British expat Simon muses about drift and determination in Munich’s expat circles and finds that many of his expat friends have decided not to move to the UK again once their job has come to an end. So what attracts a British expat to life in Germany?

As I ordered a burrito in Taco Libre the other day, a lady who works there asked me if was staying in Munich for good. I was already in conversation with her colleague who had spotted I wasn’t native (it isn’t hard) and asked where I was from. She recognised me as a regular customer and joined in. Both of them had lived in London, him in bustling Kings Cross with its lively night life. She talked more about Twickenham and the leafy West, where her friends had once lived on a house boat on the Thames. Both had a lot of good things to say about London, but agreed that life in Munich was a lot more pleasant.

It is, but to stay here for good? – It’s a common enough question, along with ‘Don’t you miss London?’ and ‘How’s your German these days?’, but I still don’t have a great answer for it (nor the others). “I dunno”.

It’s not fashionable in expat circles to get sentimental about your homeland and particularly amongst the English in Munich. England can seem a bit gloomy compared with the sparkling good life in Bavaria. The cleanliness, efficiency and alpine scenes all seem a world away from run down Britain with her riots and economic hardships. Why complain? Perhaps the gloss of continental life to an Englishman can best be illustrated by a friend of mine who lost his job out here and described his intentions to a group of us out sunning ourselves in a beer garden. With limited German he knew a return to Blighty was the most logical step, yet resolved that his only criteria for a new job was ‘Anywhere but back to England’ – we all knew what he meant.

Of course, it’s not just the English who seem to find themselves drawn to longer stays in Munich, or indeed to an extended life on the road. Munich is full of foreigners. Many of them have spent long periods living ambassadorial-type existences, shipping possessions, lives and often families between foreign postings. Mostly, these one-posting-to-the-next expats seem to thrive on this style of existence and appear more broad-minded for their experiences as well as genuinely optimistic. They have kicked sentimentality about where to live out of their lives and are enjoying the limitless possibilities this affords them. Also, nearly all of them have a plan. Moving has become a routine, but you get the sense that they are in control of where it is they will finally end up.

Perhaps more common are the long-termers who for one reason or another find they never leave. Here you tend to find the odd bit of nostalgia pop into conversation once in a while. You get the sense that they are here through drift as much as choice and maybe do have their regretful moments. Munich sure is a tough place to leave.

I myself would like to make a decision, rather than just drift into it; though after nearly two years I’m not sure I am any closer to having a better answer to the lady’s question. There are some great practical reasons to stay in Munich. If you have the choice, a life in Munich is a great offer. Yet over time my sentiment for London and England grows. I have started to watch more English tele, to wake up thinking about friends at home, to pine after an all-day breakfast with proper bacon! And I have a nasty feeling these are sentiments that will only grow, which is a shame really, because I bet I’d miss Bavaria twice as much if I went back home.

Thank you Simon Goodall for your contribution to our blog.

Photos 3&4 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

We interviewed Justine, originally from Montréal Canada, who is now living in Lyon, and tells us how her initial expectations of life in France were completely up the wrong alley.

Tell us a bit about yourself: How did you end up in Lyon? Was there any culture shock being a French-Canadian and going to France?

I love travelling and learning about different cultures, and I decided that I wanted to move abroad. The problem is that I am really bad at foreign languages for some reason, so my options were kind of limited in terms of countries where I could find work and speak the language. I chose France because of (a) the language and (b) I’ve travelled there quite often and grew to love it. When I found the job posting for my current job I immediately applied and was quite happy to have gotten the position! It was not only a pay increase from what I earned in Montréal, but also more challenging and with more responsibilities!

And yes, surprisingly I received a huge culture shock! Everything was so different, funnily enough even the language! I never noticed that people couldn’t understand me when I was on holiday in France. Lyon was so different from Montréal, there were different shops and the people dressed differently, it was so much more formal than I expected. People did different things in their free time, the food was of course different – they didn’t even know what poutine was!

So you are saying you had a completely different idea of what living in France would be like?

Unfortunately, yes! I thought I was taking the easy way out by moving to a country which spoke my native language. Most of my friends wouldn’t even consider it ‘expatriating’ since to them it was cheating! But it truly isn’t. I guess what I didn’t consider was that despite the fact that the language has the same root, the culture is completely different.

In other words you feel you were unprepared for going to Lyon?

