Category Archives: expat

Buying Local & Riverford

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Today’s prompt for Blogtember states, “Share links to your favorite online shops, preferably with a few photos of your favorite items in each shop.”  
Do not get me wrong, I love to shop.  Especially if it means I am shopping without the kids and with either my husband or friends.  I could spend hours just browsing the store, whether I buy anything or not.  However in our life as expats we are not doing all that much shopping like we used to do when we lived stateside.  As a mum I tend to feel guilty if I buy something for myself and not for my kids first.  I live in a house where someone is constantly outgrowing something or needs something for school.  With all the growing my sons do they equally do a lot of eating.  So when it comes to conversations about shopping in my house it usually has to do with food.
Living in England has made food shopping so much more enjoyable.  When we lived in Brighton we used to go to the grocery store once or twice a week to just pick up a few items that we would need for the next few days.  Whatever we bought we had to walk home with and so it made it really easy to stick to a shopping list.  Since moving to Bath we have discovered the joys of ordering groceries online and having it delivered. Genius idea! It is as simple as going on the computer or smart phone to make up your shopping list, pay, and then schedule the delivery date. 
We have recently stopped ordering our groceries from the chain stores and started ordering from local farms. We have tried out two different places and have decided we like to order different things from both places to fit our family’s needs and budget. It is organic from our local farms…what could be better?  I can even tell the quality difference in the meat from what we have gotten before.  I was a eating a mostly vegetarian diet in the US because I did not really care for meat, but here it just tastes so much better.  Plus the fact that we can get this quality food in our budget makes me want to do a song and dance. 
I had heard about Riverford from my fellow expat friend and had been wanting to try it for sometime.  I regret not ordering from there sooner.  Their service is amazing and when they delivered for the first time I got to meet both our driver and our local Riverford Vegman for Somerset. I love that the meat comes packaged nicely, lined in sheep’s wool with ice packs. Plus they ask for the packaging back so that it can be reused.  With your order comes a nice letter and recipe booklets for the food of that season.  It is like christmas morning opening up our veg box to see what is inside. It has made our cooking even that more interesting as we work around what comes in our delivery.
We found Somerset Local Food Direct online when searching for places that delivered raw milk.  If you have never had the very first sip from a newly opened jug of raw milk, you are definitely missing out on a taste of heaven.  We get two at a time, freezing one and putting the other in the fridge.  We have tried a few different other things from them as well, like venison burgers and were very pleased indeed!  We have decided to definitely continue ordering our milk and our bacon from Somerset Local Food Direct.  The bacon is the best I we have gotten from any grocery store, butcher, or online store.  It is thick and I actually find the fat edible and do not cut it off for being rubbery. Our delivery man is the sweetest and so friendly.  I was sad about not having my milk delivered like when I was a kid, so having my ‘milk man’ back has been a highlight for my expat life. 
If we were to go to the grocery store we would need to either walk thirty minutes or take the bus and pay per person that was going to the store with us. We then would have to fight through the crowd, deal with whatever mood our kids are in (because little boys love shopping for food), try to not put in anything that we did not initially come to the store for, and stay in budget. After waiting in the queue and paying we would then have to carry all our bags home.  Instead we spend about fifteen minutes online ordering the food to have it delivered.  I honestly hope we never live somewhere that I do not have this option.  It has made life so much easier.  I would not want to go back. 
We like to use Riverford and Somerset Local Food Direct.  
Q: Do you buy local? Where are your favourite places to do food shopping where you live?

*photographs  belong to Bonnie Rose of Bonnie Rose Photography © 2013 All Rights Reserved | www.bonnie-rose.co.uk 


My Ex-Pat Life: Is it the Right Choice for You?

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Linking up with Rachel & Chelsea 

Making the choice.   It was a joint decision with my husband to move out of the US. The decision followed a sudden death in the family which refocused our plans for the future.  While we experienced several bumps (that were more like mountains) in the three years that followed we eventually made it to our destination in England. It did not happen without concerns and judgements from the peanut gallery of family, friends, and acquaintances.  My husband was leaving behind a job in the military and there were options offered to him closer to his family.

