Posts Tagged ‘americans’

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.

There is one thing that everyone who lived in the US, would tell you: You will definitely learn to be more open while living here. And yes, I joined their club! We’ve only been here for two months now, but I already can tell that my behaviour when meeting new people totally changed!

Americans may be very ougoing, friendly and even superficial people. But that makes it so much easier to feel welcomed and to connect with other people. I was so worried that we might not get to know any people at all in the beginning. But as always in life fate just pulls you through. We were lucky enough to have the most welcoming and cute landlord for the first two months, who invited us to a weekly dinner party friends of hers are thworing. We went there for the second time yesterday. The first time we’ve been there was three weeks ago and Flo and I didn’t really connect with anyone. But yesterday it was different. We had so much fun, felt so welcome and met so many nice people from all over the world!

Since we’ve been here I’ve notived that it is so sad how we kind of avoided meeting interesting people when living in Germany. Sure, from time to time we met new people through friends in Cologne as well. But even after two months I met so many nice and wonderful people over here, that even that experience alone makes the whole emigration stress worth it!

So to everyone out there: If you are thinking about moving to another country (even if it’s only for a few weeks or months): DO IT! It will definitely help you to be more open-minded and friendly towards strangers. And who knows: Maybe it will get you some new best friends on top!

So, we arrived at LAX for our last stay in the US as tourists yesterday. It was not only a very good feeling to finally be back in California, we were also welcomed very nicely by the airport officer. We were a bit afraid of that moment, because we read horror stories of Greencard winners getting in trouble for being out of the US for six months. But in our case the guy was very nice, asked us only one question about when we will move here and than sent us off with a warm “Welcome back and good luck!”.

For this is our first morning here, there hasn’t happened much, yet. But, I do have a huge change to announce: I finally figured out what to do with my name here. The last times we were in the US I noticed that Americans can’t spell my name Janina. I tried everything from saying it very slowly to saying it letter by letter. But, it just didn’t work. My parents call me Nina since my birth, so I thought why not try this name out. I know from the movie “Father of the Bride” that Nina is an existing name here. So at our coffee run today I told the nice lady that I was named Nina and it worked!

On Wednesday one of my good friends visited us and she had a brilliant idea for Flo. His real name is Florian, but everyone calls him Flo. The only problem is that Flo is a girls name over here. But my friend Sabine noticed that Florian is a combination of Flo and Rian. I can’t get Flo to try out the Rian-thing right now, but perhaps it will be an alternative for the future.

Stay tuned for more news from our visit to our future home
Nina and future-Rian