Brooklyn the movie and me

They say that Ireland's greatest export is its people.  A recent film which deals with Irish immigration is Oscar nominated "Brooklyn" and it's well worth seeing. The main role is played by the mesmerizing Saoirse Ronan and the story is based on a book of the same name. It tells the tale of an Irish girl, Eilis, growing up in 1950s Ireland who has the opportunity to emigrate to New York. The film shows her making friends and finding a job. On the other hand you also see her suffering from homesickness while she attempts to adjust to life there. She eventually ends up meeting an Italian American guy and falling in love. However circumstances change and she has to abruptly return to Ireland. While there she also meets an a potential love interest, not to mention experiencing pressure from family and friends that she should stay. She is then torn between the two worlds. Should she stay in Ireland, her home or go back to America where her new life awaits.

Watching the film I felt like I could relate to her leaving Ireland and feeling homesickness but also having two parallel lives, and trying to choose which direction to go. Germany for me meant being with my soulmate, job prospects, a good life. Ireland was home though where my family and friends were. Anyway, I eventually chose to stay here and I'm happy that I took a chance and I love it now in Germany even though there were times I was very homesick in the beginning and had to deal with culture shock.

I couldn't help but be reminded by the film that emigrating these days is a lot less scary than it was back in the 1950s. I didn't have a long long arduous journey over, only a short flight. In order to talk to my family I can simply arrange a skype chat. Back then there might only have been one shared phone in the house or a pay phone down the street and calls abroad were very expensive. If I would like to go to Ireland at short notice it is usually relatively affordable and possible, which means I get to fly back around three or four times a year while family and friends can also come over here easily for a visit. I guess my point is, I'm very glad I emigrated to Germany in the 2000s and not in the 1950s!

Surviving culture shock - what you can expect

When you live abroad (for longer than a few months) you will inevitably face some form of culture shock, which has also been described as feeling like a fish out of water. I've mentioned the term briefly before on this blog and I just thought I'd explain it a bit better and write about the different stages. I haven't met a single expat who hasn't gone through a rough patch after moving countries. It can be a real rollercoaster of emotions that first year!

• The Honeymoon Phase
This first stage when you just arrive in a new country is overwhelmingly positive. You're seeing everything with rose-tinted spectacles and it's exciting and fun. Everything about my new country is wonderful! What a great adventure! I love it here.
My first week living in Germany


• The Rejection Stage
After awhile though you start to see another side to the place and begin to feel somewhat disoriented and frustrated. Why is it so difficult to fit in? I don't understand the language. No one gets me.
When I was experiencing this, I started going back to Ireland as often as possible, which needless to say didn't really help me adjust to my new life here.





• Depression Stage
This is the hardest. You will feel depressed, lonely and homesick. You start to idealize life "back home" and compare your current culture to what is familiar. I'm stuck here. Is this my life now? Did I make the right decision moving here? Some people give up when this happens and return home.

I mention the rough patch in my second blog post (long commute, feeling homesick, not many friends here, finding the German language difficult.)


• The Acceptance Stage
This is where you start to appreciate the new country and feel like you fit in and belong. Yes, I can do this! It's not so bad. I'm happy here. You are now able to compare and appreciate aspects of both countries. You start to feel at home in your new home. For me what helped a lot was when I started to really make more of an effort to integrate myself here, for instance taking German lessons, going to lots of meetups to make friends, getting to know the area.
When I started to really settle in and look on the positives.

Some useful tips for fitting in as an expat here.

If you are living abroad, did you experience culture shock? How did you cope?

Other expats come and go but I'm still here

One of the problems with making friends with other expats is that a lot of them are only living in Germany temporarily and eventually move back to their home countries (or some place else). In the almost five years I've lived here I've had to say goodbye countless times and it doesn't get any easier.

Finding people you really click with and building up the friendship takes time and when they leave, you naturally lament their absence. It's great that I now have lots of connections around the world, and these days with skype you can still keep in touch pretty well, but day to day I miss hanging out with the person.

Of course you're probably thinking I could make more of an effort to make German friends. And I do and I have some great ones now but in general I still find I have more in common with other expats and tend to connect with them faster.