The suggestions thrown my way were about me trying to possess some unhealthy association with my past. It was no secret that I had not been truly happy since moving to the US before my senior year of high school and the decade to follow. If I could not find happiness in the US, certainly I would still be just as unhappy anywhere in the world.  Perhaps if I had been a typical American girl raised on American soil this would be true.  I was raised abroad as a third culture kid caught between the American military culture, the three different cultures within the countries that I lived, and  those places we traveled to that impacted my life during my developmental years.  I was not meant to live a life of Olive Gardens, American football games and Walmarts. I was made to live a life abroad and a life of travel.

It was my first year as an expat and I was at an early morning meeting at the salon where I worked.  I had been one of the first to arrive, sitting with my tea and my notebook that I journaled in while enjoying the solitude before a busy workday. We had been waiting for two coworkers to arrive ten minutes past the starting time. A usual occurrence I was realizing with the individuals I was working with at the time. My boss who was obviously upset with current situation asked us life motivating questions. I cannot quite remember the exact question I was asked when it was my turn to speak. Although I do remember my answer.

I was here because I made the choice to be here. My husband and I could have stayed and lived a unfulfilling life in America but we wanted something different.  So we got rid of all our furniture, packed up our belongings, left our children with family and moved to England with out jobs, a place to live, or contacts.  We basically hit the ground running and started applying for jobs. Which is how I came to be working at the salon.  It was what helped us apply to get a place to live, to find a school for our boys to attend, and begin our life together as family in England.  It was a risk that was not encouraged by all those that knew us but it was something about which my husband and I felt strongly and carried through.

Taking the ex-pat life has shown me how truly some risks are worth taking .  You may not know the outcome or the journey you will have to take to get to a sense of normalcy.  It will be challenging, it will have hard times, and it can end up costing more than you had endeavored. I do however hold no regrets. I do not have to live a life of thinking ‘what if’ or be living my life planning for the right time.  There is never a right time when life is so short.  We got married young, started our family young and we followed suite with following our dreams young.  I may not have a savings account for my kids for college, but I have invested in their future as third culture kids and future world travelers. We have prepared their young lives for a broader world view and a chance to go where ever life calls them.

If I went back in time I would still make the same choice to live the ex-pat life.

Q: Is an ex-pat life a journey you chose? 
Would you become an ex-pat?

Our Expat Summer ’13

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Kisses on the Avon River as we pulled our two kayaks together close for a photo op. 
Still cannot believe we have been married for ten years

This is it.  Though autumn does not begin for another twenty one days, this is our last weekend of summer.  My husband has been back to work since our 10th Anniversary trip and this week my kids go back to school.  While both my sons and my husband and I are glad to have a new school term starting, it makes me a bit sad to know that summer is coming to a close.  However any sadness is overshadowed by the immense thankfulness I have for what a great summer it has been.  Not counting the week my boys and I spent at the Jersey Shore last year with my family, it has  probably been 2007 since the four of us have really experienced and loved every moment of summer. 
All the family dramarama stayed stateside and our entire vacation in Wales was but perfection, including our Vow Renewal. We got to experience a lovely two days in London with my mum and sister, a city the three of us have not all been at together since we lived in England back in the early 90’s.  Another ‘this is your life’ moment was when my mum and I got to show Ryan and my sons the city of Oxford, the place where I was born during my father’s second out of three tours stationed in England.  The rest of our summer has been filled with country walks, picnics in the park, kayak journeys on the rivers and canals around Bath, and enjoying food and drinks at our favourite pubs. 
With summer getting ready to be behind us I can now count out the rest of the year by upcoming events and birthdays through the last four months of 2013.  It really surprises me every year with how fast the months go by and this year is no exception.  
Q: What has been your favourite thing about this summer 
and what are you looking forward to in the last third of 2013?

* Photo belongs to Bonnie Rose Photography © 2007 – 2013 All Rights Reserved | http://www.bonnie-rose.co.uk

Expat to Expat Q&A: The Basics of Day to Day

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It is time for the next month’s installment of Expat to Expat: Q&A with Belinda and Bailie.
Every month they put together a series of questions for expats to answer from around the world.
Have a question? Make sure to contact them with your ideas for next month! 

