“You have the longest birthday of anyone I know,” my 7th grade science teacher told me the morning I turned 12.

That was the first time I clocked that maybe my annual birthday countdown, which began loudly on Earth Day (April 22) every year and continued, loudly, every day until it was May 22, wasn’t normal.

As I got older, I eventually came to realize that for most people, birthdays are just A day (if acknowledged at all), but not THE day.

I became less vocal with the countdown, but kept celebrating every year with annual birthday trips to different countries and parties whenever possible (the planning for both of which always began in February).

Sometimes (often) I felt like I was being extra and would feel a twinge of embarrassment. But I also couldn’t stop. A few years ago, I finally realized why I loved them so.

Birthdays were the one safe day I had as a kid. Out of 365, this was the one guaranteed safe from shouting, from outbursts, from having to walk on eggshells and the threat of violence. Not even Christmas was safe from those — but birthdays were sacred.

(There was even one December morning my dad decided that since it was his birthday, as a present to us, he wouldn’t yell all day. I remember thinking, Wow, birthdays carry some kind of magic! Alas, the magic was not repeated any following Decembers.)

It was the one day a year my parents made me feel like I might actually be loved. I got to wear the nice outfit and get presents and ice cream cake. May 22 was the day I was allowed to celebrate myself, intentionally ask to be noticed, and make requests of people without being berated for needing “too much”. Being too much.

I used to think I’d tone down the celebrations once I got older. I’ve gone to therapy, worked on asking for things, treating myself and feeling special the other 364 days of the year. But that little kid inside of me will always love birthdays because its association with safety and permission is just too strong.

This month, I turned 34 and went to Saigon with a friend for that weekend, continuing tradition. Two other friends treated me to drinks the evening of at a stunning cocktail bar, then they all came together a week later to fulfill my whimsical/nerdy dream of hosting a PowerPoint party. (It was also the first time I ever had to work on my birthday, and my colleagues decorated my desk and bought me coffees.) It was all so incredibly lovely.

I’m so grateful for these indulgences of my birthday whims. But I am also accepting and embracing that I can ask to be loved, and those who want to show up for me will, every single time.

The post I Love My Birthday and That’s OK appeared first on Expat Edna.

I didn’t think Friendsgiving would happen this year. For whatever reason — maybe it was the lockdowns, the city, or just me — finding close friends in Bangkok hasn’t been easy.

Now, I had a really strong group of friends when I first moved here. A handful of us that met for weekly Friday night dinners, spent holidays and birthdays together, and whom I considered my Bangkok family. The kind of group where you were so in sync, you thought you were destined to meet and weren’t just friends by proximity.

But at the beginning of this year, that all went sideways. When it all came to a head one night, they revealed they’d been mad at me for various reasons for weeks; one admitted she’d actually been upset with me for ten months. I wasn’t welcome anymore, and hadn’t been for a while.

Shocked, I spent the better part of winter and spring grieving the friendships, mostly oscillating between anger and a deep sadness. I stumbled through the weeks and months following in a haze. I celebrated my birthday alone, for the first time in my life. Work became an emotional minefield, as some of the old friends were still current colleagues that I had to see regularly. It was brutal.

It’s been harder to trust new people since then. The fallout made me question a lot about myself, and how much I should allow others in.

In previous cities I’ve often found connection through vulnerability, and folks here generally haven’t responded as well to that. Who I am, however I come off, just doesn’t gel here. If I got report cards for all the cities I’d lived in, the Bangkok one would say: Does not vibe well with others. 

Obviously Bangkok is massive, and I’m sure my people are out there, but it sure has been a lot harder to find than it was in Paris or Shanghai. Big pond, aloof fish.

So I’ve mostly been focusing on myself and keeping my head down at work. I have a loving partner who reminds me what’s really important in life. Borders have reopened, so I’ve been traveling a lot more and seeing old friends scattered across Southeast Asia. No New Friends, I told myself.

***

Over the past few months, however, I’ve started hanging out with some women who work in entirely different industries from mine. They travel often, so I only see them once or twice a month, but it’s been interesting to take a new friendship slowly, instead of jumping in all at once. Things about me that used to bother the old friend group are no longer seen as a fault, but rather an asset. (Making friends in your 30s has many parallels to dating, I’ve found.)

They’ve also been in Bangkok the same amount of time — two-ish years — and it’s been comforting to hear them express the same difficulties in finding a (strong) community. “It’s been challenging to peel through Bangkok’s layers,” one said. Maybe some of us aren’t meant to.

In the end, we threw together a last-minute Friendsgiving that was positively delightful, and recently had one last dinner before we all went our separate ways for the holidays.

I’ve accepted that not every place I’ll live can be a Paris year or Shanghai year. Maybe for me, Bangkok will be more of a Wellington year (i.e. will learn a lot, but won’t leave with a ton of friends). But I’m grateful that for now, I’m starting to find my fish again in this big, big pond.

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I don’t even remember what I was, only what I wanted to be: a cell phone. But this was the late 90s, so it wasn’t like a cool, sleek phone — I had my heart set on a $40 costume of a gray brick of a phone that my family definitely could not afford.

Imagine something like this, but large enough to fit an 8-year old.

Unable to reach a compromise — cell phone or bust! — I think my mom just reused my costume from the year before and I was a (very rotund) pumpkin in the school parade, yet again.

Soon after that I became too self-conscious for costumes; even as I grew into a theatre kid, I mostly stuck to backstage roles. Pretending to be a French revolutionary or talking goose was never going to be my calling or comfort zone. Add to that a propensity for being easily frightened, and Halloween quickly tanked to become my least-favorite holiday. Seriously, why are there spiders in my grocery aisle? Please let me shop for canned tuna and cheese whiz in peace.

In the years since, I’ve skated by by throwing on an old Gaelic football jersey and going to events as “athlete”, if I bothered to dress up at all. Somehow though, this October I didn’t feel as Scroogey as in the past, and I allowed myself to give in. Halloween is pretty big where I work, and I just didn’t feel like fighting it (and honestly, the warm weather helps keep the Halloween spookies at bay). If you can’t beat ’em, etc.

I threw together a black dress and white collared shirt from my closet, black boots I’d just had made in Hoi An, and purchased black tights (that will be repurposed for my trip to London this winter — I’m still going to be practical here). Threw my hair into pigtails, and, ta-da:

Wednesday Addams!

What I forgot in my preparations for all this, however, was that my Thai work permit is being renewed soon. A process that requires…an annual medical check.

And that is how I ended up in a Thai hospital dressed as Wednesday Addams for Halloween 2022. The looks I got from the local grannies and nurses!

Maybe next year I’ll go as a cell phone.

 

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I went back to Europe this summer, my first visit since the pandemic began. Revenge travel was in full swing, and Paris was at the top of my list (along with about ten million other tourists). Barcelona and Madrid sandwiched the trip on either sides; chosen deliberately as cities that I knew would be fun and comfortable, were affordable for someone earning in Thai baht, and could be scoped out for possible future moves. It was a recon mission, a treat, and comfort food for my soul all in one.

I gained a lot of insight from that six-week trip. It felt like a return to traveling, obviously, but within it a return to what makes me happy, lights me up, and an evaluation of what should come next. I felt immediately at home and relaxed in Spain and France, like slipping into old pajamas that fit just right after two years of living in starchy suits.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve treasured and am extremely grateful for my time in Thailand. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere as an adult(!!) and I see myself staying for a while longer. But there have been battles. And I desperately needed distance and perspective.

