InterNations Blog

Expat Hannah from Israel tells us the story of how her daughter wanted to discover Christmas and some other Christian holidays even though her family was Jewish. She recounts how she and her husband came up with a plan to enable their kids to experience all religions!

A few weeks ago in the hubbub of Christmas preparation, my daughter asked me why we didn’t have a tree like all of her friends did or why we didn’t hang stockings over the fireplace. My first reaction was automatically to say “well because we’re Jewish!” but on second thought I had to ask myself – why not? We live in the United States where Christmas is clearly a well-liked and much-celebrated holiday, and since we are not strict orthodox Jews it shouldn’t be that big of a problem – in theory!

We moved to Colorado from Israel four years ago. My daughter was then 3 and her older brother was 7. Language was not a problem for them as my husband and I both spoke English and Hebrew at home, yet this culture was significantly different from what we were used to and took us a while to get used to it. Apparently we have adjusted so well that my daughter wants to send a letter to the North Pole and hang up stockings!
My children know all about our culture and religion and we celebrate Hanukah and several other larger Jewish holidays. Her question got me thinking about how to best bring up ones children with regards to religion, especially if one lives in a country where the religion is different. I consider myself a very open-minded person and find religion in general very interesting, yet somehow it is important to me to raise my children in my faith. Yet it would be unfair of me to expect them to completely ignore their surroundings just because I want to be stubborn about it. My husband and I sat down after putting our children to bed and discussed how we would go about solving this “problem” and came up with the following solution.

Since it is not really our right to determine which god our child should believe in (as my husband said, they are practically all the same anyway!), we will let him/her decide themselves. We will continue to teach them Judaism and take them with us to synagogue for important holidays, yet we will also enable them to join their friends for mass on Sundays or, as in the case of one of my son’s classmates, go to mosque.

We have been doing this for several weeks thus far and so far it has been quite intellectually stimulating, especially for my husband and myself. Questions such as why Jesus was born in a manger and why all innkeepers refused to give the threesome a room, etc. continuously dominated our conversations at the dinner table. My friend who is also a mother got wind of what we were doing and asked me why I was letting my children prefer Christianity or Islam to which I quite simply replied why force them to stick to Judaism?

To me it is something like expatriating. Of course you want to keep all your customs and traditions and pass them on to your children, yet at some point it will become unavoidable to let some new things from the expat culture seep into your daily routine. I can’t forbid my children to eat at McDonald’s just because I think the food is unhealthy and thus make birthday parties at McDonald’s for example a miserable experience for them.

Similarly with religion: my kids go to a public school and although there is quite a substantial Jewish community in Denver, they are exposed to other religions and traditions as well. I think people who refuse to open their eyes simply because they prefer to stick to what they are used to should not go abroad in the first place! If you’re not willing to try something out – such as in our case, letting our children experience other religions – then it is best you stay at home! Plus, it’s not like our kids are never going to celebrate a Jewish holiday again –now we just have both a menorah and a small Christmas tree, the more the merrier!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Filed under: The daily grind, abroad on December 28th, 2011 | No Comments »

Expat Ivana from Bosnia tells us how she experienced her first Christmas without snow in Puerto Rico.

I always loved Christmas time. Despite the ridiculous amounts of gifts being purchased and long lines in the stores, the stressed faces running around as if they were under a strict deadline to shop shop shop till they dropped, it all didn’t seem to bother me that much.
Personally I was more of a relaxed Christmas spirit: wandering down snow-filled streets which smelt of firewood and freshly baked cookies, candles lit in the windows and a general peaceful quietness all around. I loved taking long walks in the woods near our home with my whole family just listening to the sound of winter and then coming home to a warm fireplace and a hot cup of tea.

Through my recent job transfer to a beach resort in Puerto Rico, I was completely unaware that Christmas was coming until I began receiving care packages from my family in Bosnia. It was very strange to be honest because I had always loved Christmas even as an adult. It was the time for family and friends, getting together with relatives one hasn’t seen in a while and eating all my favorite traditional foods – en masse!

