Random Questions for fun

[mrsukyankee]

1. What brought you to an international location?
2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true?
3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true?
4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location?
5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location?

[G22]

I feel weird answering these as I'm still so new to IL, but I'll play!

1. The military

2. I have quite a few worries. I worry the locals will get irritated I know no German. Though everyone has been very kind so far.

I worry I won't make friends and will be a loner for a few years. I haven't really met anyone yet, but it's still early.

I was worried about how long it would take to find a house, but we found one and moved in over the weekend so that's one less thing to worry about for now.

3. I hope to make friends easily. I'm the kind of person that has a few close friends. I occasionally struggle with putting myself out there to make friends, so living here will push me outside my comfort zone even more in that area.

I'm excited to do some international traveling while we are here! Neither H or I have done much of that, I hope we can squeeze as much as possible into the next few years.

4. We're still in the "honeymoon" phase I think. I love how beautiful the area is, I love going out and trying new restaurants and food, ect.

5. A couple weeks

[dorothyinAus]

1. What brought you to an international location? -- my husband

2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true? -- missing my family and not being able to find a job; so far they are both true.

3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true? -- finding a job and getting along with my in-laws; not yet on the job front; yes on the in-laws

4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location? -- I'm not really sure.  I still miss the US a great deal.

5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location? -- about 4½ years

[mrsukyankee]

1. What brought you to an international location? A job


2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true? Not making friends, hating the job, not liking London - I've made great friends (it took a while), loved the job at first (no longer there) and I love living in London


3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true? That I'd finally find a place where I could settle and it's true, I think I'll be living here for a long time.


4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location? I love being able to travel, even though I don't do it enough (house buying, renovations and getting married have gotten in the way)


5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location? 11 years and 2-1/2 months so far

[Brit]

1. What brought you to an international location?
Work. There was a fun sounding job here. (It turns out that it was fun.)

2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true?
I was worried that I wouldn't be able to run outside in 'normal' workout clothes. (I live in the Middle East) There are definitely places where that is true, but not where I live. Almost anything is tolerated here.

3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true?
I hoped that we could use this as a home base for travel to some new and awesome places. It has absolutely worked out. It has been super fun to have our perspective of 'reasonable long weekend destination' changed.

4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location?
There are a lot of things. I love Lebanese food. I love that I can have anything delivered to my house - I once had a single chocolate bar delivered. I love living at the beach. (Surprisingly) I love living in an apartment - I never would have guessed.

5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location?
I have been here for two years.

[rupertpenny]

1. I came here for a job that I applied to on a whim. I never thought I'd actually get it!

2. I was very worried about my H not being able to find work, combined with the HCOL. Luckily he found work pretty quickly and we make enough money to have a good lifestyle, despite the COL.

3. I hoped to travel a lot and I have. I hoped my H would get a great job and he did. I hoped we would all be able to make new friends and so far B and I are doing great, but my H hasn't really invested the time in his social life.

4. I love living in a big city. I love how close and convenient everything is. I love public transportation and cheap cabs. I love the food options. I love living somewhere with a large expat community; it's easy to make friends and I can find pretty much any American/western products I want. I also love our relatively high salaries and low tax rate. I love having a nanny. I love pretty much everything except the pollution.

5. Just over a year and a half.

[origami]

1. What brought you to an international location? DH's job.

2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true? My DS2 is speech delayed and I worried a lot about moving to a country that doesn't speak English, esp about finding an English-speaking speech therapist. Other worries were that I would be bored out of my mind since I knew zero people here and have no work visa. We ended up enrolling the kids in an international school that had a speech therapist on staff so that has been no problem. Communication with the OT has been an issue but not too bad. I ended up getting a full-time volunteer job and am WAY busier here than I was in the US. I have met a lot of people through expat orgs. So those worries did not come true. I should have worried more about online shopping and availability of western foods though b/c I just did not get how bad that would be.

3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true? Travel to cool new places, getting out of our rut and living it up more than we were doing in the US, and getting away from annoying family drama back home. Yes those definitely came true.
 
4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location? Love having so much stuff to do here. So many cultural activities, events, museums, temples, historical sites, etc etc etc.

5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location? 1y3m

[lovebeingmama]

1. What brought you to an international location? Husband's job

2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true? Being lonely, being homesick, kids being homesick, hating the weather. Haven't come true yet.