This summer revived a version of myself I forgot existed; I didn’t realize I had stopped smiling in Bangkok until I landed in Barcelona and couldn’t stop. And then I met up with so many friends, and there was so much love! With so much time and memory and joy shared between. The power of close community cannot be underestimated. We genuinely need other people to fill our cups, and I feel so much more myself now for it.

***

There’s also been a shift in my mindset after this summer; a return to creating, let’s say, but now with a different purpose.

A few years ago at a conference, a very successful head of social media for an NFL team told me I should always be creating with my audience in mind: what is the purpose of my post? What value does it add to the viewer? There must always be a Why!

This was back when Instagram was shifting away from being just pretty pictures to becoming meaningful messages in long-form captions, and I tried to follow that advice — to the point where I often wouldn’t post if I couldn’t identify the educational component; the value-add.

But I’m starting to think…there doesn’t actually need to be a why. Writing for myself is enough of a reason. Posting a photo for my future self to look back on is enough of a reason. Memories are my why.

(If my former therapist ever finds this and reads this: it took me another year to really internalize it, but we finally got there!)

I sat on this post for a long time because I thought, what’s the purpose? It’s four paragraphs saying I went to Europe and had a good time. Here’s a photo where I think I look quite pretty. That doesn’t serve anyone, functionally. But that’s what blogging used to be for me, just journaling my days and thoughts and pretty photos I wanted to share, and I’d like to get back to that.

I love you, dear readers. I love your support, I love that you check in on me when I don’t post for months at a time (sorry, so sorry), I love when I get messages that something I’ve written has helped you on your travels. I value your internet friendship so much! And I hope you have all been keeping well these past two years.

But I’m going to try to just…blog again, in the original journaling sense. Just for me. It feels freeing and this fills my cup, too.

The post A Return appeared first on Expat Edna.

Greetings from Bangkok!!(…!?!?)

So I live in Thailand now, and three months into it that’s a sentence I’m still wrapping my head around. Of all the pandemic consequences, this wasn’t even remotely in the realm of realities I thought possible. (Broke? Yes, very likely. Discouraged and despondent? Totally. Relocating to Southeast Asia for the first time in 9 years to live a whole new life? Get outta here.)

To be clear, I moved to Thailand during a pandemic due to a job offer, not as an escape. It was early September and I was finally settling into Chicago (– my second pandemic move of the year, after getting laid off from my San Francisco job at the beginning of lockdown) when a friend reached out with a job opening she’d seen in Bangkok, setting some wheels in very quick motion.

One week and several interviews later, I was signing my contract. By the end of the month, I was waving goodbye to O’Hare from a largely empty 777 en route to Bangkok. My third and final pandemic move.

Left: A Boeing 777 seats 300+ people; I think my flight had maybe 30. Right: My life stuffed into two suitcases, yet again.

*Random asides on the move:

– It was a bit of a beast to repack everything I’d juusst finished unpacking from my cross-country relocation. While in San Francisco, thinking I was going to be staying put awhile, I’d finally allowed myself to accumulate ~t h i n g s~.  So I moved to Illinois with a couple more boxes than my usual “everything I own fits into two suitcases and backpack” scenario. I’ve moved to Thailand with about half of those things. I would love to not pack anything up again for at least, like, eight months.

– I’m not saying this next part to brag, but because I found the universe so ridiculous: after months of being unemployed, the same week I applied for and got the job in Bangkok…I was headhunted and received a (sports-related!) job offer at Apple. If they had reached out just a few days earlier, I’d probably be Stateside right now. The timing still blows my mind.

– Funny thing: exactly one year ago to the day, Halloween 2019, I was also on a one-way flight moving to a new city for a new job (the San Francisco one). Fingers crossed Halloween 2021 doesn’t prove to be a threepeat.

My last trip to Bangkok: April 2014. I was so sick and barely left my hotel the entire time.

I’m enormously grateful and beyond excited to be here. I’ve loved Thailand the few times I visited while living in Singapore in 2010/2011, and Bangkok was always a place I thought I’d love to make a base and explore in-depth, though I never imagined it would actually happen.

Never mind that it happened when it did — after getting laid off; after spending months quarantining and barely scraping by in a pandemic. I know I am lucky: I recognize that being able to stay indoors right now is a privilege; that I had the safety nets to stay at home and job hunt and survive off unemployment is an enormous privilege. I know how difficult things are for literally millions of people, and I don’t want to take any of this for granted. If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that the bottom can drop out from under you at any second.

The scene upon arrival at BKK. Step one of many checks just to be able to leave the airport.

I’m also relieved to be in a country that has taken the pandemic seriously from the beginning. While a few cases are starting to pop up again, the situation here is nowhere near the catastrophe it is back home. I can live a life that more closely resembles “normal” than it has in a very long time (I know it’s only technically been since March, but doesn’t it feel so much longer).

But that also leads to some questions on how to move forward with my writing. (Not that I’ve posted much in recent years anyway, I’m aware! Or that I have much free time to start again, either — this post alone took weeks to cobble together).

Who wants to hear about other people’s travels when so many of us worldwide are still in various stages of lockdowns and suffering on numerous levels?

Lauren of Never Ending Footsteps wrote it best in her post about moving to New Zealand: “To jump back into normality and share nothing but virus-free experiences would be tone deaf. I’d feel like I was bragging; being the actual worst. I’m hyper-aware of my privilege right now and struggling to figure out how to handle it.”

I don’t want to cause anyone to feel bad; I went through that myself for much of last year, watching others travel when I neither had the finances nor the perceived safety to do so. It can bring up a lot.

For now if I do write, I’ll try to keep focus on the purpose of storytelling, not bragging: what mandatory quarantine was like (spoiler: kind of really nice…?), what Thailand is like right now without the tourists, and of course the usual records of what I’m eating.

But for now, I just wanted to at least announce this new chapter here so y’all know where I am these days (both physically and, like, generally in life).

I bought a plant?? Fixed life content to come?? Who am I??? (and should I name my plant?)

For the first time since I left the US 13 years ago, I can see myself staying in a city for a while…and wanting to stay put for a while.

Expect more from me coming out of this part of the world — especially with borders still closed, I’m keeping my pin dropped in Thailand for the foreseeable future. Whenever they reopen though, I can’t wait to see you all here.

Questions about the pandemic moving process? Comments on what you’d like to read about life in Thailand right now? Tips for keeping monsteras alive in a condo? Drop ’em all below.

The post A Pandemic Relocation: So I Live in Thailand Now appeared first on Expat Edna.

I’m a small-stakes waffler. I’ll lay in bed for an hour in the mornings debating if I reeeally want a shower, or waste twenty minutes rewriting the same email with different comma placements. (These blog posts take days to finalize for not dissimilar reasons.)

But the larger and brasher the decision, the happier I am to plow ahead with the first impulse that comes to mind. Move to [insert new country] without a job or money? Hell yeah. Meet a Tinder date in the countryside at night with no cell service or ability to speak the local language, again? Well, I haven’t been murdered yet.

So a couple weeks ago when I peeked at my nine-year-old site and decided I was just tired of looking at its buggy homepage, non-mobile layout, and overall “I was raised in the early 2010s” energy, it took just one person to casually suggest, A new theme would probably most of your site problems? and I was like, SOLD.

Six days later: I have a new site.