Somehow I overlooked the fact that it was soon to be Christmas, in part due to my incredibly busy daily schedule what with the new job and all, yet also in part due to the fact that I went swimming in the ocean after work every day and was still wearing flip flops to work – in December! Although I should mention that Puerto Ricans quite enjoy their Christmas holidays and there were lights strung up all across town, our hotel was festively decorated, yet the feeling of Christmas didn’t quite transcend.

I have a friend, who once spent Christmas in Miami and was a little skeptical of the Christmas tree lights on palm trees, the fake snow on the ground and the plastic Santa Clauses climbing roofs that had no chimneys! Now it was my turn!
I was fortunate to have the day off on Christmas Eve so I decided to do what I always did in Sarajevo on Christmas: take a walk. Except where I usually bundled up and wore thick snow boots, I now walked along in flip flops in the sand! For dinner I was invited to a friend’s house where we decided to have an “anti-Christmas” dinner, as she was also used to deep winter and not balmy sea breeze at Christmas.

We went shopping at the market the day before and bought lots of exotic fruits and vegetables and made a delicious buffet of fruit salads, vegetable lasagna and various salads, which we then took to the beach and made a picnic of. After dinner, we went swimming and sat outside in the sand and watched the stars while drinking a refreshing cold cocktail. It was fun because it took my mind away from missing my family for this special holiday, and because it was different and, I felt, more fitting to this beautiful country!

When my family called the next day and I told them about my Christmas Eve, they were slightly surprised. When I told them how much fun I had, and that getting into the ‘real’ Christmas spirit was next to impossible for me here, they agreed that I had made the best of the situation.
Despite however having enjoyed my warm sunny anti-Christmas Day and Eve, I do miss sitting down at a table with my loud family, eating lots of hot steamy delicious food, and then warming up by the fireplace… I suppose wherever I may end up in the future, I will always try to make it home for Christmas!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Filed under: The daily grind, abroad on December 27th, 2011 | No Comments »

InterNations team member Eva recounts her story of visiting the Helsinki Community as well as a short day-trip to visit the InterNations Tallinn Community Ambassadors back in November. Read on for her impressions!

I was looking forward to this trip, as it would be my first time in Finland, and apart from a few days in Sweden, I had never been to Scandinavia before. I brought with me many of the clichés one has of cold, unfriendly Finland and silent distant Finns. However, during my trip I quickly learned the opposite: they are very friendly and open! It was easy to talk to them because they spoke English with an almost enviable perfection. Street signs and all other public inscriptions are usually written out in Finnish and Swedish, so I could use my basic knowledge of Swedish as well! Of course I also learned a few Finnish words!
It took me about half an hour to get into the city by bus from the airport, after which I had my own small Odyssey until I finally found my hotel! Luckily it is located right in the center, and the next morning I discovered it served an amazing breakfast!
After I checked in to the hotel and rested a bit, I wanted to eat something before going to this evening’s Helsinki November Event. As I expected the majority of Finnish cuisine consisted of fish, which I am not the biggest fan of, so I happily went to an Italian place!

The event was our first ticketed Event in Helsinki and therefore I came over to support our Ambassadors and help our members understand the new concept and try to help in case there were questions or complaints, as there had been a few quite harsh ones when the event was originally posted.
The event started at 5:30pm, quite early for a German, but it seems that most of the people in Finland finish work at 5. The location was an exclusive members-only club – Bläk – which opened that night only for us. It had a very cozy and comfortable interior with many sofas, a karaoke room (indispensible in Finland) and a very beautiful view of the city. At around 5:45 pm people started arriving in groups.
I soon realized that the Helsinki Community is quite an international mix, as I met people from Sweden, the US, the UK, Germany, Kenya, Bolivia, South Africa, China, Malaysia, Venezuela, Austria, Canada, Australia, and etc. The most important thing of course was that they were all incredibly nice! Everyone was very friendly, interested and open and it was so much fun – and easy – to talk to everyone. There was a feeling of belonging among the members, which is very important for a community but not always so easy to create.

We had many newcomers and I’d say that the general age was between 30 and 40. In the end we had about 65 people who had a fun time networking, talking and enjoying the fantastic welcome drinks from Bläk (really good red and white wine, sparkling wine and others). I gave a short speech, thanking everyone for coming and encouraging everyone to ask me questions if they would like to know anything about InterNations, which many of them did in the course of the evening. I got at least 4 phone numbers from people saying that if I wanted to go out the next days, they would be delighted to show me their city and its nightlife! All in all it was a successful evening!