3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true? Being able to travel. We've done a little but not much yet.

4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location?It's a beautiful city and easy to get around to see it.

5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location? Only 10 weeks!

[pittpurple]

I live in Scotland :-)

1. What brought you to an international location?
We wanted to travel! As soon as we got married DH applied for jobs in English speaking countries. He had a phone interview for his job and we moved 6 weeks later. We intended to just come for a few years but we fell in love with the city and livestyle and haven't gone back.

2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true?
I had never travelled so I was afraid of a lot of stuff - that we wouldn't be able to find 'normal' food, that I would lose touch with everyone, that I would just be awkward and uncomfortable all the time. To some extent, it all came true - it was surprisingly hard for me to get used to 'different' comfort foods (though I'm all settled in now!) and I miss my family more and more as time goes on. I have lost track with some people, but FB is a huge, huge help for that.

3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true?
Adventure and travelling! And yes, up to 3 years ago we travelled many times a year all over Europe (and sometimes to Asia!) so that came true beyond what I was even picturing. It's been amazing being able to do that. A total side benefit is that DH and I have a fantastic relationship because we've been all alone for our entire marriage - no inlaw drama or other people having opinions (that matter) about our daughter. I wasn't expecting this benefit but it's been a great tonus.

4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location?
It's a gorgeous city with a ton going on all the time, but is still (relatively) affordable and easy/safe to be in. And the travel, it's just amazing that we can hop on a flight to Italy. I miss how easy that part used to be but we had so many years of taking total advantage of RyanAir / EasyJet

5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location?
Almost 10 years!

[GilliC]

1. What brought you to an international location?
My job. (And to a lesser extent, my XH's job.)

2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true?
Moving to Oslo, my biggest worry was that I wouldn't be able to save anything for my future. Nope. When we moved here, my H (at the time) changed contracts and started making bank. I also got a much better mobile benefits package than I had in Beijing. 

3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true?
I hoped to learn Norwegian. Nope. It took me years to reach the point where I'd been at with Mandarin when I left China. Not having the necessity, and not getting much positive feedback pretty much quashed my initial language efforts.

4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location?
Work-life balance. In the US and China, a lot of your employee value came from the appearance of hard work and putting in face time. I love it that I'm not expected to work long hours, and there are laws in place to limit it.

5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location?
8½ years so far.

[tortis]

Oct 5, 2015 2:39:16 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

1. What brought you to an international location?
2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true?
3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true?
4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location?
5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location?

1. We moved for my H's job- he moved from the US headquarters to European.

2. I was most worried about finding a job here. I was an attorney in the states and the process to become a solicitor or barrister is overwhelming and expensive, particularly given all that we've spent thus far on law school, multiple bar exams, and bar dues in for two US states. We originally signed on for a three year contract so it didn't seem worth it time and money wise to become certified. I am working on looking for jobs, haven't had too much luck yet, but staying positive.

3. Greatest hope was to experience a new culture and to travel. Absolutely have come true. I had never traveled outside North America before the move and always regretted not studying abroad in college. That was one of the biggest factors in making the decision to move- we didn't want to look back on this opportunity and regret not going.

4. Love- there are too many to list. The people in England are incredibly nice- I'm from the Midwest originally, and had been living in southern California most recently and hated it. (I know this is not how most people feel about SoCal.) This feels like coming home for me, and we have made more friends in ten months here than in. Three years in Cali.

5. We moved to England in January 2015.

[Deleted]

I live in the North West of England, I'm from Australia.

1. What brought you to an international location?
Work / opportunity as a Commonwealth citizen to live in the UK.

2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true?
That I wouldn't get a job. Took me a while because I landed 2 days after 9/11. I nearly had to go home.

3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true?
Travel. Yes - in abundance. Have seen a lot.

4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location?
Being so close to Europe. Also, my industry is much bigger here and the clients are larger, more interesting. (I work in IT).

5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location?
Just clocked over 14 years. I'm a lifer now.

[brainie]

1. What brought you to an international location? Husband
2. What were your greatest worries and did they come true? Rainy weather; yes
3. What were your greatest hopes and did they come true? Um. Happy family and good life? Yes.
4. What's one thing you love/loved about living in your new location? Afternoon high teas!
5. How long have you lived/did you live in the overseas location? Ten years and counting.