***

To technology’s credit, it was much easier (and cheaper!) than I anticipated; cost plus a fear of breaking things was largely why I’d been putting off maintenance for so long. I know so little about hosting or WordPress or the basics of how a blog works, and when I first moved to self-hosting in 2012 it all seemed so delicate and complicated, I assumed it would still be that way.

But it was almost annoyingly easy to make the change? I would’ve done this ages ago had I known. It took one day to convince myself to ditch my old theme — I really was committed to keeping the look, but in hindsight it was definitely dated — another day to pick & purchase a new theme, and on the third day it all came together. (The process only took six days because the guy I hired to make all the changes under the hood lives in Greece, and we were playing email tag across timezones.)

For anyone else pondering a glow-up: all in all theme + install cost me under $140, which is like a month of grocery monies, but I’ve pretty much been living like a monk since March so decided the spend would be worth it. And boy was it: I love how fresh my new homepage looks; it sparks joy to see load up every time. (Also, it’s finally https secure and mobile friendly! About time. I’m so sorry to anyone who has tried to read my blog on a phone until now.)

So, here we are. Expat Edna V3. I’m still kicking the tires a bit round back, reformatting old posts & photos and updating some pages & layouts — but feel free to have a poke around, and let me know if you see something I missed that’s making your eye twitch just a lil bit.

The past couple of months have been hard, as they have been for many, many people, and only recently have things finally started looking up again. I take it as a promising sign that this redesign took less than a week from inception to completion — hopefully it means I’m getting better at letting go of control, and being okay with the idea that things don’t have to be perfect to be good.

Even though I don’t know what the future holds or where I’ll end up (then again I rarely do, so at least this isn’t unfamiliar territory), gifting myself this little unplanned makeover as an early 31st birthday present and kickoff to the next step — it feels like a good start. Thank you to all of you who are still here, still reading after all these years.

***

Shoutouts: I got my new theme from Solo Pine; it’s absurdly easy to work with so I don’t have to worry about breaking code anymore (whew!). For tech support I hired a guy from FixMySite (affiliate link), who responded to every email within hours and was clearly working on a weekend to get everything up and running. Would definitely recommend.  

*If you’re still seeing my old theme, make sure you’re using HTTPS. My old site still shows up on just http at the moment and I don’t know how to fix that yet. Baby steps.

The post A Surprise Redesign: Welcome to the New Expat Edna! appeared first on Expat Edna.

Hi, quick note: I recognize this post is mostly for myself, since it’s beyond late for a recap of last year. But I spent too many hours and months working on this at the coffee shop between two jobs to not go through with publishing it, and my OCD prevents me from writing the million other posts I want to write until this is off my plate so, here we are. Enjoy.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
– Zora Neale Hurston

2018 was wild. I realize we are halfway through 2019, but I’ve enjoyed taking my time and space to unpack all that’s happened in the last year-plus.

After I left New Zealand, I returned to the life I knew best: one lived out of a suitcase and filled with aggressive, nonstop, push-me-to-my-limits kind of travel. But this time, I lasted less than eight months before crashing and burning.

Once I finished my Olympics contract, I quickly began to feel…aimless. For the next few months I overcompensated for my Wellington stagnancy by throwing my head and heart and suitcase all over the damn place and boy, did that not work. Ultimately, internal screaming about things like Purpose?? and What’s Next, Because This Ain’t It? became too constant to ignore.

It feels like I lived three different lives in three 2018s; fittingly madcap in a third-life-crisis kinda way. In putting together this post, I couldn’t believe how much I crammed into the weeks and months. For years I’ve talked about needing to find more balance… this was not that year.

However, if I had to create a word cloud for 2018, the boldest words would undoubtedly be: Reunions. Roots. Priorities. Friendship. Love.

(and of course: packing, travel, packing, travel, ad infinitum)

What I will remember and treasure most from 2018, though, is every friend who showed up to spend time with me — whether for an hour for coffee, or a week or more as I co-opted their couches and living rooms.

(To be a nerd, 93% of last year’s destinations were chosen solely based on which friends I wanted to pay house calls to where — and having the luxury of time to do such a thing will never not be itinerancy’s greatest gift.)

I may have experienced a whole circus of emotions last year, but lonely was never one of them.

So what follows is a very long, overdue recap post of 2018. To anyone who messaged if I was still alive / what the heck I was up to, or anyone wanting to scroll through photos of my face in 18 countries and 11 states: here you go. 

JANUARY : NEW ZEALAND, SINGAPORE, SOUTH KOREA

As my year in New Zealand came to a close, I spent my final days in the country saying goodbyes in Wellington and Auckland before jetting off to Singapore to see old mates and load up on sunshine. Then it was onto South Korea for Olympics #5; I spent a few days getting acclimated in Seoul before settling into PyeongChang for seven weeks.

Highs:

• New Year’s barbecues, farewell meals, and one last beach-side drink sesh with my favorite Kiwis gave me fond parting memories of Wellington after a year that hadn’t always been kind
• An old Shanghai teammate recognized me having a drink on the streets of Auckland during my short layover — this country is so small?! — and our impromptu catchup drinks made me nearly miss my flight
• Exploring the dive bar scene in Singapore, which led to a Hangover-style night out with strangers and morning-after recovery dip in the MBS Infinity Pool with said strangers
• Taking advantage of Seoul’s proximity to go on food excursions in the weekends before the Games
• Skiing for the very first time! with French & Brazilian colleagues on the slopes of South Korea

Lows:

• Financial knots I never quite untangled, because NZ insisted on being a struggle till the very end
• Being assaulted in Singapore. After a decade of solo travels without major incident, I was furious I’d “let” it happen. But coming on the heels of that difficult Kiwi year, in a way it let me say good riddance to 2017 with finality AND perversely laid a foundation for what became a very positive and growth-fueled year
• The coldest winter I’ve experienced in memory. In PyeongChang, -10C felt warm.

FEBRUARY : SOUTH KOREA

Most of February was spent around the venues of PyeongChang. Though one of the more challenging Olympics I’d worked professionally, it was one of the most enjoyable, personally. When all was done and dusted, I returned to Seoul to ease the transition out of South Korea, before heading into an unknown / unplanned future, again.

Highs:

• Imposter Syndrome begone! This was the first Games I felt confident in my ability and belonging
• The usual Olympic highs: seeing old industry friends, watching world class athletes perform, Opening and Closing ceremonies, being surrounded by ALL THE CULTURES and languages
• Working with the best of the best in the world (photographers, journalists, project managers) reignited a drive and motivation in me that had fallen dormant in New Zealand

Lows:

• Trying snowboarding for the first time. I don’t like being bad at things and it…was bad
• Losing my favorite sweater on my way out of PyeongChang. When you live out of a suitcase every item carries multitudes of meaning, and that sweater had traveled the world with me since high school (plus I also lost a nice sweater in Rio! So this trend sucks)
• Not taking care of myself, in typical Games-time fashion; thus my last two days in Seoul were spent recovering in a rusty hostel bed instead of eating all the BBQ and bibimbap.

MARCH : CHINA, VIETNAM, SINGAPORE, SWITZERLAND, USA

The crazy one: spanning five countries across three continents, March felt like a whole darn season in a few short weeks. This month was one of my favorites.