The following day I had a lunch date with my two Ambassadors, Simo from Finland and Jean Carlos from Venezuela. Before meeting up with them I walked around the city to do a bit of sightseeing. I went to the white dome, the symbol of the city, where I was almost crushed by a falling Christmas tree, which had just been erected a few hours before. I visited the famous market along the water in Kauppatori, and the town hall.
We met up for lunch at a very nice restaurant called “Sunn”, facing the dome. The food was very good and not very expensive, as I would have guessed (another cliché which is not true!). We talked about the Community, its future development, and the members’ concerns. After lunch Simo showed me the tourist office and gave me a few very useful tips on where to go and what to see. For example, there is a tram line that you can take, that goes around the whole city and gives you a nice overview about what is there to see.

My business trip was officially over, but decided to stay a few days longer, since I do not often get the chance to visit Helsinki. I picked up my suitcase at the hotel and went to the apartment of my couch surfer, a Finnish student, at whose place I was planning on staying until Saturday. I had a lot of fun with her and got to know a few more sides of Helsinki I would have never seen without her. The marks of the Russian occupation are still quite visible, be it in statues, street names, art or buildings. I did not even know that Finland had had such close ties to Russia. There is also a wonderful Russian church on a small island near the port. The whole city is so small that you can walk everywhere in no time, but they also have a very good working tram system (absolutely punctual!).

On Friday morning I took the ferry to Tallinn in Estonia to pay a quick visit to my two Ambassadors there. Since Tallinn is so close to Helsinki, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get to know them in person as well. The Finnish seem to be even more punctual than the Germans, as everyone was on board before the official departure time! Tallinn is a very beautiful little city with an old town that reminds one of the small medieval towns in Germany like Rothenburg, building from the 12th century and cozy little lanes with cobblestones. I really enjoyed it! The InterNations Tallinn Ambassador, Simon from England, gave me a detailed tour of the city.

At noon we met up with the other Ambassador, Anna-Liisa from Tallinn, at the “Wabadus Café”, where the next InterNations Tallinn Event was going to take place. We had a very nice time talking about the Tallinn community, which has been growing very fast during the second part of 2011 and has a fantastic turnout at the events for such a small community. I learned that apparently the Estonians are much more advanced technically than in Germany: Simon told me that their ID works as a bank card, health insurance card, and many other things. He also explained the Estonian language to me, which seems to be one of the most difficult ones you could ever come up with to learn, even more difficult than Finnish!
The trip as a whole was quite interesting. It was my first visit to a Community and I got to know the Ambassadors in person, and was able to see how the Events and the general organization of them work abroad. I also met many nice people in the Community and really enjoyed the Event. The Ambassadors really did their best in making me feel comfortable and organized a great event! I will definitely soon have to come back to these fascinating cities and countries!

Photos courtesy of Eva and Wikimedia Commons

Filed under: InterNations News on December 22nd, 2011 | No Comments »

It has often happened to me when living in various countries that I missed out on jokes or told jokes myself that were met with blank stares.

When I was younger I always thought that humor transcends all boundaries and that certain things are just funny to everyone, regardless of their origin. However as I had made the mistake of trying to be funny without a result one too many times, I decided to think about what defines humor and what role does culture play into it?
Humor is very subjective, not only by person, but by city, state, country, ethnicity, age, job, etc. So many factors play into telling a good joke, that it is no wonder I didn’t come up with this earlier!

Since a great many jokes revolve around people – for the sake of the argument, let’s agree that animal and machine jokes are relatively funny to everyone – it is no wonder that they may not be found humorous or may be understood as offensive! For example, in the United States, where I am from, people from one state tell jokes about themselves or another state, which only they will find funny and that is even within one culture!

One must keep in mind that the definition of ‘humor’ is the cognitive ability to cause laughter and provide amusement. Thus if you tell someone something funny about his/her nationality it might not come across as causing laughter. Therefore take care not to step on any toes when telling a joke in a foreign country, as it may come across offensive!
Additionally I think every culture has a different sense of humor. Some may find one-liners great, others stories, others real life situations.