Yes, I think that would sum it up! Or rather, unprepared for France in general.

What do you think would have made it easier for you? What would you recommend someone in your situation to do?

Well, I suppose taking into account that I was not moving from one part of Quebec to the other would have been a good start! (laughs) But to be completely fair, I should have read up on the country and some of its traditions. Expats moving to abroad to a country with the same native language, should be aware that language – although important – is definitely not what makes a culture what it is! I learned this the hard way! Basically I just thought life in Lyon would be similar to Montréal, only on a different continent. It’s amazing how some of the things you take for granted and don’t really consider as being “typically Canadian”, are completely not the case in France!

I see, so you are saying that there are some core differences between the French-Canadians and the French?

Yes. France is a lovely country and once you get to know the French, they are very warm and welcoming. At the beginning it is difficult to find your niche, something my expat friends had no problems with in Montréal. We French-Canadians are very open and – some may consider this to be superficial – communicative, we talk to almost everyone. Whereas in France I sometimes got the vibe that the French were a bit arrogant, they had the “if I don’t know you I won’t talk to you” mentality, which to me seems rather childish…

Now that you’ve been living in France for a while, would you say that you have settled in and feel at home there?

Oh absolutely! I have made many very good friends, and although I am still sometimes taken aback by the slight arrogance of some French people, I feel utterly comfortable here! I am certainly not planning on going back to Montréal any time soon! I especially don’t miss the winters!!!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Gisele from Switzerland moves to Uganda for work and ends up falling in love with one of her colleagues. Here is her story on dealing with the cultural differences, especially between men and women, in Africa.

I never expected to fall in love during my two year assignment in Uganda. I went there with the intention to focus entirely on my work and to experience Africa as one could not on a ‘safari holiday’, which is definitely not my style anyway.
Regardless of my intentions, I met Akello. It definitely wasn’t love at first sight, since I was aware of the cultural differences, but contrary to some of the other men I worked with, he seemed less wary of me and more interested in my person. We began to meet up outside of work and eventually we both developed feelings for each other.

I remember the look on his parents’ faces when he brought me to their house for dinner one evening. It was clear disapproval and something along the lines of disgust. I felt horribly uncomfortable during the entire meal, despite his sisters’ and brothers’ attempts at making me feel at ease. After dinner, when he walked me home, I brought up the subject of mixed race couples and whether or not this was a big problem in Uganda. Akello assured me that it was not an issue for him at all and I shouldn’t worry about it as the main thing was that we loved each other.

Of course, being the romantic that I am, I believed him and thought no further about it, although the look his parents gave me nagged at me subconsciously for the rest of my stay there.
As in all relationships, things began to get prickly when the romance lost its novelty. We had moved in together pretty quickly which perhaps was part of the problem, but little things began to bother me, which I had not noticed as much before. Akello always left his shoes in the middle of the room, never found it necessary to dump his dirty clothes in the laundry basket, never helped me wash dishes, and the one time I asked him to go to the store he let slip that it was a woman’s job to do the shopping, cooking, and cleaning. Well that was it for me! We had a huge row right then and there as I would have had with any man who said that to me regardless of which culture he was from!

Although Akello apologized for said comment, something snapped between the two of us and I began to wonder if whether perhaps the cultural divide between the two of us was just too big to cross. In the end it was certainly so because I didn’t want to give up my own values and principles for someone who was unwilling to do the same for me.
Akello and I are still very good friends, but we both came to the realization that you can’t change an over-30 year olds’ mentality anymore, especially if it is one that you were brought up with.

Expat Maris tells us about his experience of feeling strangely at home in his country of origin, Latvia, despite not having lived there longer than 10 months of his life.

I was born in Latvia, yet spent most of my childhood and adolescence in Denmark and was living in the United States for the past ten years. When my grandmother passed away last spring, I naturally went back to Latvia for the funeral. It was here that I noticed how much Latvia means to me!
I always thought that your surroundings make you who you are, regardless of where you were born and what your heritage is; where you grew up is key to forming your personality. However there must be something inherited because you realize that you belong to a certain group of people, regardless if you’ve grown up around them, or like in my case, haven’t seen them in 20 years!