Highs:

• Taking advantage of China’s 144-hour transit visa to return to Shanghai for the first time since leaving in 2015. I said hello to loved ones, and saw my grandmother for what would turn out to be our last-ever encounter :(
• Falling in love with Hanoi. I holed up in the Vietnamese capital for 2.5 weeks for my traditional post-Olympics wind down, and about sparking joy: that city makes me feel alive
• Winning the All-Vietnam Gaelic Football championships. We beat Saigon on very little sleep (and sobriety), I met another Irish ambassador, then explored Ho Chi Minh City‘s craft beer & cocktail scene till sunrise
• Flying to Singapore just for dinner (speakeasy tacos and mezcal, unexpectedly)
• Flying to Zurich just for breakfast, where an Estonian barman fed me free coffee and beer
• Returning to San Francisco for the first time in eight years and seeing it through new eyes
• Joining strangers for ad lib food adventures across all the continents! Meeting randoms from the internet continues to be one of my favorite things to do
• Publications: seeing my face in this Kiwi cookbook and my first byline in AFAR! (Talking about Gaelic football, of course; I’d done the reporting from Korea and it went live while I was playing in Vietnam)

Lows:

• Nearly missing my flight out of China: I misremembered the date(!!) and by the time I realized the error, I had only a few hours to pack my things, say goodbyes, and gtfo. Such a rookie mistake
• LOSING MY (FULLY STAMPED, MEMORY-FILLED, 80+ PAGE) PASSPORT. I still can’t talk about this, it’s too painful. Damn you, Tenderloin.

APRIL: CROSS-COUNTRY USA

Family commitments required me to be on the East Coast in May, so I spent the few weeks prior getting reacquainted with my own country. Having spent my entire adult life abroad, I realized I’d explored more of other nations than my own, and felt pretty out of touch with its current state.

April rectified that with a cross-country trip from West Coast to East, starting in San Francisco and ending in Pennsylvania, with stops to see multiple childhood friends along the way.

Highs:

• Discovering so many new personalities of my own country: Portland and its Pacific Northwest tropes; Colorado (Colorado Springs, Salida, Crested Butte, and Denver) and Southwest culture; and Wilmington, Savannah, and Charlotte for a taste of the South
• Ludacris! The man’s still got it. And for one night, I relived every school dance of the early 2000s with my high school girlfriends (none of whom have aged since 2006)
• Checking out my mom’s new life in North Carolina, and being around to help her choose a wedding dress
• Watching my sister graduate from Pitt. I still remember when she started kindergarten so… *tears*

Lows:

• Small-town Tinder is the worst Tinder, and extra the worst in North Carolina
• It’s also weird to be swiping on Tinder while helping your mom pick a wedding dress?
• Learning the hard way how (not) to drink at altitude. A quarter of a bottle of rum to yourself is rarely advised, but especially not at 7,000 ft, trust me.

MAY : USA, CANADA, IRELAND, PORTUGAL, SWITZERLAND, ENGLAND

May: another 3-continent month so full on, it felt twice as long. After a week exploring Pittsburgh, I said hello to my family in York before replacing my passport in Philadephia and returning to my happy place: Europe. I made the most of long layovers in Toronto and Dublin, celebrated turning 29 in Lisbon, paid Zurich my second visit in three months, and reunited with some of my favorites in London.

Highs:

• Getting hooked on Pittsburgh. That city has it all, I can’t stop raving about it, have you been??
• Attending my first-ever baseball game! (…with a Canadian who had to explain every detail)
• Attempting to start a new business project, which was a learning experience (I wouldn’t say it’s failed, but it’s certainly stalled for the time being)
• Utilizing back-to-back layovers to see Canada and try proper poutine for the first time, then drink pre-birthday whiskey at the Teeling distillery in Ireland
• Eating my weight in pasteis de nata and bacalhau in Lisbon, and feeling very loved by the friends who flew in to join me in the cod-venture
• Discovering I really dig Zurich! If I knew anything about banking and German, I’d totally try to live there
• Getting some closure from NZ after hanging out with Wellington friends who’d since moved to London

Lows:

• Attending a baby shower for my dad and his new wife was weird. There were many feelings, exacerbated by the many family friends asking if I was still single, and I ignored all of the above with wine
• Having to replace a passport that you were about to renew anyway, had it not been stolen a month before retirement, was just, ugh, my heart
• I didn’t know it at the time, but May was the penultimate time I got to hang out with my childhood cat, Toby. I’m glad I took as many silly photos with him as I did then, bittersweet as they are now.

JUNE : SPAIN, FRANCE, GERMANY, SWEDEN, NORWAY

The most frenzied month of them all. I was a tornado with a passport, saying goodbye as quickly as I said hello; blink and you’d miss me.

I spent five wild days in Barcelona (slept only two of ’em) then flew to Paris for my local bar’s annual birthday party and a reunion with the old gang. A friend’s move to Berlin prompted me to visit for the first time, where six days turned into eight — leaving me back in Paris for one night only, celebrating Fête de la Musique till daybreak, before immediately flying to Gothenburg to see my best friend for Midsommar. Then while trying to take a breather in Sweden, I still ended up roadtripping to Norway for a day.

Highs:

• The never-ending reunions I had left, right, and center (especially those commemorating 5- and 10-year expat friendships) — many spent reveling in how much our lives had changed, while grateful our friendships hadn’t
• Watching World Cup matches in various styles of beer gardens; bonus points for those times I watched in a country while their national team was playing
• The unexpected joy of Berlin in summer; the comforting familiarity of Paris in June. Those long lazy European picnics and wanderings and summer nights. My happy place, there was never a doubt

Lows:

• June was a tipping point. On the outside I looked like I was living my best life, but the momentum was unsustainable. Cracks in the foundation — namely, a growing sense of unhappiness and being at a loss for what was next (not to mention the physical wear and tear on my body) — were beginning to show and threatening to crumble to pieces.

JULY : SWEDEN & FRANCE

I’d originally plotted more rest time in Gothenburg, but an opportunity arose in Paris to catsit for my favorite bartenders. So I got to spend most of July not only living in my favorite arrondissement, but above my favorite bar(!) and with two cats(!!).

Highs:

• Indulging in my favorite Paris-in-July traditions: Red House’s 4th of July crawfish boil, Cinema En Plein Air screenings, picnics along Île St Louis, barbecues in French suburbs, brunches in the 11ème, and of course, Champ de Mars picnicking and firework gazing with old friends on 14 juillet
• Watching France win the World Cup and celebrating for hours with the crowds around Bastille, which was HIGH. KEY. BONKERS
• Going on “casual” first dates that felt straight out of a Wes Anderson movie because Paris
• Covering a shift at Red House! They were the bar that first introduced me to cocktail culture, and later inspired me to become a bartender, so to get behind the stick there (and in French!) — was everything coming full circle

Lows:

• Nothing major, besides general exhaustion from living out of a suitcase and, uh, is having too many dating options a thing? But seriously, this month I finally tackled hard decisions about the future then seesawed between feeling lighter for having chosen a next step, and wrapping my head around said step.

AUGUST : SCOTLAND, EAST & MIDWEST USA

I said goodbye to Europe via Edinburgh. The city, and the friends I have there, are a weighted blanket for my heart — comforting, steadying, calming — and I needed that linchpin to close out the maelstrom summer I’d had, and mentally transition to lighter seas ahead.

The next four weeks saw me falling almost-too-easily into New York City life, going home to York for my mom’s wedding, then tapping out of funemployment with one last hurrah in Chicago and a long Labor Day weekend in Denver.