Whatever the case may be, it is certainly true that humor and a big smile can make anyone’s day brighter – and once you live in a foreign country long enough, you will slowly realize that everyone has some sense of humor and that you will eventually come to appreciate and understand it, and maybe even tell a joke or two yourself some day…

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Filed under: Intercultural Differences on December 15th, 2011 | No Comments »

Jen from Denmark tells us how she had always dreamed of going abroad since she was little, despite the fact that her parents had a certain distaste for everything non-Danish. Read on for her explanation of how she decided to follow her dreams and the hardships she faced with her family.

I was raised in a very conservative household. My parents were proud of their Danish heritage and looked down upon such antics as learning another language – especially English! I remember coming home from school once bubbling with enthusiasm with the knowledge that my class was starting English lessons in a few weeks. My parents’ response was to sneer at me and claim English to be the evil of individuality.

Thus I had to savor the language learning process in secret. I dared not show my gusto – or my progress – to anyone in my family. Not even my brothers, who were also forced to learn it in school, were happy about it. It was strange growing up in a family with whom you feel you have nothing in common; as a child I often believed that I was adopted!
After I completed high school in Denmark I decided that it would be the best option for me to move abroad. I applied only to universities in England, the United States and Canada. When I got into several of these, I chose Vancouver as my destination and had to inform my parents of this decision. They were, as I had expected, aghast, and immediately warned me that if I moved to Vancouver I would no longer be part of the family.

This was very difficult to accept mainly because I did not understand their reasoning – what was so bad about not living in Denmark? I still had my Danish heritage, my upbringing and the language. But I also knew that if I were to stay in Denmark as my parents wished, it would make me infinitely unhappy and I did not want that. So I chose to go my own way, with or without my family’s blessing.
Living in Vancouver was a blessing in and of itself. I met so many great people and learned so many interesting things that even though I no longer had any contact to my family abroad, I was quite happy.

I followed my passion at university: I became a language coach. Having since lived in many different countries abroad, I could not ever imagine going back to Denmark and live in my family’s conservative world view – there is so much to see and do in the world, why stay in a small town in Denmark?!
I speak for myself when I say this, but taking that step to move abroad – despite the unavoidable break with my family – was the best thing that ever happened to me and I can only say to those who are hesitant to try it to just go for it!

Inevitably you learn so much about yourself when living in a foreign country that it simply cannot compare to what you would have learned if you were to stay at home. Of course I would like to go back and visit my family, but unfortunately they do not want anything to do with me. Luckily I met the man of my dreams who also loves travelling and has the same unquenchable thirst to discover new things. We started a small family a few years ago and although my memories of Denmark are rather overshadowed by my family’s narrow-mindedness, I want my children to learn everything about the world and that includes Denmark, so now we are back and living in Copenhagen for a few years.

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Filed under: Moving to another country? Me?!!, The daily grind, abroad on December 13th, 2011 | No Comments »

Lynette from Wales moved to Hong Kong for work and shares her initial impression and surprise upon arriving in the “fragrant harbor”.

When I initially moved to Hong Kong I thought I was going to be living in a completely different country. I expected different architecture, obviously different food, different nature, basically everything to be totally different than what I was used to in Wales. Well I was in for a surprise!

I landed at the Hong Kong International Airport and after getting my luggage and going through customs and was rather bewildered at what awaited me. One has these stereotypical visions of what Asian countries are to look like – at least I did. I don’t know exactly what it was I expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. I boarded the Hong Kong Express into the city, and just as the website exclaimed, I made it in about 25 minutes! This was impressive, because almost all public transport I’ve ever been on has always had some sort of delay or other…

The first thing I tend to do when arriving in a new city is to go for a long unplanned walk. I take a map with me for security purposes, but I don’t have any destinations on my list, rather I happen upon them by chance. I need to do this in order to get my bearings, especially in a city as large as Hong Kong!

On my walk, I passed the (to me) strangest combination of architectural designs. You have very sleek extremely tall skyscrapers and the colonial style houses in the same area! It was a very bizarre feeling I must admit. The colonial era houses and the high-rises made me feel as if I were walking either through New York City or some country town in Wales! I felt majestic and tiny at the same time. It was as if I were a small non-existent person right in the middle of a concrete jungle, to use that famous saying. What also got to me was the fact that despite feeling solitary and insignificant I was walking in the midst of a mass of people. Literally a huge stream of people passed by me, at some point I even thought I was going to get claustrophobic!