I guess it's just a downside to living abroad, that you get to meet some great people and have them your life for awhile but then they move away. In another year or two everyone from my initial friend group here will most likely not live here anymore. Sometimes I feel like the last guest left at a party! At least I still have the GerMann to hang out with. And I can plan some more trips back to Dublin when I start feeling homesick.

Well...Are you fluent yet?

Without a doubt the top question people from home ask me has always been “are you fluent in German now?" They pretty much started asking me that from my first few weeks living here!

When I think of the word “fluent” I imagine understanding absolutely everything and since I'm not quite there yet then I feel bad about why not and tend to answer "no". However, a better definition of fluency is actually the the ability to get by in most situations, to make oneself understood and to be able to go about daily tasks such as working, going to the doctor, post office and so on without language problems or barriers.You might still have your accent and not sound like a native speaker but that's ok!

Often I'll be sitting in a meeting at work and have no problems keeping up with the conversation and tricky technical speak and I'll feel confident and fluent at that moment but then at another time I might be on a night out with a group of Germans in a noisy pub and I find it hard to follow the conversation with the background noise and then I feel a little lost. I used to ask people who had lived here a long time at what stage they felt really fluent and I was often told it took them three years living in the county but others said it took them at least five years.

Recently, I came across an article that helps explain how to tell whether you are fluent. One of the ways is that people don't modify their language for you anymore. When I first moved here I noticed that a lot of Germans would try to speak Hochdeutsch (high German - without using dialect or slang) and speak clearly to make it easier for me to understand. Now they talk quickly and normally using local dialects, which I'm now able to keep up with. Also I can watch TV shows and read articles in German and understand without having to stop to think about the translations in my head or acknowledge that it's not English, which is great.

My first month or so living here I found myself exhausted each night from the effort of having to constantly translate everything in my head, formulate an answer in English and translate that before speaking. Now something like 90% of the time I understand what's being said without having to try to think of the English equivalent. So I guess I would say I am fluent now!

If you speak other languages, at what stage did you feel truly fluent? Or do you think you will never reach that stage as a non-native speaker?

Thanksgiving #MicroblogMonday

One of the things I love about being an expat is that you also get to experience traditions from other cultures within the expat community. For instance, I always bring my American friends out with me to party on St. Patrick's day and they invite us to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.

And since the GerMann and I have lots of American and Canadian friends here we sometimes even end up getting invited to two Thanksgiving dinners! I love getting to try new dishes such as sweet potato casserole, corn bread and pumpkin pie which we don't typically eat in Ireland and it's also just a lovely evening hanging out with friends.

Happy Thanksgiving if you are celebrating where you are!

Another year here

I've recently had my four year anniversary of living in Germany. In the Summer of 2010 I packed my suitcase and flew over not knowing whether I would later regret the decision and also not sure how long I would end up staying. Looking back I would say that the first year was definitely the hardest. Not initially - the first few months I was in the "honeymoon" phase in my relationship with Germany - but once I removed my rose-tinted spectacles and took a hard look at the place, I did have a lot of low moments and at times strongly considered moving back. I've since learned this is all part of culture shock and a totally normal part to adjusting to life in a foreign country.

But I stayed and the homesickness eventually passed and things got much much better! I gradually built up a network of friends - mainly other expats - I found a new job where I didn't have a long commute, my German level improved to where I was able to get by and handle more situations, and I felt settled and even at home. Four years on, I'm not sure where the time has gone, but I'm happy living here!

Of course there are still highs and lows, things I like about living abroad and things I don't. Let's start with the positives. What I love most is meeting new and interesting people and making friends that I would probably never have met had I stayed living in Ireland. There's also a great expat community here supporting and helping each other and it's nice to be a part of that.

I also get to enjoy the benefits of living in Germany such as the lovely long Summers, lots of vacation days (it's common to have as many as 30 days off a year), great health care, good transport and it's central European location to name a few. Yesterday afternoon we cycled to a pretty nearby lake for a swim and today we hung out in one of the many beer gardens enjoying the sun.

I've also gotten more opportunities to travel which I love. It's a lot easier to go and visit other European cities at the weekend as you just need to pop on a train!

