The first post is the hardest.

It has been more than a year since I made the decision to leave the perpetual sunshine of my hometown in southern California. A college graduate in 2008, what is now known as one the worst times to enter America's workforce, I decided to pursue a job which isn’t renowned for its competitive salaries and health benefits, namely, teaching English as a second language. I started as a tutor at an ESL school in San Diego eventually working my way into a teaching position and made ends meet with my server job on the side. But since my job as an ESL teacher was dependent on an influx of international students (who in the eyes of my employer were customers) studying English in the states, at a time when more than most were foregoing such expensive endeavors, in 2010 I became a product of, “the economy,” and was laid off.

At the same time, I had just begun a long distance relationship with my boyfriend Benjamin in Germany. We had met several years before in Ireland where we both studied abroad. In fact that was where I realized I wanted to teach English. I decided that with a year of teaching experience under my belt, I could give it a go in another country. I had little to no clue about the process of obtaining permission to work in the EU, much less as an American citizen, nor was I aware of the onslaught of German bureaucracy that awaited me. I parlayed my ninety-day tourist visa into a three-month permission to reside, at which time I took intensive language courses and scoured the market for teaching jobs. Eventually, I got my visa and have been working here since.

Naturally when you move to a new country, you spend the first few months making some concessions and lifestyle adjustments. It takes some time before you feel at home in a foreign country. The first task at hand was learning the language, and with a language like German, it’s an ongoing task. Next was getting used to the German way of life. I chose to immigrate to a country that champions such values as: Sicherheit, Stabilität und Ordnung (security, stability, and order), which pervade many aspects of German culture. Inserting a coin to take a shopping cart, returning plastic bottles to the supermarket for recycling, waiting until the light at the crosswalk turns green to proceed, having written documentation of most everything you do (preferably stamped, dated and signed), counting Sunday as a weekly holiday and oh yeah, the metric system! All of this (and more) were part of the aforementioned adjustment period and eventually became the norm for me. In fact, I can remember a skype conversation with my parents wherein I explained that obtaining a savings account here entails paying money to the bank as something that kind of makes sense my mother asked “Have you been drinking the German Kool-Aid?” 


I'd like to share some of the things I notice as I continue to integrate.