I remember precisely how it was when I landed in Riga. My aunt and uncle were there to pick me up and I had to dig in the dusty corners of my brain for some long-unused snippets of Latvian. To put it simply: I struggled. Now this is not my parents’ fault, as Latvian was always spoken at home in Denmark, yet when I moved out of my parents’ home at the age of 19, I stopped using it as much. When I moved to the states for my job ten years ago, I rarely used Latvian anymore. Communicating with my parents was a mix of English and Danish, with my sister only English as she lives in London.

To get back to the point, my Latvian was quite rusty, and the last time I saw most of these people was a good twenty years ago! Nonetheless I had the feeling that I had been here forever! Despite not knowing where anything was, which direction to go in or generally speaking what to expect, I felt entirely comfortable. Do you know that feeling when you try on an old sweater that you’ve had for ages and somehow forgot about and you wear it and it just seems right? That’s how I felt in Latvia.

A few days after the solemn affair of my grandmother’s funeral and when the last mourning guests came by with ridiculous amounts of food, I went to explore the town where my grandparents lived for almost 90 years. Walking down the neighborhoods and along the main street in the town center, past little bakeries, florists, barber shops, handyman’s shops, supermarkets, and unidentifiable shops, I began to feel a sincere sense of longing. Attributing it to my grandmother’s passing, I went back to the house. The next morning I drove to Riga with my mother to walk around the city a bit to take her mind off the funeral, and was surprised at myself how comfortable I felt in this city, as if either I had been living here all my life, or as if I had at least been coming to visit on a more frequent basis than every decade or two!

During the next two weeks of my staying with my parents, an inexplicable feeling of belonging took hold of me, which eventually made me take the next turn in my life: I decided to move back to Riga. My parents were overjoyed, my sister was appalled, and my friends in the States were quite shocked as they had seen me more as a Dane than a Latvian.
I have been living in Latvia for almost a year now and I feel quite content in having made this decision. Sometimes it feels as though the country called me home. I even found a girlfriend within the first couple months of moving here! It’s a strange thing, this finding home…

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Elodie from Montpellier shares with us her realization that she travels differently since she’s been an expat.

I obviously went on vacation before I left Montpellier to begin working in San Francisco yet since my time abroad I came to the realization that I travel differently. Now I don’t mean necessarily in how I pack and when I get the airport and such things (I still always bring too much and barely make it on time to gate closing!), I mean there appears to be a difference in the way I absorb my destination.

For example, I visited Rome when I was younger and still living and working in France, and I was, to put it bluntly, quite shy. I didn’t want to go into any of the cathedrals by myself, I felt silly going on a tour of the catacombs on my own, I thought it would be awkward to take too many photographs, and I just generally felt very uncomfortable being “the tourist”. On another trip to Berlin I was less shy, yet spent my entire week there running from one recommended highlight in my guidebook to the next, it was insane and I was quite exhausted after what was supposed to be a relaxed city trip!

For most of my friends and acquaintances this was the norm: either we did everything in our power to avoid looking like a tourist or we were the tourist par excellence! However this gradually changed when I moved to the US. I remember the first actual vacation I took in the States with a coworker with whom I had become close friends. She was from Tempe Arizona and wanted to show me her state. So we flew to Phoenix and after a few relaxing days at her parent’s house, we borrowed her brother’s car and took a road trip. We drove south with a destination Bisbee and took long hikes in the Coronado National Forest and visited amusing little towns along the way. It was definitely the most unique vacation I have ever taken – especially since to me this was like a trip back in time through the Wild West!

Yet this trip opened my eyes. I realized that I didn’t have to have a little book with me to tell me where the hotspots were (OK, I had my friend with me, but still), just heading off in a direction will show you wonderful things that you probably would overlook when just following a travel guide’s tips.
Back in San Francisco this Arizona trip motivated me to explore my new hometown – of course I had done the tourist thing right after my arrival, but to be frank, I hadn’t a clue what San Francisco was really like. So off I went to discover this hilly city on foot and let me tell you it was marvelous and I found so many little shops and parks and streets that were lovely and yet no guide book would mention!

I have since travelled quite a lot – throughout the US and South America, and aside from a city map, I never bring anything. I ask the locals for recommendations on where to eat or have a drink, which direction they recommend me to walk in, which beach they think is the best, etc. Now, I would never buy a travel guide and follow its directions. A trip is what you make it and if you are secure enough to figure things out on your own it’s really the only way to travel!
Do you think being an expat has changed the way you travel?

