Posts Tagged ‘London’

Currently I often catch myself playing a game with myself. I call it the “Can-you-say-this-in-english” game and it is mostly about coming up with the english version of things I just said, wrote or write. I try to translate everything I hear or say at work or in my free time in my head and actually I have a feeling it works.

As I told you before my english skills are pretty good. I can write and understand english without many problems. My only problem is that I don’t feel very comfortable speaking english. This may be a consequence of the absence of speaking english in my life. I read books and watch TV and movies in english since I was 18, but I spoke english very rarely.

It may sound weird, but with talking to myself in my head while playing my little game, I kind of get used to myself speaking english. I had a phone interview for a job this week and even if I may have sounded a bit confused and not very experienced to the people at the end of the line, I felt kind of comfortable talking to them.

My friend Petra who moved to London in 2007 always tells me that she still has the most problems with speaking english on the phone. I think it is a good sign that I manage to talk to americans on the phone already, but I still know that I have to learn a lot!

By the way: If you are planning to move to the US in the future and want to improve your english skills and vocabulary range, I suggest watching movies, series and reading books. I developed a huge word pool during the last years including (funny) words like pacifier, janitor, brussels sprouts, mortgage or bombshell and building sentences kind of comes natural by now. But watch out: Knowing colloquial language is nice, but not always adaquate.

Do you know these strange coincidences that happen to be part of our life? Last year Flo and I travelled to London to visit my BFF Petra. Our flight arrived in Gatwick, from where we had to do an one-hour bus trip to the city. With us on the bus was a young couple our age. I don’t know why Flo and me remembered their faces, but we did. Three days later when we were sightseeing at Piccadilly Circus (which is very very very crowded all the time) Flo suddenly grabbed my arm and screamed “Look, that’s the couple from the Gatwick bus”. And actually there they were. Standing in between thousands of people, looking as puzzled as we did.

I love these kind of coincidences, because they are so random but so likely to happen! Right now I ask myself, when will our first huge coincidence happen in the US? It is so likely, that in our first year there we will meet someone we know accidentally. And then say “Wow the world is so small”!

This week I had a job interview with an american company and the girl that called me actually was german and emigrated to the US in 2009 with a Greencard. How likely is it to apply to an american company as a german and get called back by another german who works there?

Another coincidence that happened to me lately appeared on Facebook. A girl I was friends with in school read one of my posts saying that I won’t be in Germany for more than 20 weeks. She asked me what that meant, so I told her that I am going to move to the US and guess what she answered: She will do the same, because her boyfriend has recently moved to the US.

Those are coincidences that you would never expect, but that make you really happy! Other coincidences just don’t want to happen, even if you wished for them to do! When we were in the US in May we went to visit the Santa Monica pier. Only one day later Britney Spears did the same. I actually would have wanted a lucky coincidence to make us visit it on the same day. But it just didn’t happen! Why? Because coincidences are nothing you can wish for. They just happen – no matter if you want them to or not!

My best friend Petra came to visit for our wedding. I already wrote about Petra a lot, not only because she is my best friend but because she moved to London four years ago and is living there since. It helps a lot to have someone who made the experience of moving to another country themselves by your side, because those people understand your feelings and can be there for you in another way than other people can.

I told Petra that recently it bothers me a lot that everyone seems to know everything about moving to the US and wants to teach us their knowledge. The disturbing thing about it is, that all the people who try to teach me their lessons have never lived in the US or even better never been there. When I told Petra that, she only laughed, because she made this experience herself before she moved to London.

So, if you are in the lucky position of having a Greencard and plan to move in a few months or years, don’t let people bother you! This is your dream not theirs! You want to move and only you can make your experience and decide wether this dream is a good one or a bad one! Don’t let people scare you off! To quote my best friend: Do it your way and just live!

And what she laughed about the most: The people who now tell you not to go, because they may be jealous or scared to lose you, will be the first ones to visit you for a vacation and have the fun of their lifes in a land they always hated!