From the beginning on I’ve been very honest with you about what I find hard about moving to a new country. My biggest fear and indeed one of my biggest struggles here in the US has been finding friends from the beginning on. I know that it is mostly my fault, because I might not be the most outgoing and easy person. But I didn’t expect it to be that hard to find some nice people over here.

Now – nearly 18 months after we first moved the US – we found some nice friends and have a good circle of close people. But it for sure isn’t the same as back home. We hung out with one of Flo’s new co workers and his girlfriend yesterday. I met them before and absolutely love them, but for the first time I really got to talk to them yesterday. When I talked to the girl alone, she told me how hard even she as an American has it to find friends in LA. She is from the East Coast and told me that she considers the West Cast as somewhat of a bad place to actually make friends.

When you move here you have to learn the difference of an actual friendship and a superficial nice gesture very fast. No, I don’t want to say Americans are superficial. I really don’t think that. They are nice and open – and Europeans might often misunderstand that. But you have to learn to not mistake a nice move as a friendship. And I guess that is what happened to me when we first moved here and often left me a little confused.

I guess the best tip I can give everyone who plans on moving here or just did so is take your time. Don’t think everything has to work out perfectly in the first years. Maybe you will be lucky and find friends super fast. But maybe you won’t – and that’s absolutely okay. Because you are building a whole new life for yourself – and you have to do that one step at a time.

We moved to the OC 1 week ago and the only thing I can say about our new home so far is: I love it! Here are my (so far) Top Five of what makes Huntington Beach way more home to me than Los Angeles ever could:

1. Stars
There are a lot of Stars and Starlets in Hollywood (and yes, we saw a few in the last two years), but actually seeing the stars in the sky at night is priceless. I guess the smog over LA just makes that impossible!

2. Breathe
This is kinda obvious, since we lived in the middle of a big city, but the air down here is just soooo much nicer. I really feel able to breathe fresh air down here and that feels amazing.

3. Relax
This will probably change soon, but right now I feel like I am on vacation. Smelling the ocean when you walk outside, having a huge pool in front of our apartment and being able to walk to the beach – this lets me forget all the work stress instantly when I come home.

4. Water
It might actually not be the shortest way to take, but every morning and night I drive down Pacific Coast Highway and say hello to the ocean. I can’t really grasp the idea that I live here yet, but it makes me incredibly happy to see the ocean every day.

5. No Traffic
Yes, I have to drive 30 miles to Downtown LA every morning and there sure is a lot of traffic, but down here it’s just so nice. In Hollywood we basically would drive out of our garage into the next long line of cars. But here we need to drive a few miles to actually get stuck in traffic.

I will most likely find many more pros (and a few cons) living down here. But I am already sure this step was more than right. And brought us a little closer to a few more dreams coming true.

This weekend we took a few stpes towards moving into our new home in Huntington Beach. On Friday I left work early, drove down to Huntington Beach and picked up Flo from work. Then we drove to our new place and actually got the keys to our new apartment. It was actually my first time seeing our new apartment. When we took the initial tour at the apartment building I only saw the staged apartment and not our actual one. So for me it was extra exciting. After we got the keys we stayed in Huntington Bach for about one more hour and moved in some things we had brought from home.

On Saturday we actually stayed at our new place for a bit longer. Around lunchtime we drove to Huntington to wait for the delivery of our new couch and our new desk. We used the waiting time to move in a few more things and check out the area a little bit. We left at around 6 to cross off one more thing from our to do list: Buy a fridge. After a little back and forth we decided to get a stainless steel French Door fridge, which was very expensive, but will hopefully accompany us for a few years.

Today we ran our last errand for the new apartment: We took the cat to the vet. We had to get him vaccines in order to get a pet license, which is a must at or new place. So this weekend wasn’t only exciting for us, but also for our little furry friend.

This week we will bring a few things to the new apartment every day and on Saturday we will finally fully move into our new life in Huntington Beach.