Another plus is that living abroad has gotten me out of my comfort zone and I've grown from the challenges. It feels good that I was brave enough to leave Ireland and create a life for myself in a foreign country and to work entirely through German! I've had to put myself into difficult situations such as doing job interviews and presentations auf Deutsch and I think that deserves a pat on the back!

What is also nice is I now get to experience Ireland as a tourist. Because I'm not working there any more whenever I go back I have the time to go on trips, eat out and enjoy myself... It's like a fun holiday. Since I often travel over with the GerMann I'm also more inclined to take trips to show him the beautiful country I grew up in.

So what are the things that make me homesick? The hardest thing is missing the people back home. If my family and friends were to all emigrate over here, it would be perfect! I do wish I could see everyone more often. That said, I do try to make it back about three or even four times a year which is pretty good going! I know it's a lot harder for my American friends to get back home as often.

I also miss Ireland itself - the friendliness, which I notice even more after living in Germany, the beautiful scenery, feeling like I belong, comfort foods and just the craic and the banter! Maybe I'm biased but I think there's just something about the Irish people - their sense of humour and positivity. Like they often expect the worst outcome - such as rain, but then when it doesn't happen they are delighted.

The next difficult thing is definitely the language - it can be frustrating sometimes not knowing the right words to adequately get your point across and I know that even though I've been here four years I still speak German with an Irish accent! So sometimes I will be ordering something in a restaurant or cafe and the waiter will answer me in English, which I find a bit disheartening (isn't my German good enough?!) but I have learnt that Germans just love to practice their English! Also I find chatting with small groups of Germans no problem but if I'm in a big group and it's a noisy environment such as a pub with loud music, it can be hard at times to keep up with the conversations! Still the longer I live here and the better my German gets the less the language issue bothers me.

Just being a foreigner itself can sometimes be hard. No matter how long I live here I will probably never really completely assimilate and feel like I totally belong. I don't mind that too much though. Germany is quite international with lots of different nationalities and people are normally excited to hear I'm from Ireland as they don't meet that many Irish people here. That's something I often wonder about actually, why don't more Irish people consider Germany as a good emigration destination?

Once you settle in the foreign country, a lot of the time it's just day to day living. It's not all super glamorous even though it might seem that way when you look at the facebook pages of people who are living abroad! People don’t tell you about the hard days.

I like my life here now and I'm happy, though the thought of staying forever scares me a little! For some reason the idea of me getting old and at some point having lived here longer than I've lived in Ireland seems so strange to me. What's difficult about being friends with other ex-pats is most of them move on at some point - normally back to their home countries and I hate having to say goodbye. It isn't definite that our future will always be in Germany, maybe at some point we might move to Ireland or somewhere else, but at the moment it just makes the most sense for us.

I also have another big anniversary coming up soon by the way, our one year wedding anniversary, which I also plan to write a little about!

On my first blog post

I'm doing a blog link up! The theme is firsts (#firstsTOTALSOCIAL) and I thought I would share my initial blog post from nearly 4 years ago. From when I'd decided to move to Germany for "die große Liebe" (the great love!). Yep, I'm one of those expats who moved countries for love. Career wise it also wasn't a bad move for me luckily considering I was unemployed after coming back from travelling (one year in Australia). In the post I talk a little about our background story, how we got back together again despite breaking up a few years earlier when the long distance got too much.

Initially I thought I would move to Germany for awhile and just see how it goes, I wasn't thinking totally long term. It was a difficult year with a lot of ups and downs. After the initial "honeymoon phase" with the country passed I struggled for several months (also known as culture shock). I had a long commute, working in a foreign language was exhausting and life as an expat took some getting used to! I also lost my "suppose base"- family and friends from home. I had the GerMann of course which was great but I've always been very independent and didn't want to rely on him completely so I knew I also had a make a life for myself so I set about going to meetups and trying to make friends anyway possible (even if it meant arranging to meet total strangers off the internet!). And gradually I built up my friend group, improved my German and created a life for myself here.

Four years later and I'm glad I decided to take the leap of faith and make the move to Germany. The GerMann and I are happy newlyweds, I have a great job, circle of friends and despite occasional homesickness, I feel settled and happy and don't regret leaving Ireland 4 years ago!