Additionally, I loved the smells that came from every corner. Spices wafted through the streets and gave me the feeling that I was standing directly in a kitchen. I decided I had to visit a market and as if this were on my random route, I landed in one! I meandered through the aisles and marveled at the incredibly strange and colorful offerings. Sometimes I was unsure of whether I was looking at something edible or whether it was more for decoration!

Back out in the hustle bustle of Hong Kong’s street life, especially now that it was rush hour, I got the thrilling feeling that this was going to be quite a year!

When I returned to my efficiency that evening, I wondered if this feeling of awe would ever dull down in the course of my expat assignment here.
But let me tell you this, waking up in Hong Kong never gets old!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Filed under: Intercultural Differences, The daily grind, abroad on December 9th, 2011 | No Comments »

Anzal tells his story of how he grew up in a diplomat family and moved from country to country very frequently throughout his childhood. Despite these moves, he is grateful to his parents for creating a stable home for him and his sister.

I was born in Lebanon into a diplomat family. My father was French-Lebanese and my mother American-Swiss. When I was 4 we moved to the United States where my younger sister was born. We lived in Boston for about five years, when my parents’ jobs transferred again to Vienna Austria. When I was 14 my parents announced over dinner that we were off again, this time to Moscow. I was not happy about this at all. The five years in Vienna were a blast; I loved the city and all it had to offer, and had rapidly made friends. I tried to convince my parents to let me stay in Vienna with a friend so that I could at least finish one school in one place. They argued to the contrary and kept bringing my sister into the mix, which at the time I thought was completely unfair. She was 5 years younger than I, she had to go with my parents, but I was already almost a man and could definitely fend for myself!

As one can probably guess, the story didn’t go as planned. I ended up packing my stuff with the rest of the family and beginning a new school year in Moscow. Although my parents sent me to an English-speaking school, I still didn’t really feel connected to the people there. It was a whole different animal! After my four years of school were over, I took off. I went back the States for college, vowing never to return to Russia!

Now, 15 years later, here I am happily living in St. Petersburg! It’s funny how these things happen – you have a completely horrible memory of something and try to deny your knowledge of this place (or activity or food), and then all of a sudden you find yourself subconsciously craving it!
I didn’t realize this until after a conversation with my sister when I was living in San Francisco.

(Quick side note: My parents’ diplomatic mission somehow ended and they remained in Moscow after I left. Thus my sister was lucky enough to acclimatize to life there and grew to love the city. In fact, funnily enough, despite the fact that she too has lived in more countries than the average person, she still lives and works there in Moscow and never really left!)
My sister was telling me about her weekend with friends and for some reason I felt a pang of homesickness. I decided to ignore it, but it started gnawing at me – I began comparing everything in San Francisco to Moscow: the buildings weren’t old enough, winter wasn’t really properly a winter, etc. I told my sister these things and after erupting in laughter (because she knew me as the ever-cynical anti-Russian!) she said “well, come back!”, so I did!

I am eternally grateful to my parents that despite having to move every few years, they still managed to create a sense of home for my sister and I. It is for this reason that I am able to live practically anywhere in the world and know exactly who I am. In addition, thanks to my parents’ own international backgrounds, I grew up speaking 3 languages fluently, plus the few languages I picked up on the way! Notwithstanding the fact that it is hard on one’s childhood, growing up in multiple countries is ultimately a blessing.

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Filed under: Intercultural Differences, The daily grind, abroad on December 8th, 2011 | No Comments »

Nada from Tunisia moved to Germany with her husband and small son. Unfortunately a year into their stay abroad her husband informed her that he had fallen for an old school friend of his and would like to get a divorce. Nada is naturally upset and angry, after all she moved to Germany with him for him! Yet what troubled her even more was the possibility of putting her son through even more anguish by going back to Tunisia and separating him from his father. She muses about her options and tells us what she eventually decided to do.