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Expat Samantha from the UK tried to avoid having too much contact to other expats when she moved to Argentina, and tells us how incredibly hard it was for her to do this and why it is sometimes impossible to find local friends.

I was completely convinced that I would have no problem whatsoever finding local friends. After all, I spoke Spanish and considered myself to be an open and friendly person who rarely had difficulty making friends in general. I’m not saying I am the most spectacular human on the planet, just that I am pretty easy to get along with!
Well, apparently people living in Buenos Aires think differently… This is not saying they were unfriendly, quite on the contrary, yet it was incredibly difficult to get into their circle of friends. I guess maybe it had to do with the fact that I was just not lucky with my coworkers. I started in a pretty small office and was, aside from Joe from the States, the only expat. Most of my coworkers knew each other for many years and were sort of a little family. I spoke to Joe about it once to see if perhaps he had some tips for me, but he seemed to prefer things the way they were. He was the typical expat who favored his expat watering holes.
What I had imagined the Argentineans to be like was nothing they ended up being. I guess my stereotypical image of them was generous, warm, outgoing people, which I am sure they are within their own closed circles of friends. Unfortunately that is the problem: they do not openly welcome strangers into their groups. I tried unsuccessfully several times to join in on conversations, but aside from polite nods or smiles, I got nothing!

I was incredibly frustrated because I’ve lived abroad before and know that an expat experience is not complete if you don’t meet any locals in order to fully appreciate and submerge into the culture. What Joe was doing I wanted to avoid. However it appeared that this was going to be more difficult than I expected.
After months of trying to connect with my coworkers and joining a yoga class and a book club, I gave up! If they didn’t want to be friends with Samantha then so be it, I couldn’t force them to… I have made several friends during my time in Buenos Aires, yet they are all from abroad: Jordan, the US, Russia, Germany, France, etc. But we’ve become our own little expat family and I am quite happy here. I still think it’s a pity that I haven’t been able to find friends among the locals, but sometimes it is what it is.

What I have learned during my stay in Argentina is that the most important thing while being abroad is not necessarily to find local friends and completely assimilate to their culture, but to have friends from anywhere. Together with my international expat friends I discovered quite a lot of great areas in Buenos Aires and Argentina as a whole and can happily say that my time was well-invested and well-spent!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

When Davide from Sardinia in Italy found out he was to be offered a job transfer to New Zealand, he was delighted! What he didn’t quite consider was that the job was to start in 3 weeks and he needed to get ready. He recalls his three-week packing spree and how he regretted not taking more time out for his friends and family.

All I pretty much remember from my meeting with the boss man was that I was going to New Zealand in three weeks. I can’t remember much about the rest that was discussed because I was so excited at the prospect of going to this magnificent country! Looking back, I probably should have listened to the boss, as he offered me a wealth of information on how to begin getting ready in speed – as I was told later.

But of course, as usual, I was too stubborn and proud to go back in and ask him to repeat his tips. The first thing I did was call everyone I knew to tell them the great news. Everyone was very happy for me as they all knew that New Zealand was the country of my dreams, yet of course a bit perturbed by my sudden departure date.
I was so busy sorting through my things, packing suitcases and getting in touch with utility companies and fighting my way through all the bureaucratic red tape, that I almost forgot the most important thing: saying goodbye to my loved ones.

Due to the fact that I was so stressed out with getting everything sorted before I jumped on the plane, I didn’t quite have the time to mentally and emotionally process that I was leaving my home for a place that was indeed very very far away!

This was probably the greatest mistake I made during those three weeks, since I now regret not having taken the time to understand what it meant to go abroad, as well as take the time to properly bid my friends and family goodbye. In my mind it was like I was just going on vacation – despite the fact that I cleared and rented out my apartment, gave almost all my furniture away, and was basically down to living out of a suitcase (the apartment in Auckland was furnished).
Don’t get me wrong, I did have quite a few farewell dinners and drinks with my friends, and my parents helped me with my apartment and getting rid of the odd knickknacks. Yet since I wasn’t really clear on my leaving situation on a larger scale it didn’t seem to tragic, and I remember always being a bit annoyed at my mother and sisters when they began sobbing at random intervals during our hours together.