1. What is your favorite food store in your city and why?
I like both Sainsburys and Morrisons. We get our groceries delivered to the house from Sainsburys. Food shopping has never been easier now that my husband can order from his phone and it gets delivered straight to our door. 

2. For your answer to number 1 is it ok to buy the store brand items or do you pay extra for a name brand? 

Yes the store brand items are great from both stores. Morrisons has a great pesto that has natural ingredients in comparison to the name brand and costs way less. 
3. What do you think is the best way to get about your city? i.e. bus, bike, car, etc
We do not have a car and so we get around most by walking. When needed we take the bus, unless its the four of us and then we will take a taxi since it is cheaper. My husband will ride his bicycle occasionally to and from work. I think all forms of transportation work well in Bath, England however there is limited parking if you are driving by car.

4. Which store do you turn to for basics like toilet paper or cleaning supplies?
Again this would be Sainsburys since we get all our food and basic supplies delivered from their store in town. When we run out of something that we need urgently I will pop down to the convenience store on our high street.

5. Where do you think is the best place in your city to get a cup of coffee (or beverage you prefer) and catch up with friends? 

 There are so many great places in Bath and the surrounding towns for tea or coffee with friends. I recently took my mum to the Regency Tea Room at the Jane Austen Centre. I recommend trying the Jane Austen blend if you come to Bath to visit.

6. What was your “eureka, I’m practically a native” moment?
I was born in Oxford and I lived in Norfolk later on for a few years as a young girl. When we moved back to England as expats in 2011 it had been about seventeen years since I had last stepped foot in the UK. So despite the fact that I am a dual citizen I moved here not knowing all what to expect our life to be like living here. I could not explain fully how wonderful it was for me to go eat out and see beans on toast on the menu. This has been one of my comfort foods all my life, and I used to be questioned strangely or made fun of by americans when I was living in the US. Then I realized everywhere that sold jacket potatoes (baked potatoes) also offered them with beans on top. I thought that was a ‘bonnie-ism’ and realized that it was just part of my culture from growing up in England. That was the moment I realized I was finally ‘at home’. For a highly nomadic person as myself, a third culture kid, who often wonders where ‘home’ would be that was a huge Eureka moment. 

7. Does your real accent get in the way?
Yes it can sometimes. I think about it a lot when I am out of the house. I am aware of how the American accent stands out and I will not speak out about bad service because of my accent. Now a days I use a lot of the english Vocabulary or pronounce things they way they are spoken here without having to think about it first. Which really helps out though I still have a strong american accent. It just takes time to assimilate to the language and accent. The store I mentioned above, Sainsbury’s, you pronounce it without ‘u’ so that it sounds like Sainsbrys. I realized upon talking with a fellow expat friend that people here will not correct you if you say it wrong. I had been saying that store name wrong for a year and a half. So perhaps my accent does not get in the way that much. However when meeting new people, they will get fixated on my accent and want to know an exact place my accent is from which has on easy answer if an answer at all. So I do wish that one day I will have such a soften accent that I can talk to people without it being an issue.

—————
I am happy to introduce you today to my featured sponsor 
for the month of August, Gillian from Gladley.  
She is also an expat, but a Brit living in the USA.
Recommended Posts by Gillian:
Be Friends with Gillian: Bloglovin’ | Twitter | Instagram

*photographs original to A Compass Rose blog

Love Week: Chelsea – ‘Newlyweds Abroad’

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Are you loving LoveWeek?  Here in Wales Ryan and I are having such a great time celebrating our 10th Wedding Anniversary week with family and friends.  My sister Zoë just got into Wales yesterday night and so now our wedding party is complete! I have been so excited about sharing posts from this week that it will probably eventually become a series.  I was so inspired by Chelsea’s posts about her wedding that I was equally excited to ask her to participate in Love Week.  I love getting to know more about Chelsea because she is one of those loving life to the fullest individuals.  I have only known her a short while and she is always so helpful to me when I am in trouble or have a question from blogging or to where she gets some of her neat travel items like hammocks or tripods.  When she wrote back that she would love to participate I knew her post would be a perfect fit as she is a fellow expat living abroad.  It is why I come back to read her blog week after week, to read about the daily expat life and the latest travels that she takes with her husband around the world.  My husband and I moved abroad together after 8 years of marriage. But what would it be like to move abroad as newlyweds?  That is what Chelsea brings us today as day 5 in Love Week.  Thank you Chelsea so very much for writing on this subject and I know it will touch many lives out there in the blogger world. 