It’s tough making the decision to go abroad for someone else. It’s an even tougher decision if you’re bringing a child along into the mix. Nothing is ever certain for a trailing spouse, especially a trailing mom. You are always unsure of whether or not you are not making a huge mistake. Is it fair to take your child away from his comfortable environment and throw him into a foreign culture without his consent? I was always of the opinion that one should offer one’s children as many opportunities to get to know foreign cultures as possible, the younger the better since they may have an easier time at picking up the language. Yet when it comes down to actually doing it, one always has doubts and stabs of guilt.

Despite these, I decided to accompany Georg to Germany. I went mainly because he is originally from Germany, and since he moved to Tunisia for me (we met during one of his business trips, fell in love, got married and he lived in my home for several years before getting homesick and wanting to move back), it was only fair that I move for him. Plus I wanted our son Tarek to experience his father’s culture and form some sort of bond with it. And additionally, I must selfishly add, I wanted to experience a new country as well!

I am unsure of whether it is a cultural thing, but Georg changed completely when we came to Germany. It was as if he had a lobotomy, I didn’t even recognize him sometimes. So when he told me that he had rekindled an old friendship and had involuntarily fallen in love with her and was going to leave me, my first thought was “I knew it!” It is invariably easier to find a likeness with someone from your cultural background. My parents and siblings warned me about this both when I met Georg and married him, and when I told them of my decision to move abroad. But I chose to remain stubborn and see where things led. Well, they certainly led in a direction I was unprepared for!
Questions popped into my head: Where do I go? Whom can I talk to? What about Tarek? A divorce is hard enough on a child even in his/her native country, and he was 4 when we moved to Germany. I decided to stay in Germany at least until the divorce was finalized. Of course Georg wanted joint custody with me and even though I was hurt and angry, I knew it was the best thing for my son to have his father close at hand and as involved as possible.

Not being near my family was extremely difficult, especially because I was too proud to admit that I was in such pain. I also hated seeing Tarek go to his father’s apartment and spend time with his father’s new girlfriend. Additionally, thousands of little things came into the equation: I needed a job, I needed to improve my German skills, and I desperately needed to find friends.

At this point, nine months after the official divorce, I am lucky enough to have found a job in the same city as Georg lives so that Tarek can visit on the weekends. He has acclimatized very well to his new parental situation and seems to enjoy having a traditionally “German household” and a “Tunisian” one. I on the other hand, am still having some difficulty getting used to the fact that I am living in a country which I would not have normally chosen as my destination. I still miss my family very much, but thankfully there is Skype! But overall I am happy with my decision to come to stay in Germany for Tarek. Being a mother is about sacrifices and this is the one I have had to make! Plus, I must say I am curious to see what opportunities my new life in Germany will bring me and Tarek!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Filed under: The daily grind, abroad on December 6th, 2011 | No Comments »

Patrick from Ireland takes a different twist on saying goodbye to his friends and family before moving overseas to Algeria.

I’ve read a lot of different tips online concerning how to properly say goodbye to your friends and family before going abroad. Now I know that most of these tips are pretty self-explanatory but I wanted to make sure that I was on the right track and not missing anything. Well, truth be told, I didn’t actually find anything particularly amazing in terms of tips, so I decided to do my own thing!

Since I am someone who has a lot of friends it was difficult to assemble them all at my place (which was full of boxes anyway), and I didn’t like the idea of having everyone come to a restaurant or bar to sit and chat, because it would be impossible for me to have an in-depth conversation with all my friends in one evening. I wanted my goodbye to be meaningful, both to myself and my friends.

I decided that it would be memorable if I planned an afternoon, evening, or entire day, depending on availability, with one friend alone. I thought of the things that made me like that person and of good times we had together and things that we initially bonded over.
For example, my friend Gemma has two dogs and I met her at the dog park five or six years ago, so I planned a Saturday outing for us and the dogs to go hiking. I packed a small picnic and some dog treats, picked her up from her place and we enjoyed a wonderful day together, reminiscing about the past and planning for the future!

My friend Finn, for example, I’ve known since university, and the two of us had many a laugh while watching football at a bar and enjoying a few pints. I invited him out for a Friday night to our favorite pub, where we did basically the same thing we usually did, but this time conversation was more profound and slightly more serious!