You can read my first blog post here: Deciding to make the move

Dublin Easter break

Over Easter the GerMann and I went to Dublin for a week's trip. As usual I had a great time catching up with friends and spending time with my family. Homesickness always hits me strongly just after returning to Germany after trips back though - I tend to find the first few days settling into my German life again difficult. I asked some of my other expat friends about it and they all feel exactly the same. Wonder if it'll ever get easier! It's crazy to think I'll be living here 4 years this July. Doesn't really feel that long!

The one thing I do try to remind myself when bad homesickness hits is that visiting Dublin for a week's holiday is still a lot different to living there. Of course it's lovely checking out new restaurants with friends or relaxing with my family, or going on trips and not having to work or get up early - you are on the total holiday vibe. So you are seeing things through rose-tinted spectacles and in their best light basically. We were also incredibly lucky with the weather that week, it was perfect and sunny nearly every day. During the trip we were out and about most of the time. Some of the highlights: dinner in Gallagher's Bistro followed by drinks in The Long Stone pub, another night cocktails and dancing in Dakota, afternoon tea & cake in the Mellow Fig, a relaxed evening in Il Baccaro Temple Bar, walking Kiliney hill on a beautiful sunny day, scones in the Royal Marine hotel and a long liquid lunch at La Planca.

I'm really hoping this will be the year that more friends from home will visit us as I would love to show them around and go on trips here! Every time I met up with someone I emphasised that they are welcome to visit, that we have plenty of room in our apartment and that it's really lovely here in the Summertime with lots of fun things to do (beautiful lakes to swim in, beer gardens for the long warm evenings, visiting medieval castles...) and it normally stays nice well into October which is also a great time (Oktoberfest, wine tasting, cycle trips..). Everyone I mentioned it to seemed keen to visit and two friends have already started looking up flights and asking about possibly dates. My family are also planning to visit us this year. Can't wait! Had great laughs with my sister when we bought bought Dirnls and wore them to the Oktoberfest last year! The GerMann refused to wear lederhosen but maybe this time we can convince him!

Fictional expat versus reality

I have recently been watching old episodes of Sex and the City. The final few episodes in particular struck a cord. In case you have not watched the show I will sum it up. The lead character, Carrie, is dating a Russian artist (in the final season) who asks her to move to Paris with him indefinitely. After he asks her she spends the rest of one episode thinking it over and she has a big fight with one of her best friends who does not approve of her new man or the idea of her moving. I thought I would compare my decision to move to Carrie's...

1) Carrie does not speak French, but she plans to learn.
I studied German in college. My level was rusty but I had a good basis on which to build on.

2) Not all of Carrie's friends like her boyfriend. They mainly find him arrogant and Miranda says she does not recognise who Carrie is with him. I also think they have only been together for less than half a year.
Luckily my friends and family all like my GerMann and think we are a good couple. We had also been together before so even though we were only just back together for a few months it was not as much of a gamble as for Carrie.

3) Carrie quits her job to move to Paris. She cannot write her column about dating in New York any more and has to give that up with no idea what she will do instead.
I was unemployed in Ireland and struggling to find work in the recession and my chances of finding something were probably slightly improved in Germany where the economy was stronger. So luckily my career has not been affected too much. Though for a lot of expats it can be, especially if they do not have the language. It is worth thinking about before moving over.

4) Carrie loved living in New York. All her friends were there and that was her life. That said, she was excited about the opportunity to move to Paris, and see more of the world.
Well I loved living in Dublin and all my friends and family were there so that was also a difficult decision for me!! At the same time, it can be exciting living somewhere else- visiting new places and meeting people from all sorts of walks of life. People are more likely to regret things they did not do than things they did. Even expats I have met that have made the move but it has failed for whatever reason- for instance they move over for a boyfriend but it does not work out- do not regret the experience and what they have learned from it.

