I listened to a song on the radio this week and the lyrics had the headline I chose for this post in it. I think that there isn’t a saying that can possibly describe better what this whole immigration thing felt like for us – and still does! Moving to a foreign country (in which you never lived before) sure sounds beyond difficult. But aren’t the difficult things and experiences what makes life so exciting and worth living?

The whole moving to the US thing and living here was kind of easy for us. Everything worked out so well and I am still beyond thrilled about that. But there still are those little moments, which make it difficult. Even if everyone is friendly over here, you sometimes still feel left out. Because you are just not as open as the Americans are and that sometimes makes it hard to naturally connect with people (like you see it happening all the time). We may have no problem at all with the language, but still you are so tired in the evenings, because it’s so more challenging to work in a different language. And to switch back to german every time you wanna speak with your partner or your family.

After two months of living here I know for sure that this was the right path to take in life and that all the hard moments and all the tears were totally worth it. But what I like the most is that I wasn’t scared too much to take that step. That I challenged myself with a journey like that. And that I (so far) made it through without getting bruised too hard!

Yes, leaving your home and starting all over new is definitely difficult. But is it impossible? When you do it open-minded, well planned and with the right sense of intelligence, it absolutely isn’t!

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!

Yes, we are very excited and happily looking forward to our emigration. No, not every prearrangenement is fun. In preparation for our big adventure – which actually starts in three weeks – we have to go to a lot of doctors to get everything checked up. Two weeks ago I went to the dentist and got the evil tidings that I have to get three of my wisdom teeth pulled out as soon as possible.

This Friday I pulled myself together and went to the doctor to get the first one of them removed. I was soooo afraid, but were actually relieved about how it went. It didn’t hurt at all, but since than I can’t laugh and feel like someone punched me right in the face. The next two teeth will get pulled out in two weeks and now I have to plan all our next organizational steps around those date.

Right now I every day feel like time is ticking so loudly and running by so much faster than normal. When we got home from London this Monday Flo and I both were sick so we lost another week, in which we weren’t able to prepare anything.

I don’t actually panicked, but I kind of feel like there is too little time left to get everything done neatly. On the one hand that is kind of good, because while keeping myself busy I don’t have too much time to think everything through and through again. But on the other hand I only have three weeks left to pack up a whole household, get all the paper work done and say Goodbye to everyone.

I have always been one to work fabulous under stress. And even though this is personal stress, there still are some positive sides to it: Through all the stress and all that being sick, I actually lose some of my winter weight and get ready for LA.