Highs:

• Fringe Fest! Edinburgh in the summer! Brooklyn in the summer! East Village rooftop parties and all the Asia reunions! These three weeks were truly a magical time, and now I finally get New York’s magnetism
• Giving my mom away at her wedding, which was a small but touching affair
• Flying through Chicago just to catch a game at Wrigley — and unexpectedly falling for the city
• Seeing Jose Gonzalez and Shakey Graves live at Red Rocks: what musicians, what a venue, what a show

Lows:

• Very few; this was one of my best months. I guess this isn’t the worst problem to have, but in August my love life jumped the shark from being fairly entertaining to ‘oh crap’ complicated. In Bachelorette terms, let’s just say I was running out of roses and eyeing some fences to jump.

SEPTEMBER : DENVER

So Labor Day came and went and I…uh…didn’t.

I stayed. Moved into a house with a legit white picket fence. And started a job. In Denver. 

…Surprise! After ten years overseas — ten years of swearing up and down I’d never move back to the States — I moved back to the States.

(I’d also sworn in April that Colorado wasn’t my jam and I “could never live here” so of course, here I am.)

Highs:

• Unpacking my clothes for the first time in years and buying full-size(!) toiletries…and just finally having a proper bed and space to call my own again. I can’t tell you how mentally freeing that was
• Having pet ducks (I know?!) and getting spoiled with fresh duck eggs for breakfast every morning
• Finally answering the grand Purpose question (my god, I’ve become an Avenue Q cliché). The Denver move deserves its own post, but in short I joined AmeriCorps! And now work for a nonprofit that helps immigrants and refugees in Colorado, and no longer wake up every morning what the hell I’m doing with my life (at least, not every morning)

Lows:

• Uh, moving back to the States?? Alexa, show me an identity crisis. It took nine months for me to mention it on any of my social media platforms publicly, that’s how much I still can’t wrap my head around it.

OCT-DEC : CHICAGO, SAN FRANCISCO, NEW ORLEANS

Old habits die hard, and fixed life fits me like an itchy overcoat: physically necessary for my well-being, but always slightly uncomfortable to bear.

So as autumn settled in, I managed a few getaways from my new Denver base: I ate my way through Chicago, chased pumpkin patches in Indiana, reunited with family in San Francisco, and rang in the new year in New Orleans. 

Highs:

• Indulging in all the pumpkin and plaid clichés as I celebrated my first proper fall in a decade
• Being gifted last-minute VIP tickets to catch Stevie Wonder headline a new Denver music festival (he is, indeed, lovely and wonderful!)
• Seeing my sister in SF as we celebrated our cousin turning 30 and becoming an American citizen
• Dyeing my hair for the first time ever(!) in classic “when a woman changes her hair she’s changing her life” form
• Landing a bartending gig at a craft gin distillery in the heart of downtown Denver. I love it there and couldn’t imagine a better fit for me (and I get to drink ALL. the. gin. I. want.)
• Finally checking New Orleans off the list! The city was everything I hoped it’d be, and then some

Lows:

• I wasn’t wrong in my initial assessment: Colorado is not the state for me. People hike, like, all the time? For fun? I am very much a water person and, as feared, the mountains have brought me no joy
• The never-ending winter that began with snow in October and is still going with hail in June. I am generally miserable at any temp below 65F/18C soooo I have been quite the grumpy popsicle
• Navigating the US as an adult: relying on mediocre public transportation, figuring out the cluster that is privatized healthcare, being hyper-aware of gun violence, retraining my taste buds for American ingredients. To be honest, I’m still struggling to readjust.

***

29 was the year that both asked, and answered. Sure, the answer — moving back to the States, becoming an AmeriCorps volunteer, pivoting to the nonprofit sector — was compleeeetely out of left field.

But I had been adrift, and by the end of 2018 my fuzzy edges became more defined; my priorities came into focus. And I absolutely have the constant travel to thank for that — in particular, the majestic tapestry of friends and strangers whose company filled my days, week to week, country to country.

(*I’ve tried not to single any one friend out in this post, because then I’d have to list them all and we’d be here for another ten minutes, but y’all know who you are and I love you.)

The friends whose lives inspired me; the dates who unknowingly accompanied me on this identity crisis; the endless late nights with both spent discussing respective life paths and goals and errors and missteps and what it means to be fulfilled.

I pocketed every nugget of wisdom I picked up along the way.

Exhaustive as it was, through last year’s vagabonding I got to shadow drive a hundred lives; encounter forks in a hundred roads.

I finally learned to identify and pinpoint what, exactly, my non-negotiables look like — both for my life, and the people I want in it. Then took that knowledge to eliminate, bracket-style, everything that didn’t work for me until I found what precisely would. No settling for less.

It’s not what I pictured, and it’s certainly not perfect (or permanent). But for where I was and what I needed: I chose the right fork, for right now.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Any questions? Anything I’ve missed from your life while I’ve been away?

PS: the original post title was “From Nomad to Fixed Life”, but since reading this piece I am working to actively remove using the term nomad from my writing where not accurate.

The post From Wanderer to Fixed Life: An Overdue Update appeared first on Expat Edna.

Today’s post comes from Agness & Cez, who are well-known for their expat stints all over the world and have chosen to shine some light on one of their favorite neighborhoods in Gdansk, Poland!

Agness & Cez: Why We Love Nowy Port

There’s a charming corner of the world located in the north of Poland on the shores of the Black Sea. Often overlooked in favor of more popular tourist destinations such as Warsaw and Krakow (perhaps more to do with location than anything else) the delightful and historic port of Gdansk still draws in a large slice of the Polish tourism pie. And little wonder, because there’s so much to see and do in this region of the country you’d be stark raving mad to miss it!

Gdansk – very easy on the eye.

It’s no secret that Poland had a rough time of it and took a battering in WWII, but cities like Gdansk have seriously got their skates on when it comes to rejuvenation. It’s been largely rebuilt almost brick for brick and continues to improve every year with exciting sights and attractions that are putting it firmly on the map. It also just happens to be our old stomping ground and we’re here to tell you why we love our neighborhood – and why you will too.

Agness and Cez in their home town.

Nowy Port: Our little slice of heaven is a place called Nowy Port, one of the four quarters in the city of Gdansk (the others being Brzeźno, Letnica, and Przeróbka). It’s an affordable place to live – much cheaper than the rest of the city but still blessed with beautiful and idyllic surroundings. There are never too many tourists in our neighborhood, no hustle and bustle, and you can live the slow and peaceful life if that’s what you’re looking for!

There is so much culture and tradition here that the city has awarded it heritage site status. Gdansk has a long and famous maritime history dating back centuries, and you can see it at every turn when you visit. Perhaps Nowy Port’s most recognizable attraction is its lighthouse – which is an iconic and much-loved structure built in 1893. Its rather somber claim to fame is that it was from here that the very first shots were fired to mark the beginning of WWII.

Not a bad spot for centering oneself!

Finding Our Zen: While we’re traveling, we make our cozy apartment in Gdansk available for other travelers, but there are some great hotels and hostels in Gdansk too. When we do return home though, this neighborhood is perfect for our digital nomad lifestyle. Its quiet locale ensures we can be super productive without too many distractions or take time off to charge the batteries. It’s really wonderful when we need to rejuvenate or clear our minds of clutter!

And being just 10 minutes away from the beach really helps! It’s great to visit in any season for a stroll or even a picnic, and we really enjoy the fact that it’s so close. Who wouldn’t want a beach on their doorstep?! Aside from that, there’s a lovely park big park nearby that we often enjoy going for walks or biking in – and the whole area is generally well serviced with cycle paths. We can get to pretty much anywhere in town using these routes – and it starts right outside our door!

Apartments – Soviet style. Somehow still charming!