5) Carrie does not have much in common with her Russian boyfriend. He is also a slightly temperamental artist and he leaves her on her own once she moves over and he is not very sympathetic or understanding when she has problems adjusting to her new life or when she is homesick. She is also expected to fit her life around his. He makes very little concessions for her to make the transition easier.
Having a supportive partner is very important for expat couples! My GerMann is very good at listening to me and being understanding when I am feeling homesick or lonely or just complaining about things! That said, we do sometimes bicker about the differences between our countries and which place is better! I think that's normal.

6) Ok one area where Carrie would win is money! When she moved to Paris she stayed in a gorgeous hotel studio room paid for by her wealthy Russian boyfriend. For me the move was without a doubt expensive especially during the first few months. Flights back and forth to Ireland bringing things over, having to sell my car back home as I won't need it any more, supporting myself while looking for work, paying my share of the deposit on our apartment, rent, new furniture etc etc

Overall I concluded that Carrie's trip was destined for disaster whereas my move to Germany is still going reasonably well thank God! I enjoyed the episodes "An American in Paris" which shows what happens when she moves over and the sparkle fades. At first Paris seems very glamours and exciting but soon she starts feeling very lonely as she has not got much of her own life going on there - no friends, no job. She becomes overly reliant on her partner. A lot of expats can relate to this!

There's the scene where she is sitting in the middle of a group of French people speaking French with her boyfriend and she just looks completely lost and left out. I have had similar moments at German parties where I find it difficult to follow the conversation but it normally gets a little better after the first drink! Then my accent improves and I have lots of interesting things to say! Or that's what it feels like anyway.

After living here over a year, I still have moments where I am with a group of Germans and they are chatting quickly and using slang and I can't quite keep up. Talking one-to-one is always much easier! That said, Germans are also normally very happy to speak English if they think you do not understand something. I get the impression that French people prefer to stick with French. They tend to be extremely proud of their language, whereas Germans think nothing is cooler than English!

What Carrie should have done was to try to find other expats to make friends with who would understand what she was going through. She could have searched online for meetups around the area. And attended some French classes- to improve her French and it can also be a good place to meet new people. Once you do get over the initial hurdles, life as an expat gets better I promise!

What sort of expat are you?

I have read that there are three different kind of expats. The ones who completely integrate in their new host country and adapt. The ones who don't integrate at all. And the ones who adapt to some customs of the new host country while also keeping lots of their own. I see myself as belonging to the later group.

There are also many reasons for becoming an expat- moving countries for a job, sense of adventure, moving for love. Some expats come and go - they live in Germany for a few months or maybe years but ultimately return to their home country- their Heimat. There are fewer of us however, who are probably going to be here for the long haul.

There have definitely been times when as an expat, you can feel like a fish out of water. Like you don't belong. I could relate to this post by fellow blogger about the isolation you can feel living in a new country:expat isolation and loneliness

Travelling home, I've had moments where I just felt such relief once I got to the airport and heard other people with Irish accents around me and just to be able to understand everything! And once home, it's so nice to be able to talk to someone in a shop or a restaurant and be understood, and every little thing, doesn't feel like an ordeal! That was was how I felt at first. My German has improved a LOT now, so that most times out and about in cafes, restaurants, trams etc I am understood.

How will living in Germany change me? Sometimes I feel like I am more shy here and not myself. That's mainly due to the language. But this is getting better. I have heard lots of people say it took them 3 years of living in Germany before they were really fluent. Maybe I will become more "European" like one of my aunts said. What would that entail exactly? One positive aspect of being an expat makes you more independent as a person- you realise you can cope in a lot of situations you didn't think you could!

I mentioned earlier that I have to carve out a life for myself over here. When I first moved over and started living with my GerMann, I was very dependent on him. I didn't have much of my own life here at the start at all. That was tough at times. Once I got a job here that helped a lot. And then the more I gradually made friends and developed a routine the better things got. It's not too hard to make acquaintances but it takes time to make really good friends. Ones who you can talk about everything with and depend on. I have reached the stage now that I have some great friends here, but for a few months at the start it was tough. Apart from my boyfriend I didn't really have anyone to talk to- past the chit-chat/small talk level.

I have heard from some long standing expats that you feel gradually more distanced from you "home" country as the years pass. So that you don't feel "at home" in either country. Another (and much nicer) way of looking at it though, is that you have two homes. Germany is gradually feeling more and more like home to me.