Reality hit me at the security check in the airport. My entire family and most of my closest friends were there to see me off, despite the inhumane hour of my flight. After I checked in and dropped off my two suitcases and returned to my goodbye-bidders, my feelings hit me like a brick wall. I then realized what I was doing: leaving for a period of at least 24 months to a country that was almost 20,000 kilometers away. And I was going to be travelling light: not only had I managed to pack all my personal belongings into two suitcases and a backpack, but I had neglected to properly say goodbye to the people I loved, so I was leaving without many possessions and without many memories.

Soon I will be facing the opposite: my time in Auckland is coming to an end and I will be missing all the wonderful people I have met here these past few years. This time, I will make sure to say goodbye properly to each and every one of them! I may also only need two suitcases, but a head full of fond memories is a guarantee!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Jimmy from Chicago decided to take up a job offer in Tokyo in order to learn about his family heritage and discover whether his grandparents’ experiences of Tokyo before coming to America still ring true. In this blog entry, he tells us about some of his impressions from his first day in Tokyo.

I wouldn’t consider myself a third culture kid, even though my parents are Japanese. But actually they are more Japanese-American, and I personally just consider myself American, although I have been asked to comment on how it is growing up as TCK. Luckily, my parents were stubborn enough to stick to Japanese at home, which gave me the definitive advantage of growing up bilingually. Therefore my decision to take up a job in Tokyo didn’t require much thought as I was always interested in visiting my grandparents’ hometown and seeing what life in Japan is really like!

I remember my first day here in Tokyo as if it were yesterday. I arrived at the airport and took the appointed train into the city. This was not really much of a problem. However, after I successfully managed to find my apartment I decided I needed a walk to prevent my jetlag from really getting to me – especially considering I had my first day at work the next day!

So off I went on what turned out to be my new passion: walking through Tokyo. I should probably start out by saying that I expected Tokyo to be entirely different from Chicago. During the ride from the airport I was already surprised to see that Tokyo looked almost exactly like any large city in America, at least in terms of buildings and streets, sidewalks and shops. It was literally like walking in a concrete jungle with not so many pretty buildings as I had expected. I was slightly disappointed to be honest, especially by the traffic, which I had always heard was horrendous and was somehow looking forward to. I decided that it was probably because it was Monday afternoon and most people were at work…

After walking for almost two hours I got tired and stopped at a restaurant for tempura and then decided I would take the subway home. This decision ended up being the pinprick I had been waiting for that day! I let three subways pass by before I dared hop on. It was so ridiculously full and people just kept squeezing on. They even had two security guards or policemen help shove the last few crazy passengers on! What I didn’t know then, was that this was standard day-to-day rush hour in Tokyo!
I always got annoyed at the people in the el in Chicago who pushed and shoved and stepped on your toes without so much as an apology. Now they seem like politeness in person! I can now say that I have mastered the art of shoving onto subway trains and when I went back to Chicago last summer, I surprised myself by getting annoyed at the waste of space on the el!

Photographs courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Melanie from Los Angeles finds love with an Italian winegrower visiting California for a wine seminar who came into her wine shop. After a few months of leading long distance relationship, she decides to risk it and let go of her security blanket in the States and moves to Umbria in Italy. She shares her story with us:

I remember the exact moment it happened. He came in to the shop as I was just explaining the taste of Chianti to a customer and somehow I stumbled over my description. When he came to the counter to enquire whether or not we had any Umbrian wine, his smiling eyes distracted me so much that I couldn’t concentrate on the question! This has never happened to me before – love at first sight I would say!
He asked me out directly for coffee and as dumbfounded as I was I agreed, even though I thought ‘How cocky! Typical Italian!’ once my nerves calmed down and I could think clearly again. Well coffee was delightful and we saw each other pretty much every day we could in the two weeks he was in the area. When he went back to Italy there were tears on both sides and I was deeply heartbroken, but we decided to see if things could work out.

I am not a long-distance relationship person, at least I didn’t think I was, and my intuition, as always was right: I missed him terribly, I was irrationally jealous, the time zone difference drove me crazy and things were just not the same. After yet another argument on the phone about why he wasn’t there to talk three hours ago he promptly asked me to move to Italy. I froze. I had never dreamt of that. In my mind, he was going to come back to L.A. and we would buy land, plant grapes and raise a lovely family, I definitely did not ever think of moving there myself. But it made sense. After all, his vineyard was family-owned and he inherited it from his father. It would be much more difficult for him to leave than for me – at least that was his argumentation.

