When I was a teenager in suburban Philadelphia, I felt very accomplished when I was able to take 2 hour road trips to places like Baltimore and DC. When I graduated to getting on a plane for San Fran and Vegas, or the Caribbean, I thought I had really made it. There’s a perspective that sets in, in a place like I am from– “This is what you were given. Why would you want anything else?” But for me, there was something missing that seeing new places started to fill a bit. Without spending too much time on this for now, I’ll just say that moving to Europe wasn’t even on my radar or in my realm of possibilities.
Eventually, after having moved to New York in my early 20s, my perspective exploded wider than I even knew existed as possible. Surrounded by all types of people and new friends from different backgrounds, suddenly everything I knew in my little bubble was barely the tip of life’s iceberg. 7 years in New York gave me more than I could have imagined. I excelled at a career, created a new group of friends from scratch, and basically lived the New York life. I navigated subway systems daily in one of the biggest world cities. I survived an attempted aggressive mugging. I played the online dating game like it was a second job (unsuccessfully, if success is judged by settling with someone I met online.) My choices of what I enjoyed eating increased by 100-fold (before New York, I had not eaten oysters, asparagus, tomatoes, crab, sushi, fish, couscous, falafel, hummus, strawberries, or any type of Asian cuisine that was not General Tso’s chicken… And I could go on.) I was on the cutting edge of the new music coming in from Brooklyn, the food trends of the moment, and in the stopover area where people visited from around the world. But like anything else, it became my new regular life.
I eventually got a passport and, with a network of old friends, new friends, and new friends’ friends, I started taking one-to-two week long trips and saw Galway, Beijing, Phuket, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, and took drives from the North to South of France, and Montreux, Nice, Monaco, Florence, Pisa, Luxembourg, Lima. I even hiked the Inca Trail.
Tick, tick, tick. With each city and tourist site visited with my limited American-sized vacation time from work, I started to see the world. And how amazing I felt getting to do it! It made me appreciate a new level like when I left Philadelphia, to the next level. It impacted me on many levels – from the small impacts like making me look at restaurant names differently (Hey, Cafe d’Alsace… I drove past there in France!) to the larger impacts like making me value my friendships with people with different backgrounds who help me (still) to see that the world is just not only how it was given to you.
Anyway… So that’s a little bit of background. Skipping ahead, 7 years spent in New York expanded my mind but also tired me out. It’s an exciting but exhausting city if your life currency is spent focusing on promotions, making money, eating at the next restaurant, finding free time after work to run, or meet up with friends (or all of the above in a given week). What’s good with that extra cash if it’s spent on your tiny apartment and on your meals for the month? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s a way to strike the balance, but I couldn’t see it and I needed to rip out everything I knew from under me in order to start figuring out the next evolution of me that I wanted to be.
I was lucky enough to meet and fall in love with (blech, sorry 🙂 ) someone with two non-American passports and a tendency towards living around the world and experiencing new international adventures as a default to life, but yet who holds many of the same values and life goals as I do. It gave me the courage that starting anew in a strange land didn’t have to be just for the responsiblity-lacking drifters, trust fund kiddies, or trendy blogging travelers. We could get jobs (I’ll likely never change from requiring a safety plan), and reset our success metrics on a level that I could more easily comprehend and accept.
So, here I am. I’ve traded my NYC salary for a modest European one, and my modest NYC vacation days for a more ample European plan. My weekends can be spent exploring new places on this European side of the pond without breaking the bank. I don’t have a goal in mind living here, and I also don’t exactly have a plan for the future yet. But in the 6 weeks of living abroad as an expat, I’ve visited quite a few cities and I’m looking forward to revisiting and reflecting on them here, and to document my adventures looking ahead.
Amanda's A-broad 