Posts Tagged ‘American’

In my first months in the USA I was terrified to be alone with an American. Not alone like being in the elevator with someone. But alone like in the car with someone or alone getting lunch with a colleague. I was always afraid to not being able to understand that someone, not being able to keep a conversation going or just afraid of talking weird english. I was equally terrified to meet new people.

I don’t know when it happened, but this week I realized that I haven’t felt like this in a long time. If I get to drive one of my colleagues home after work, I actually enjoy the conversation and don’t even think about how my english might sound. Also meeting new people is no longer a stressful situation, but a really nice and exciting thing to do.

I actually believe that this kind of makes the US more home to me than a comfortable apartment for example can. Because without feeling comfortable speaking a new language and without being comfortable talking to the people that surround you, I don’t think you can call a place home! At least to me the fact that my panic mode is no longer turned on means the world! And it also makes me feel proud. Proud of being able to say I let my guard down and through that not even gained a whole lot of confidence, but also new friends!

The most prominent thing that comes with living in a foreign country is for sure your accent. When we first moved her it pissed me off a lot that everyone asked us where we were from after we said a single sentence. Even the staff at Starbucks knew we weren’t american after we ordered a damn coffee. It took me some time to get along with this, but after a few weeks I kind of forgot about my accent.

I already told you that the language hasn’t been a real problem for us, but that we still have our moments. I have learned the hard way that the more you think about your accent and the way you talk, the worse it gets. So with time I kind of stopped fighting with myself, just talked and it got so much easier for me. Another side effect is that the more comfortable you get speaking a foreign language, the less people notice that this language is foreign to you.

Noone asked us where we are from just because of our accent in a long time. And today, when we went to a BBQ, a woman we talked to even thought I was american. When I told her I was german she was a little shocked and said that she didnt hear an accent at all!

These little steps are definitely just tiny steps in the right direction, but they make me proud. And the best: They make me feel more comfortable with talking english.

Everyone who reads this blog regularly knows that Flo and I were really lucky in the US so far and didn’t have any serious problems during our 4th months in California. But still, even if anything seems perfect, living in a new country still has some hard sides to it. Even if you know what awaits you when you move to a new country, it sometimes hits you hard to have to cope with situations you didn’t have to cope with back in your home country.

For us right now the hardest thing is that we just aren’t american and we just don’t act like americans. That mostly shows when it comes to making new friends and finding people to hang out with at your work. Flo and I both had people starting nearly the same day we did at both our companies. And guess what: All these people by now are totally integrated and have friends. And we both still sit there alone and just don’t belong in. I don’t want this to sound wrong, it’s not that we feel like hated or anything. But you still feel that you are not american. And that people treat you like that.

We still enjoy life over here, wanna stay and now that we just have to deal with this for the next weeks, maybe months. But that is what it’s like when you decide to move somewhere new. It is hard, it had it’s downsides and you have to be strong. I don’t write this to scare anyone. And I still would tell everyone that has the chance to move somewhere new to do it. But please be aware that there are some hard times ahead of you. Be strong, endure it. And maybe (hopefully) you will be rewarded for it pretty soon.