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.