Getting Around: Which leads us nicely onto what we do if we’re looking for a bit more action! As well as the abundance of cycle routes throughout our neighborhood, there’s also a really nice mix of old and new trams that service the area – which makes it super easy if we want to head into the city itself. There are beautiful, cobbled streets and alleyways at almost every turn here and with the transport system being so good, it really makes it a joy to get around.

We have plenty of local shops nearby and while the locals generally don’t speak English, they are very friendly and open to try and engage with tourists should you ever pay us a visit. You’ll see some fascinating, old Soviet apartment blocks while exploring the neighborhood too. Very typical of the time period – but at least they’re really colorful!

Cez wanders the Royal Way in sunny Gdansk.

Into Gdansk: Once into the city itself, you’ll be spoilt for choice for things to do and it’s improving every single year, adding new attractions, events and places of interest. Perhaps the most popular tourist draw is the old town and the “Trakt Królewski” or Royal Way. Unsurprisingly named because this is where Polish kings used to parade when visiting the city. It’s a stunning, historic thoroughfare with beautifully restored fairy-tale architecture.

Along the route, you’ll see many of the city’s most famous sites, with loads of really cool cafes available anytime you want to take the weight off. We’re both huge coffee fans – and one of the many things we love about Gdansk is the vibrant bean scene. The city is obsessed with java! (And cake – we like cake here too!)

***

About the authors: Agness and Cez really do love their homely part of the world, but when they’re not relaxing on their local beach or enjoying Nowy Port’s peace and quiet, they’re usually to be found trotting the globe. The duo set up eTramping back in 2011, quickly building a loyal following and bringing you oodles of adventure travel advice, tips, tricks, and guides. If you’d like to find out where they are or whatever they’re getting up to, follow them on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. You never know where they might strike next!

All photos courtesy of the authors.

The post I Love My Neighborhood: Nowy Port, Gdansk (Poland) appeared first on Expat Edna.

I looked up from the windowsill where I sat perched, mesmerized by the killer pork belly po’ boy in my hands.

“Give me your phone,” the woman repeated. “The light’s really nice, and you look good in this window.”

The po’ boys in question.

I wasn’t sure I believed her intentions, but I did suddenly recognize her: a few minutes earlier she’d been standing next to me at the bar, ordering drinks to go (because, New Orleans). She had looked friendly enough — but that was when she was inside.

Now she and her husband were outside, no walls to contain them — surrounded by nothing but the open roads of the French Quarter that were looking ripe for a good dash with a stranger’s iPhone.

*

I weighed my options.

The documentarian side of me thought, “Golly you’re right, the lighting is splendid and the framing superb. Plus this is his & my first trip together and we have so few photos that aren’t selfies. Bless your heart for offering to record this slice of life for a stranger!”

The other side of me, who has actually encountered real humans and doesn’t live in Snow White’s enchanted forest surrounded by talking animals: “…you’re kidding, right.”

Naive Me: “She looks nice though? And her husband’s standing right there?”

Not-Buying-It Me: “Why do you watch so many episodes of SVU if you can’t spot an accomplice? She’d clearly throw it to him and he’d book it.”

Wants-to-Believe Me: “But they have drinks in their hands? How far could they get with open containers AND a phone?”

Weary-World-Traveler Me: “Uhhhh they’d clearly toss the $5 drinks, that’s called an opportunity cost, dummy. Or at least I think it is, I dunno, there’s a reason we dropped out of econ first semester of college.”

This went on for a while.

Meanwhile the woman is looking at me, her husband’s looking at his beer, and my man’s looking at his po’ boy. So to get the whole situation over with I throw caution to the wind and say,

“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks!”

I could hear the groans of all Ghosts of Travelers Scammed Past. “What is wrong. with. you.”

*

She snapped a few angles before promptly returning my phone. No need to worry, in the end. In each photo, our body language is in alliance with our forced smiles: we were ready to jump out the window at the slightest sudden movement from either of the pair. I’m glad we have the photos but I don’t love them, and I’m not sure it was worth the potential loss of my (quite new) phone.

In hindsight, I still don’t know what made me say Yes. I could have very easily said no thank you, and I’m sure this woman would’ve understood the caution. My gut was screaming Don’t Risk It; had I been a betting woman watching this unfold on Candid Camera, no doubt I’d’ve placed money on “that phone ’bout to grow legs”.

This woman was just attempting a nice gesture to a couple day-drinking on holiday — but we all know in reality, you can’t be too careful. We’ve all heard more than our fair share of the scams, the bamboozles, the million and one ways to lose your valuables. And the longer you’ve been out there, the more stories you hear.

But the longer you’ve been on the road, the more you also want to believe in people. To be able to trust that deep down, that stranger on the street is someone good. That they usually try to do the right thing, too.

So maybe I said yes because, once in a while, I want the universe to tear down my guard and rationality and common sense and prove it all wrong.

I may not love the photo, but I’ll always remember the lesson behind it.

Would you give a stranger your phone if they approached you first? 

The post New Orleans and a Question of Trust appeared first on Expat Edna.

You guys. Why has no one told me about Chicago? Or I suppose more accurately: why has no one insisted I go to Chicago?!

It took 29 years of flying through O’Hare — and thus purely seeing Chicago as a Layover City — before I finally pulled the trigger on leaving the confines of the airport.*

(*Technically I’ve ventured into the city twice due to flight delays; I was a child both times and my only memories were of the hotels and and once getting yelled at for nodding off on a stranger’s shoulder in a taxi. My transportation-based narcolepsy began very early.)

Anyway, I randomly got into baseball this year (that’s a lie, I didn’t, but I kept meeting guys who are super into it) so a sports journalist buddy from Rio 2016 convinced me to fly to Chicago, where he lives and covers baseball, to finally see a game at Wrigley.

I fully expected to drop in, sit through the game, score some talking points with the baseball dudes, and then ghost the city for another 29 years. Eat a hot dog, check it off the list, done.

To everyone’s surprise, I found myself enjoying Chicago so much — the people! The food! The big-city-but-low-drama feel! — that I returned just six weeks later for another weekend. Consider me a Windy City convert.

So after a cumulative 90ish hours in Chicago so far, here are the best things I’ve eaten and drank…for now (because I know I’ve only scratched the surface and will obviously be back):

Chicago Hot Dog

Just like in pizza and comedy, Chicago fights New York for its own claim on a hot dog definition. I’m not enough of an aficionado to really compare, but I’m super into the Chicago version’s requisite soft (like, I aspire to have thread count this soft) poppy-seed bun, and I am here for any dish that demands celery salt and dill pickle spears. The internet also swears not to ask for ketchup, but no Chicago resident I met seemed this upset about the NO KETCHUP rule, so do what feels right in your heart, I guess.

For my Chicago hot dog initiation I went to Portillo’s, which is very much on the beaten track, but there’s pretty much a hot dog shop on every corner and they’re ridiculously cheap, so why not have a few tasters between cocktail bars. Honestly ever since that first one, I now get cravings for those pillowy-soft salty meat tubes all the time. But that could also be the sodium dependency talking.

Brunch, BiXi Beer

When your mood board is: craft beer x Asian fusion comfort food x rooftop patio x brunch, you can bet I’ll be there with my ID (because America) and bells on when the doors open. If Chinese belt noodles, seafood lo mien with lobstah buttah [I cannot say it any other way], lamb wonton, and Sichuan peppercorn dark ale are your jam, then you too should check the newly-opened BiXi out, and also we should maybe be brunch pals.

