Shameless Self-Promotion: ExpatFinder Interview & Additional Thoughts

A few weeks ago, ExpatFinder contacted me to answer some questions about living in Germany. Their website is a resource for practical guidance on making a life for yourself overseas, so their questions were a mix of pragmatic and personal.

(Once you get past my massive headshot, you can read my ExpatFinder interview here.)

Afterwards, I thought about other questions in that second vein—the types of questions I sometimes get from other non-natives, as well as Germans, about living here.

So, I decided to ask and answer them below, with the same caveat I’d apply to many of my interview answers: always subject to evolution!

🌟 What do you do / How do you spend your time?

This question pops up a lot, and I’ve grown to loathe it. It’s only slightly mitigated when preceded by “Do you have a job here?”

This is how I feel when
I hear any variant of this
question these days...

It’s complicated. No, I don’t work in an office. Do I have a job? Yes, like any other Hausfrau / stay-at-home partner / trailing spouse—pick your phrase—I’m responsible for holding it all together.

That means managing the house—organizing, cleaning, shopping, cooking, and entertaining; managing the budget, including paying the bills and filing taxes both here and in the U.S., and navigating the everyday in another language—correspondence, signs, transportation announcements, product ingredients, appointments, phone calls, deliveries, etc.

It means studying key phrases before heading out the door to accomplish a new task or visit someplace I haven’t been before, and feeling silly but still celebrating when I make it through a task without stumbling.

It’s not glamorous or romantic, but it’s my reality of living abroad.

Luckily, I’m able to counter that with time spent exploring, for my personal enrichment and for this blog. I also continue to write fiction about worlds and circumstances far removed from this one.

And I do the other mundane things I would have done to relax at home: reading, walking in the park, watching TV (Netflix or other streaming content, though. German TV is not great.)

In my long-winded way, I’m trying to say that what I do over here is live. And it’s not always quaint or magical or cosmopolitan. But I’m enjoying finding the balance between commonplace and incomparable experiences.

🌟 What are the things you miss most about the U.S.?

Friends and family, for sure. If I could bring them along and we could travel the world in our own goofy enclave, I’d be happy wherever I landed. Beyond that, it’d be food. Or, more accurately, the highly convenient and over-processed food products in which the U.S. specializes. Bisquick, Cheetos, Steak-umms, tater tots…

🌟 What’s the most frustrating thing about living abroad?

Hmm, this changes based on the situation or my mood—there’s not one overarching, consistent pain point other than my lack of fluency. But to be fair, that would apply to any non-English-speaking situation for me. If I had a superpower, forget gadgets or super strength: I’d want the ability to communicate in every language on (and maybe off) the planet!

🌟 Which is better, living in the U.S. or Germany?

There’s no comparison. Literally. It’s like trying to determine the value of an apple versus a zebra. There are things I like and dislike about both, but I would never proclaim that one is better—either for me or for people in general—because everyone’s perception and needs are different and inconstant.

🌟 What would you do differently?

Expand our timeframe for moving here. Knowing what we now know, I’d have stayed in San Francisco a month or two longer, moved with the cats into an Airbnb or long-term hotel, and given myself more time to process all their paperwork, better cull/organize the things we would be leaving behind, and earn a bit of second income to help offset those initial relocation costs.

On my recent trip to Ulm,
birthplace of Albert Einstein

🌟 Do you have any regrets?

Absolutely not. I would not trade this experience—the good or the bad of it—for anything.

🌟Other general tips for expats?

• Make a calendar of local holidays. Bavaria is largely Catholic, so they have a lot more holidays down here than we had up in Hamburg. That’s critical to know when stores close on holidays and Sundays! 

         (Also note that Germany does Daylight Savings Time on a different schedule than the  U.S., which is                  important to note when you’re, say, coordinating an online chat with friends or making a call to folks                    stateside.)

• Make a note of important deadlines (e.g., bills and taxes) and make sure you meet or exceed them. Grace periods here are neither as prevalent nor as forgiving.

• Keep your documents in an easy-to-reach spot. I can’t even count the number of times I have had to provide identification, residency, or work permit information for one random thing or another.

• Scan to save space. Related to the above tip, I keep scans of all crucial documents on my computer for easy access. I have also started scanning other paperwork to have for future reference without having to keep binders full of correspondence and statements that German companies so love to send out.

Anything else you’re curious about? Send me questions and I’ll answer them in future posts!