lately I have been in that what I call realizing phase a lot. I often catch myself feeling like I am on vacation or like this must be just a dream. This morning for example I woke up and kind of thought to myself tomorrow I will wake up at home again – at home in Germany. It feels really weird to go through this probably normal phase, because I feel home in the US already. But I still seem to be adapting to my new life a lot.

I mostly have those moments when I wake up, when I talk to my parents via Skype or when I am at the beach or in the Hills. In those moments our new life feels more than surreal and it surprises me that it usually feels so normal already. Still when people ask us how moving to a new country feels, I have to say that I don’t really feel like we immigrated to the US. We might as well just have moved to another city in Germany in my eyes. But being thousands of Miles away from home in a foreign country – this is absolutely not how it feels to me!

Even if we already feel home here, I sometimes wonder how long it’s gonna take until I don’t still mistake Germany for my home. And until I fully adapted to living here and don’t have those weird vacation-feely moments anymore. This is probably something every person that moves to a foreign country has to go through. But even if I slightly felt prepared for this, it still always takes me more than by surprise. And in those moments I really have to ask myself: Am I dreaming or is this dream reality?

Before we moved to the US a little less than 18 months ago, a lot of people were worried that our marriage was too young to endure this big step. From day one we knew that this will probably not be easy and might be more than hard from time to time. But Flo and I never really thought this could break up our marriage. Now – 18 months later – we can even say that this whole experience strengthened our relationship a lot and that this was definitely the right move to make! To everyone who has this journey still ahead I can’t say this often enough: Do not think this is gonna be a vacation. Moving to a new country is incredebly hard and it takes a lot of understanding from your partner to go through all those up and downs. But it also can be a huge chance for love.

I am more than happy that Flo was here with me on this journey and made me laugh when i felt like crying and also gave me the opportunity to return this favor. And sometimes I even feel like going through all of this together was the best thing that could have happened to us. Being far away from everyone else you love makes you depend on your partner much more and also gives you room to grow together without anyone else having a saying in your relationship. Not that I prefer being away from our friends and family, but I think having space to grow as a couple was definitely what we needed and deserved.

It’s not often that you have to go through so many challenges in life in such a short time. But if you have the chance to do and endure it with the one you love, it will connect you forever. And maybe even give you something that every young marriage or relationship needs: Enough room and freedom to grow and get stronger and stronger!

One of the things that I always found the hardest about living in the US is networking. I am just not a person that naturally talks to everyone, no matter if I know them or not. I am kind of a shy person who needs some time to get comfortable around new people and chit chat with them. After moving to LA I quickly realized that this will probably get in my way the most. Networking is a thing you have to do daily over here. No matter, if you are just out shopping groceries, at work or at a party – it is normal to have small talk with people and alo kind of expected from you.

I really had issues with this kind of networking until today. I really have to pull myself together and step my game up to talk to foreign people. But also since we got here this was always the first thing of my list to learn. This weekend we went to a BBQ of Flo’s new colleagues and I told myself: This time you just do it, you will just talk to all the people. And I am kind of proud of myself to say that I really did manage to do that. I wasn’t shy (I am not counting the first 5 minutes after we arrived) and just talked to most of the people at the party. And I was so happy to see that once you approach people friendly they are just friendly back.

To me this is a big step in the right direction. Because I now that to make new friends over here and get to know more people, I need to work on my social skills. I probably still have a lot of work to do, but I am learning. And that’s a good thing!