I’m about to embark on my own journey as an expat. I’ll be living in Paris with my EU husband.
I speak good French and having lived in France twice before for 9-mo stints each, I am familiar enough with French culture to empathize with the negative and positive critiques that people share on this subreddit. In other words, I know what to expect.
Nonetheless I am still nervous about the move; fitting in, finding a community, finding my tribe. I’m nervous about feeling like I’ve made a colossal mistake to sell everything and move here.
The truth is is that reading this subreddit does not make me féel very optimistic. I read posts lamenting the move abroad, the regrets you have, the challenge adapting, and none of which are unwarranted! I get it Expat life is difficult!
……But my question is…is there anyone here who is happy with their decision to have moved abroad?
I moved to Australia six months ago (Sydney). Maybe I’m too fresh to have a real opinion about it yet, but so far I’m happy. It’s been an adjustment, and in some ways it’s an easier move than many because there is no language barrier and the cultures on a global scale are pretty similar.
I dislike how far away it is from the rest of the world and from my family (and it’s $$ to visit anyone) and having to only call at certain times of the day because everyone is asleep with the time zone difference. I also think sometimes Aussies can be kind of myopic (but Americans can too). And it’s a bit of a nanny state which can be a bit annoying.
But I have an awesome job and my husband has really great career prospects here. We live near the beach in a global city that is super diverse with great weather and there’s really a lot to like about this country. Lots of great Asian food. Life’s pretty nice here!
We want to have a kid, and we’ll see how it goes. Maybe it will just be too hard with extended family on the other side of the globe. But for now we’re enjoying it.