Shelby was my ‘cultured friend’. I met her ages ago through a coworker and we both discovered a mutual love for theater and often went to plays together. I got us two tickets for a Sunday matinee of one of our all-time favorites, and took her out to lunch prior to the piece. We enjoyed some tasty food and talked about her visiting me in Algiers, as she had always wanted to go there before. We even made plans for some theater-visiting for when she came or when I was back!

My dear little sister Abby and I used to fight a lot when we were younger until we discovered that we both had the same taste in music. After that we would always go to concerts together and it was always a riot! So it was only natural that she and I would end up going to a concert. She was delighted by the idea, since it was our favorite band and they were playing in Dublin!

The best part of my idea – aside from spending quality time with my friends of course – was that I decided to document my days with my friends.
I took pictures of us throughout the evening and of the location we were at and afterwards made them into a photo album and kept one copy for myself and gave the other one to my friends. I have tons of photo albums now, but they all mean the world to me and I will definitely take them with me wherever I may end up! The great thing was that all things I did with my friends I have done a million times: museums, dinners, cooking, baking, dog walking, concerts, a poetry slam, etc. and that was what made them special. Having a huge dinner party on one evening is not descriptive of my relationship with my friends and family, so why should I have a fake goodbye party?

Luckily this plan occurred to me 3 months before I was to leave, so I was able to accommodate all my friends into it! It may seem a tad expensive and time consuming, but I think your friends should be worth that to you – mine certainly are to me!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Filed under: Moving to another country? Me?!! on December 1st, 2011 | No Comments »

Josephine from Toronto Canada took a backpacking trip through Brazil one summer, ended up falling in love, and is now raising a family in Porto Alegre. She tells us of her transition and why she fell in love with Brazilians and their culture.

I never thought I was the type who could live abroad. Although I absolutely loved to travel and needed it to survive, I was very attached to the city I was born in and in which all my friends and family lived: Toronto.
Granted it may not be the most breathtaking of Canadian cities, but it is home to me. Well it was anyway. It all started when I decided to quit my job because I needed a change of scenery. I had just ended a nine year relationship and was tired of feeling down all the time. Since I had some money saved up, I decided to take this opportunity to go to Brazil. I always wanted to visit this lush country, but my ex was not a fan of South America (one of the many reasons it was just not meant to be!), so I had always put that dream on the backburner. But no more, so I packed up my rucksack and flew the ten hours to Sao Paulo where I decided I would begin my trip.

Aside from the obvious differences such as landscape, scenery and of course weather, I felt like I was on another planet! Brazilians are extremely warm and friendly people. On my travels through this breathtaking country I met hundreds of people who were genuinely open and interested in me. I not only discovered the incredible beaches and tourist spots but was invited into people’s homes, to eat with them and to really learn about Brazilian culture. Despite my lack of Brazilian language skills (I had, I am ashamed to say, none), I quickly learned how to speak simply because they were willing to teach me!
It’s funny because I had always envisioned myself travelling through Brazil alone, occasionally meeting other travelers, yet I was rarely left to my own devices! For example, I met a very nice couple in Sao Paulo, and they gave me the address of his brother near Iguaçu Falls, where I was able to stay for a few nights, and from there I was invited to spend time at the brother’s wife’s mother’s apartment in Manaus, and so on. In fact I rarely ever stayed in a hotel or hostel!

I also met my husband here. Despite having originally come to Brazil running away from an ended relationship I ran right into the next one! I met him shortly before I was planning on flying back to my ‘real life’ in Canada. I was visiting Porto Alegre, because I had always heard (from my many newly acquired Brazilian friends) that it was an absolutely stunning city. Plus the name – Happy Harbor – somehow made me feel very welcome! I went to the botanical gardens on my second to last day in Porto Alegre and sat on a bench to rest a bit and reflect on the past two months of my life. I was promptly approached by Marcelo who began chatting away at me as if we had known each other for years. It was probably one of the easiest dates – if you want to call it that – I had ever been on!

And now here I am a resident of Happy Harbor and married to Marcel for 3 years with a two-year old son and another baby on the way! How strange indeed that life sometimes does not turn out at all how you planned it – but much much better!

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Filed under: The daily grind, abroad on November 29th, 2011 | No Comments »