My wish for the future would be to adapt to German life, while still remaining me. I would love to reach a level of complete fluency in German - spoken and written - where I can handle any situation, but also not lose my Irish accent (when speaking English)! The GerMann and I have discussed it and it probably makes most sense for us to stay in Germany. So I shall continue with my ex-pat adventures!

First week in Deutschland

So I’ve been living in Germany a week now. I bought a bike my first weekend and have been cycling to the train station in the mornings. It’s a bit faster than the bus, and despite it being Germany, the buses seem to be nearly as irregular as Ireland! Also it’s a handy way to get some exercise in. Even though my commute to work is an hour and a half door to door, I actually don’t mind it too much. Quite enjoy the cycle and then just relax and read a book on the train.

What I’m not too fond off is getting up so early and having such short evenings at home! Still after being unemployed and after travelling, I’ve been used to not working much at all, and now I’ve got a 40hour week! So was bound to be a bit of a culture shock. I get up between 6.30-6.45 and leave the house 7.15-7.30 and I’m in work by 9. Sometimes I get in a bit earlier and can pop into shops.

Got my bank account set up the other day during lunch. Went to Detusche bank as they’re so international. My account costs 4.95€ a month which is a bit of a pain. There seem to be more bank charges over here.

Getting on great with the boyf so far. Got a nice little routine going. I come home to a cooked dinner- only fair since he’s home hours earlier! And getting on great together. He’s been really supportive as he knows how hard all this is for me: working in a foreign language, new jobs, no friends over here…
So all in all, going pretty well for the first week! There’s a festivals on this weekend so we’ll probably go to that- I know, I know, there’s always a festival on over here! The weather’s been really lovely too- a proper Summer!

Deciding to make the move

Since coming back from my year of travel, I got back to Ireland just right bang in the middle of the recession. So getting back on the career ladder has been proving extremly difficult. During my year away I had a lot of time to think and figure out what I want to do with my life (ok, I still don't really have a clue), but one of the things I realised was that I still think about my German ex boyfriend a lot. We'd broken up three years earlier after a three year relationship when the long distance got too much. At the time I had just started a new job in Ireland and was getting on brilliantly, and he was still in college, but had another three years to go- higher qualifications. Not to mention in Gemany, people stay in college much later than anyone else- you get people not graduating till they are in their 30s sometimes, it's crazy! But I digress. So I decided to go visit my German Ex for a few days.

During my visit we both realized that we still have feelings for each other. I visited a lot over the next few months- that's one advantage to being unemployed, you have time to go for long weekends, and we got back together. This time he was finally finishing his studies but since the job situation was so bad in ireland, and also because he wanted to have at least one year work experience on his CV, and since I was unemployed, he asked me to come to Germany and move in with him. The logical solution- this time we didn't want to let the long distance break us up and we wanted to give the relationship a proper shot. Even though it made sense, I still resisted the idea a bit- I'd only just come back from a year travelling and was enjoying being home, I'm quite a homebird at heart, and not to mention I hadn't spoken German in years!

So over the next few months, we continued our long distance relationship- visiting each other as often as we could, and I started revising my German and applying for jobs over in Baden Württemberg. The German was tough, but I gradually started getting it back. I borrowed some language learning tapes from the library and chatted to the GerMann in German over skype.

So finally I was called to an interview. This one was in a town that was quite far from the boyfriend, so we wouldn't be able to live together, but seeing eachother at weekends would be better than only every few weeks and it was a good company. However the place was really in the middle of no where and really hard to get to and going to the interview I has a feeling I'd be really lonely living there. Despite all our email correspondence being in German the interview was in English. It went quite well but I didn't end up getting the job. However, I wasn't too disappointed as I knew it wasn't for me!

Now I'm over in Germany again for two more interviews and if I get a job, I guess I'll just stay! And just go back some weekend to bring more of my stuff over. We've also been searching for apartments together, looking for one big enough for the two of us. I am finding this move quite scary to be honest- missing my friends and family and worried about how I'll get on working through German. I know the first few months settling in will probably be the difficult.