Ask the Expat: how did you get here?

Hey, can you point me to any past posts that tell a bit more of your story? How you became an expat (nomad)? Thanks again!

-Bonnie, The Blue Suitcase

I admit, this blog is definitely missing an “about” page, which I always intended to add whenever 1) I got around to switching blog platforms or 2) Blogger started supporting pages that aren’t blog entries. So far neither one has happened.

The short answer to your question is that we moved to Munich after my (American) husband got a job here with a local company. But that’s only part of the story; Munich is basically my 5th expat adventure in Europe, and each one began differently. Here’s a quick run-through:

Bologna, Italy, was my first experience living in Europe, during my junior year abroad in college. I was hooked.

My second expat gig was as an English teacher in eastern Germany. I applied for and received a grant from a foundation which was trying to bring more native-speaker English teachers to eastern universities, which were sorely understaffed after the wall fell and demand for English skyrocketed.

Fast forward a few more years (and careers) and I’m working in New York for a finance company. I’ve expressed my desire to eventually be transferred to one of the foreign offices, but I don’t expect it to happen for a while. Then the company opened an office in Milan, Italy, and decided to send someone from the New York office to staff it. Suddenly that college Italian was coming in handy, as it got me a job in the new office. I was off to Milan, new husband in tow.

At a certain point we decided we were ready to be done with the situation in Milan, but we wanted to stay in Europe. My husband started applying to jobs in a couple countries, and that led to him working for a company in Zurich, Switzerland (which is when I started writing this blog).

After about two years in Switzerland, we started itching for another new adventure, which led to more job applications around Europe, which led to our current situation in Munich. We’ve been here for a year and a half, and have no plans to move on anytime soon.

New Feature: Ask the Expat

I get a lot of email thanks to this blog, most of it asking me to share nuggets of wisdom about travel or life as an expat. I enjoy corresponding with readers, but I find that I often don’t have the time to respond thoroughly to all the inquiries I receive. There are also certain questions that I receive over and over again, so I’m starting to think it would make sense to post the answers here on the blog. Thus, I’m going to start answering questions in posts here, dear-abby-style. Because, you know, I’m so very much like Dear Abby.

If you’d like to submit a question, here are a few guidelines that will help me give you a better answer (and increase your likelihood of hearing from me):

• Check the archives first. You can use the search box at the top of the page to search this blog, or browse the category list on the left-hand sidebar. Perhaps I’ve already answered your question in a past post.

• Ask me something I’m likely to know about (or have an opinion about). OK, actually you can ask me anything you want, but you’re probably not going to get an answer if you ask me something I know nothing about. I’ve lived and worked in Italy (Milan and Bologna), Switzerland (Zurich), and Germany (Munich, Berlin, and Halle), and I’ve traveled extensively throughout these and other European countries. But I’m not an expert on much of anything – keep that in mind, too.

• Don’t ask me to do your research for you. If you can find the answer to your question using google, why are you asking me?

Have a question about European travel, expat life, or anything else that you’d like to ask me? You can submit questions by either 1) posting them in the comments section of this post or 2) emailing me. Either way, let me know what name you’d like me to use for you on the blog. I’ll answer questions in new posts, perhaps once a week or so. Maybe it will be a Friday thing. I reserve the right to edit, re-write, ignore, and/or ridicule all questions. Ask away!

So you want to move to Zurich? Have I got some tips for you

Midsummer Night’s Knitter asked me a bit ago if I had any advice for someone moving to Zurich. While I certainly don’t feel like an expert on the subject, I suppose I might have some useful things to suggest after 2 years here. At least I should, shouldn’t I? I mean, it would be pretty pathetic if I had spent all this time here and not learned anything useful… So here’s what I came up with:

1. Read Living and Working in Switzerland. It has its faults (like how it perpetuates scary myths about Swiss apartment house rules) but overall it’s pretty useful info to help you feel more prepared.

2. If you plan on exploring Switzerland by train (which I highly recommend), consider getting a GA card. This is something I wish we had done, but we didn’t consider it soon enough. It’s an investment, but it pays for itself if you’re a frequent traveler. Plus the money goes to a good cause (Swiss public transportation counts as a good cause in my book – I love it so much I once wrote a poem about it). Plus no buying tickets. Plus when you know the trip is already paid for, you’re more likely to jump off the couch and go get to know a new city or Alp on any given day. If you don’t get a GA, definitely get a half-fare card. These things pay for themselves with one or two trips.
3. Random grocery advice: sign up for a Migros card right away (they send you coupons for free money!); get outside the big chain supermarkets some and shop at the outdoor markets, your local Reformhaus, and specialty shops such as Asian groceries and El Maiz.
4. Zurich things to see/do at least once: Street Parade, Sechseläuten, a movie on the lake, the Kunsthaus, the food basement at Globus (the cheese counter has cheddar), the Limmat Swim, the Uetliberg, the zoo, the Christkindli Markt, ice skating, swimming in the lake, a Laughing Lemon class, museum night, the Blinde Kuh, Expovina, an evening stroll down Langstrasse.
5. Things to see/do on day or weekend trips from Zurich: a cow parade, Murren, Fribourg, Lucerne, Bern, sledding, skiing, Basel, Art Basel, the Matterhorn, Bellinzona, Lugano, Rapperswil, Milan, Strasbourg, Colmar.

I’m sure I’ll think of more to add later…