(Only note: the Vietnamese coffee is well and good but in a conspicuously Americanized way. Like don’t come in with high expectations if you’ve recently spent a significant amount of time housing cà phê đás on the reg in Hanoi.)

Burger, Au Cheval

This was apparently once named the best burger in the nation by Bon Appetit, and thus people will apparently wait hours in line to eat here. Come on a Wednesday lunch service though, and you can waltz your way right into a seat at the counter without knowing either of these things.

But that just speaks to the low-pretension ‘upscale old-school diner’ vibe I got from the place. I don’t know that the burger was “Nothing Is Better In The Entire Country” good, but it — and a side order of hash browns! do it! — are definitely worth the trip to the West Loop (and maybe a mild cardiac health setback).

Cocktails, Scofflaw / The Up Room

In the short time I’ve spent in Chicago I’ve already been taken to nine bars/breweries (hashtag priorities; hashtag do my friends know me or what) and two immediately stood out: Scofflaw, for their gin-heavy cocktail list and ability to nail a perfect Martin Miller’s dirty martini; and The Up Room for an intimate lounge sesh with creative drinks and views like the above. Which are pretty stellar for a cloudy day as is, so you know, extrapolate at will.

Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich

Here we have the full Chicago experience: watching baseball at Wrigley Field, Goose Island beer in one hand, Italian beef sandwich in the other. Even though Wrigley now has this fancy rotating chef pop-up in their concession stands, I obviously had to go for a Chicago steak sandwich on my first visit. I waffled between “hot” or “sweet” (aka giardiniera or roasted green peppers) on top, so I requested half and half and the stand lady gladly obliged. They’re nice like that in the Midwest.

Honorable Mention: Ice Cream, Jeni’s

This was originally higher up the list, but in doing research for this post I learned Jeni’s is a chain(!) from Ohio. Excuse me while I fire my ice cream guy.

However, if you’ve never heard of or been to Jeni’s before, I gotta admit it stands up and is still worth a nibble or seven. Pumpkin 5-spice? Wildberry lavender? GOAT CHEESE ice cream? The flavor creativity is comparable to Salt & Straw from Portland, but with fewer pretentious hipsters, so it’s still a net win for me.

Are you a Chicago fan or not? And where should I hit up next time I’m in town?

The post The 5 Best Things I Ate in Chicago appeared first on Expat Edna.

Edinburgh, August 2018. My last day in Europe for the foreseeable future (again)

Five years ago, at summer’s end, I wrote this post.

I wrote about the funny twists life can take — how it can throw you in for a spin cycle and leave you tumbling out in a place you never, in your strangest Ambien-induced dreams, would have expected.

I wrote about love, and heartache, and friendships, both lost and found.

***

Five years ago, I spent the summer buoyed by cloud-nine highs while simultaneously being dragged to painfully despairing lows.

I struggled with the fallouts of a romantic breakup (that I initiated) and a platonic one (that I did not). I’d accepted a job opportunity that was meant to be a huge step for my career, and was preparing to move to a new country for the role.

Most profoundly, I found myself leaving Paris: a city I’d grown to not only adore over a year and a half, but truly consider home. I genuinely thought it was the end of the line for France and me, so I said my goodbyes accordingly and braced for whatever came next.

I never expected, half a decade later, to still be there.

Paris, July 2018. The night France won the World Cup

This summer, I once again savored warm evenings in Paris and Barcelona and London and a smattering of other European cities, just as in 2013, while barreling towards August’s end in a similar state of affairs.

Same same, but different.

• Funemployment tinged with anxiety over The Future? Check.
• An unexpected job offer? Check.
• …that requires moving & starting over in a brand new city? Check.
• Romantic entanglements? Girl, so many checks on that I coulda made Checks Mix.
• And a best friend who suddenly ghosts, cutting off all contact in the midst of when you need them most? A most heart-wrenching check.

That last one was by far the worst: the abrupt severance in early July of one of my closest friendships was actually more painful than the combination of both breakups the first time around. Cue that Daft Punk song on repeat, again.

And briefly I despaired, for the friends comforting me and helping me get through it all at 29 were the same as at 24 — yet they were now doing so as we sat in the dining room of the new apartment they had purchased; as they showed me wedding and anniversary photos; as they took breaks to check on their napping toddler.

The message seemed obvious: everyone else was moving forward. I clearly wasn’t.

Was I stuck in some maturity time warp? Looped into a Groundhog Day-esque illusion that I was making progress? My friends were over here making mini humans while the only 18-month-old in my life was my latest suitcase.

What did I have to show for my years of experiences as A Traveler if all I did in the end was fly in one big circle, making continuous left turns until I arrived right back where I started — confused, alone, and chasing ghosts in Paris?

Thankfully, with déjà vu comes comfort: as much as the uncertainty sucked, this time I knew it’d be temporary.

The thing about experience is, it makes the new challenges feel less…challenging. The tough times, less all-consuming. It gives you a greater sense of self and optimism that everything eventually shakes out.

It’s easier to endure that slog through the mud when you know what’s waiting on the other side.

And sure enough, when the dust settled, this fall I found myself in a place I never would have expected — mentally, professionally, and quite literally (more on that soon).

Where I really ended up, though, is happy. There’s far less travel in my life at the moment, and I still don’t know what the future holds after my new latest stint, but I’m as content and fulfilled as ever. Everything comes full circle, in the end.

The post Everything Is Cyclical appeared first on Expat Edna.

This is a very short story about my first time in Norway, because, well, the trip itself was just as short.

I mean technically, the drive was long — ten hours on the road, woof! — but all told, we were in Norway for three hours.

All to rescue a dog and a Frenchman.

(this is not the van in question; this was the rescue mission van)

Basically, last year my best friend purchased a used van and converted it into a beauty of a camping machine — you know, one of those worthy of all the #vanlife hashtags.

The grand plan was to take it for spin on an extensive summer road trip: her boyfriend would drive it from their home in Gothenburg all the way up to the Lofoten Islands in Norway, camp out for a week or so with her dog, after which point we would join them via an overnight train from Sweden.

Well, the van had other ideas and decided not make it to the Lofoten Islands.

In fact, when it broke down, it had barely made it past Oslo.

I’ll skip the details, as it’s not my Swedish-Norwegian-Franco-American nightmare to tell (most of which was dull and bureaucratic anyway) — but after two days of little progress and increasingly frustrated parties all around, I got roped into the situation with a lunchtime text: “Pack an overnight bag. We’re driving to Norway in an hour.”

My best friend, taking matters into her own hands like a boss, decided to rent a van from the Circle K across the street (those Swedish convenience stores really do do it all) and off we went to save her beloveds.

Five hours — and one incredibly scenic drive — later, we found the biff & the dog in a town called Hamar, about 80 miles (a roughly two-hour drive) north of Oslo. A quiet little place, and quite relaxing in the summertime, when the sun dominates the skies for most of your waking hours.

We stretched our legs and made the most of said sunlight by picking up some craft beer and fashioning a picnic of the remaining perishables (recovered from the broken-down van) on the shores of Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake. Lemonade out of lemons, and all that.

In the end we didn’t even stay the night, turning right on our heels and driving all the way back to Gothenburg instead (the rescuees were craving their own beds, understandably). But not before the Frenchman walked us to these centuries-old cathedral ruins encased in a very modernly-styled, IM Pei-esque glass pyramid; a discovery made in his ample free time spent wandering around Hamar. So the whole excursion wasn’t entirely without its touristy, mildly educational moments.

