T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
“They can probably get you a student visa. They kept saying how much easier it would be if we were married.” A little over ten years ago, we were living in New York. The company I worked for had just opened an office in Milan, and I had been chosen to staff it. Scott was counting the days until he could quit his job on Long Island to come along.
About time for a wee blog update, isn’t it? Let’s fast forward from my month in Tokyo (we’ll come back to it, I promise) and jump all the way up to present day, where Scott and I are just your typical, everyday serial expats settling in after yet another international move. We’ve been in Edinburgh for about five weeks now, long enough to have most of the new-country administrata out of the way. The first few weeks of a new expat gig feel the same pretty much anywhere, even if the details are different. Register this, paperwork that. Sign up for a cell phone, figure out where all the various kinds of recycling go before the growing tower of vodka bottles in the kitchen falls over, that kind of thing.
We’re more than a week into the hunt for a flat in Edinburgh, and it’s been quite the rollercoaster. We’ve seen some horrible places, and some less-horrible ones, but nothing that we’ve fallen in love with yet.
The main problem is our stuff. It’s always the stuff. When we moved from the US to Italy nine years ago, the agent had a hard time finding apartments for us to view because we were adamant about not wanting to buy a kitchen. In Milan (and Munich), the vast majority of rental flats come completely empty – no light fixtures, no window coverings; the kitchen is usually just an empty room with a water pipe coming out of the floor where the sink should be.
Happy new year! Now where was I? Oh yes, Assisi. After an inspiring artist’s residency in Italy, we headed back to Munich for a couple weeks of Christmas market season before hoping on a plane to the US to spend the holidays with family. Then back to Munich for a quick hello before finally making our first trip (first trip since deciding to move here, anyway) to Scotland.
Because moving to a new country isn’t complicated enough, we decided to spice it up a little. OK, not decided exactly; things are just working out that way. While Scott is home in Munich watching the contents of our apartment get packed up, I’m in Assisi experiencing my first stint as an artist in residence.
Read moreMoving from Germany to Scotland via Italy and Japan
“Scotland? Cool! Have you seen that movie Waking Ned Devine?”
(Actually, that’s Irish.)
“But it’s so cold there!”
(Winters are a lot milder in Edinburgh than in Munich. We see that as a downside – we like snow.)
“Why would you want to do that?”
(This one comes mainly from Scottish people who live outside of Scotland.)
“Are you going to learn that kind of dancing where they only move their legs?”
(That’s Irish, too.)
“Do you like whisky?”
(Yes, very much. Can’t wait to visit Islay.)
“Have you found a place to live yet?”
Read moreThings you hear when you tell people you’re moving to Edinburgh
After a 3-week wait (which by several accounts in quite short), Kabel Deutschland has finally deemed us worthy of giving them money in exchange for internet. Internet! In my home! Yayayayayay!!! I feel like doing a happy dance around the room, but then again that would require getting up from the computer. And I have … Read more
So as I mentioned in the last post, we are keeping busy doing all those annoying little things one must do upon arrival in a new country: paperwork, set up utilities, paperwork, get insurance, paperwork, sign up for a cell phone plan, paperwork… We decided to get contracts with the cell phone provider O2, since … Read more
Still alive, still unpacking, still no internet at home. A trip to Ikea is long overdue (at least Ikea sells the same furniture all over the world, so our new German furniture will go perfectly with our Italian, Swiss, and American furniture). Another thing we need to take care of is choosing a German cell … Read more
After two months of wandering the US, it’s nice to be in a city I currently can call home: Munich. We arrived a couple days ago and have been sleeping on an air mattress in our new apartment since then. I sure am looking forward to seeing all our furniture and stuff next week! Until … Read more