I thought long and hard about this proposal. I spoke to my family and friends and wandered the streets of L.A. to figure out whether or not leaving the city I was born in and grew up in was something I could envision myself doing. During a dinner conversation with my parents my mom asked me why the heck I was still thinking about going to Italy and not already on a plane to Umbria. She went on to tell me that sometimes in life you need to do something completely out of character and daring otherwise you will regret it for the rest of your life. My father joined in to tell me that a plane ticket to Italy in no way barred me from ever returning to the States and I could always try out living in Italy with Giuseppe, sublet my apartment for around 6 months, and if things didn’t work out there were return flights to L.A. Somehow this conversation convinced me to give life in Italy a shot, so off I went to plan the beginning of my stay abroad.

Giuseppe’s vineyard was near Spoleto so I had to fly to Perugia where he picked me up and we drove through the amazingly breathtaking landscape to his home. I literally thought I was dreaming – it was so gorgeous!
To make a long story short, despite my fears of jumping off the deep end into unknown waters, I am very happy here. The people are incredibly hospitable and I think my first two weeks of living here were spent eating and drinking and listening to the lovely dialect (which sadly I did not then master). As Giuseppe’s American girlfriend, I was quite the hit and talk of the town as well. Since his family and their vineyard were known throughout the area, quite a few ‘neighbors’ dropped by for a visit the first couple of weeks.

Since I knew something about wine I was able to help Giuseppe out and when it became clear that I would be staying, I proposed the idea of opening a small wine shop near the wine cellar to sell some wine directly to people driving by. This idea has since flourished and my little own wine shop has become quite the tourist attraction!
In the end I am eternally grateful to my parents for semi-pushing me off the deep end and encouraging me to take the plunge! We are awaiting a little boy sometime this spring!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Marisa from Barcelona moved to Berlin for a new job and shares her experience of finding a flat.

I hadn’t really thought much about how different Berlin would be from Barcelona, except of course the obvious language and climate difference. I learned German in school so I was quite happy to have that basis – another reason why I applied for this position in Berlin – and had been to Germany a few times before, yet never in Berlin.
When I arrived I was quite surprised at how big and spread out everything was. I couldn’t believe that it took me so long to get from the airport to my hotel! I always thought things would be easily reachable and within walking distance of each other, but I found out that Berlin is really a huge city!

There is one specific thing about my first experiences in Berlin, which I will never in my life forget. Since I didn’t know anyone in Berlin, I decided it would be a good idea to share a flat either with some native Berliners or other expats, either way someone whom I can learn something about the city from and with whom I can spend some time with at the beginning until I got sorted out and settled in this metropolis. Thus I began to look about in the newspapers and was surprised to find out that it is quite normal to have an interview for an apartment! I went to look at several flats and it was almost a formal occasion, I felt as though I was applying for a job! In Barcelona I lived in several flat shares, especially during my student years, and I never had to apply anywhere, nor did any of my friends who had several flat mates… Well, I was willing to try it out!

I remember the first apartment I was invited to interview at was with an elderly woman. I arrived in jeans and a blouse and didn’t think much of it, especially seeing as this was my first “interview for a flat”… She looked quite appalled at my appearance and asked me a number of quite personal questions and I thought my goodness, Germans are nosy! For example, she asked me whether or not I tend to go to the bathroom before or after breakfast, whether or not I snore loudly and it was very important for her to know if I shower daily and if I am sure that I do! Luckily it was only this particular lady, as the other places I interviewed at all contained relatively normal tenants!

It was interesting to me to see how people have a casting for their flat mates and also the things they asked me. I applied to places where the people were older as I didn’t want to live in Berlin with a bunch of students, but still, my attitude towards parties was interrogated, my choice of music and film, whether or not I was vegan, vegetarian or a meat lover, if I frequently had male (or female) night visitors, etc., was all asked of me. Some people whom I interviewed with even had a clipboard with a checklist and questions and rattled down the list as if I were answering questions to a survey… It was quite entertaining, especially because I met a lot of interesting people – some of whom I wouldn’t even live with if I were paid to do so – and got to practice my somewhat rusty German!
In the end I chose to live with a woman around my age with a seven year old son. She was very open, friendly and originally from Berlin, which piqued my interest! In addition, she spent a few years in Barcelona so we had something to chat about during my ‘interview’! Living with her thus far is proving to be quite fruitful, as she has shown me some highlights and hidden gems of this city!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.