Of all the ways I could have been introduced to Norway, a spontaneous recon mission and 10 hours in a van was certainly not high on the list of imagined possibilities.

But reflecting in the weeks following this trip, it reminded me of the little gifts this nomadic lifestyle affords, of which I will never not be appreciative: the ability to start a cross-country road trip at the drop of a hat; spending hours in a van with my best friend, just her and me and the open road; casual picnics in a heretofore-unknown-to-me town in a new country, watching kids cannonball into a lake as the sun drips and blazes ever so slowly across the horizon.

Made for a hell of a better memory than taking the train.

The post A Very Short Story About Norway appeared first on Expat Edna.

I don’t know at what point the idea came to me, but somewhere in the last couple years — most likely thanks to photos on Facestagram or Pinstabook or one of those platforms that makes the world seem so hazily wholesome — I decided I wanted to experience Midsommar in Sweden. Maybe it was the flower crowns. Maybe it was the absurdity of nights that never truly get dark. Who knows.

(It was definitely the flower crowns.)

Regardless the impetus, it was an easy enough desire to fulfill: my best friend moved to Sweden a couple of years ago, and was more than happy to host me for an much-overdue reunion in Gothenburg.

As far as Midsommars go, I suppose this was the ‘Friendsgiving’ version in that the Swedish spirit was there…but the actual execution probably wasn’t. We were an eclectic bunch of American, Belgian, French, Indian, and Estonian expats; there were no rounds of kubb or shots of nubbe (though we did have a bottle of powerfully sweet Estonian liqueur that probably provided the same morning-after effects to those who indulged…I took one sip and decided I’d stick to beer and boxed wine).

But there was still a BBQ, albeit a chilly one (welcome to summer in Sweden, where you need to huddle around the grill for warmth), homemade chocolate cake, and a house party karaoke session that started out with your classic 80s karaoke hits and eventually devolved into a Moana singalong. For my first Midsommar, it was a smashing night.

This trip was quite the contrast to the first time I visited the bestie in Sweden, which was the Christmas just before I moved to New Zealand. Then, the sun only bothered popping up for all of what felt like thirty seconds, it was completely dark by late afternoon, and of course the temperature differential was…quite significant.

I’m not sold on which extreme I prefer: summer may have milder weather, but the lack of true darkness at night (it’s just never-ending twilight) is just a massive middle finger to my Circadian rhythm. What is sleep?

Still, it’s been a treat to explore Gothenburg now that my best friend has settled into life here; she’s become quite fond of her adopted city and relishes the chance to share its charms with others.

Which, in her way, means taking me on hikes and ferry rides, daily picnics, and of course, so much fika.

Perhaps somewhat naively, I told myself I would use my time in Sweden to eat nothing but green things. After so many months on the road, a detox was well in order…

….buuuut what monster says no to breakfast in bed like this? (The photo may have been taken on a coffee table but trust me, I definitely devoured this in bed.)

Peaceful photos aside though, I’ve actually not been that relaxed. I’m currently going through yet another iteration of the old Travel Burnout & Identity Crisis chestnut, which seems to be happening with increasing frequency the longer I’m on the road.

I had hoped Gothenburg would be a chance to clear my head a bit; that a trip to ‘get away from it all’ up north would give me some clarity on some cloudy question marks floating around my head.

But I should’ve known that Sweden at the height of summer — especially when they’re having such an engaging run in the World Cup! — would prove to be an impossible place to stay inside to contemplate life and the universe and everything.

Maybe next time I’ll try visiting in autumn.

Have you ever celebrated Midsommar? How is your summer starting off? 

The post A Very Swedish Midsommar appeared first on Expat Edna.

I’ve been reflecting on a couple milestones recently.

The first is that 2018 marks ten years since I first left the States. 10! A whole decade! What was meant to be “just four months in China” turned into a full-blown gap year turned into…an entire adult life spent overseas.

The second is that I turn 29 this month. The big 3-0 is very clearly in sight now — and with it, the end of what has quite obviously been my favorite decade so far.

I was sharing these musings with a friend recently during a long roadtrip through the mountains of Colorado, and ever the contrarian, he immediately countered: “But that’s such an arbitrary number, isn’t it?” 

Well yes, and the second Sunday in May is pretty arbitrary too, yet every year that becomes national Call Your Mother Day. Sure, I should tell my mom I love her more frequently than when society reminds me to — but as with anything in life, when routine sets in, appreciation inevitably falls to the wayside.

What I’m saying is, sometimes you need arbitrary markers and anniversaries to remind you to pause, step back, and assess.

So I’m like the football coach of my own life right now, drawing Xs and Os across the chalkboard of my 20s: that worked and can stay; that needs some tweaking; that preposterous play I should never attempt again. (There….are a few of those last ones.)

Fresh off the boat: China, January 2008. I had no idea what I was getting into.

Currently, I’m at the end of a seven-week tour across the States. It’s the longest and most extensive trip back I’ve taken, and being “home” in a country I haven’t considered home — physically or mentally — in ten years has found me doubling down on the contemplation.

And surprisingly, it’s led to a jarring realization: I am so content with who I am right now.

Something about being back in the US forced me to change my parameters of comparison. Prior to this I’d been in the midst of my usual post-Olympics identity crisis, aka overwhelmed by indecision on Where Do I Go Next and How Do I Feed Myself and I Am Maybe Too Old To Be This Indecisive. 

But this trip was about visiting the oldest of friends scattered across the country (we’re talking elementary & middle school era here) — meaning for the last few weeks, I’ve surrounded myself with those who’ve known me almost exclusively pre-expat.

And maybe in stripping away the pressure I constantly put on myself to meet new people, explain my life story, create new communities, and move ever forward forward forward — without constantly thinking about my external presentation, I had the space to reflect internally on who I’ve become.

The 10-year mark in January coincided with the end of my time in Wellington, and since I left New Zealand (or also quite likely, because of it), I’ve noticed a monumental shift in my personality. I’ve become outspoken in a way that no longer feels terrifying; I’m bold because I am, not to mask deep-seated insecurities or front that I am A Bold Person.

I’ve become more likely to stand up: for myself, for what I believe in, and to people with whom I disagree. Gone are the apologies and accommodations tossed out like candy just to keep the peace.

I am finally making space, and taking space, and chasing what I want without fear of derision.

Career-wise, this has been huge; imposter syndrome lives out back and no longer gets a seat at the table. I spent the better part of a week finally writing a proper CV and LinkedIn (and updating this blog’s About page, while we’re at it) and seeing ten years of work, in an industry I love, distilled into two pages of bullet points made me realize I’m quite proud of what I’ve accomplished. I no longer feel like I’m hustling for roles I ‘don’t deserve’.

For someone who’s spent over two decades struggling with a lack of self-worth and confidence, to be this comfortable and sure of myself as a human being feels incredibly gratifying.

So even though my ongoing third-life crisis and I are so close we have a standing brunch date, I’d say currently I’m more like a reverse duck: paddling haphazardly above the surface about my immediate next steps, but underneath incredibly at peace with where I am, and where I’m going.

I’ve made the most of my 20s and know whichever city I end up in the next few months, I’ll feel like I belong there; whatever I’m doing, I think I’m going to crush it.

Bring on 29!

Over to you: Was there a milestone year where you finally felt like things clicked? Is it true your 30s get even better?

The post Reflections on 28 and a Decade Abroad appeared first on Expat Edna.