Hey there! I’m Chelsea and I blog over at Lost in Travels. After my man and I got hitched two years ago, we started getting cold sweats every time we even thought about ‘settling down’ in our hometown. We wanted to do something out of the ordinary, something adventurous. We wanted to spend our lives traveling the globe. So what did we do? Sold all of our belongings that wouldn’t fit in two 50-pound bags and took the first flight to South Korea to teach English to snot nosed adorable little kids and never looked back!

As you can imagine, living abroad can either be a blessing or a curse for a couple. In my eyes, it’s the exact opposite of long distance dating. Before we were married, we spent the first ten months of our relationship long distance, on opposite ends of the country. We hardly saw each other, only talked on the phone, and heavily relied on the presence of family and friends for support and advice.
Once we moved overseas, it was quite the opposite. Starting out we were working at the same school which meant seeing each other 24/7 in the most literal way possible. Knowing very few people, we were our own support system. In addition to that, the time difference of being 15 hours ahead of our home town made it difficult to just pick up the phone and call people closest to us. We were told by friends who had paved the way for us in Korea that living abroad was the best thing they ever did for their marriage, they had grown closer together than they had ever imagined. I wish I could say that as soon as we touched Korean soil, it was marital bliss. But that would be far from the truth. The first few months were hard; in addition to trying to get used to everything new in our lives (new career path, new language, new food, the list is endless) we were also still adjusting to married life since we moved just four short months after tying the knot. I remember thinking at one point ‘I thought living abroad was supposed to be easier!’ Thankfully, after a few months of being in Korea…it clicked. We grew accustomed to the new culture around us and more importantly, we grew together, worked together and began reaping the benefits of living abroad as a married couple.
While becoming our only friends overnight, in a strange land, were we lived, worked, ate and socialized together 24/7 was a challenge at first, it has turned into one of the biggest blessings I’ve ever experienced. Not only did we have more time to spend with each other than we ever did in the States, but we were also our only support system for the first part of living overseas. Back in the states I had the bad habit of calling a friend or my sister when we had a fight. In Korea, I didn’t have that option. It forced us to sit down and figure it out completely on our own, and quickly. Because who wants to be mad at their only friend for too long? We learned quickly how to rely completely on each other and I don’t know of any situation where that would have happened for us if we lived stateside. Living abroad has taught us to love in a completely different way than I ever thought possible and I am eternally grateful for that.
As hard as it can be living away from family, friends and virtually anything familiar, we have found the benefits far outweigh the hardships that we have encountered from living abroad.
Thanks so much for having me Bonnie and congrats on your marriage renewal! I hope you’ll stop by my blog where I talk about our daily lives as expats in the land of kimchi, along with documenting our world travels. Be sure to say hi, I would love to hear from you!
Follow along on our adventures:

Love Week: Jade – ‘Why I Love My Husband’

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Today is the second day of love week and I am so excited to introduce you to one of my Expat blogger friends, Jade, from London. Technically Jade is from Australia and she lives in London with her husband living the expat life. She has been so helpful to me in recent weeks with questions about visas and landlords. Honestly expat life would be so lonely without an amazing friend like Jade. Though we have not met in person she is someone I already talk about with my husband as one of my friends and look forward to our first blate. Thank you Jade for being able to guest post for me while we are in Wales. Cheers!


Hello everyone! I’m Jade and I’m an Aussie expat living in the amazing city of London, England. When Bonnie approached me to guest post on her blog for Love Week, I was happy to accept and excited to have a chance to write about my experience with love. I have been married now for seven years and living overseas for the same amount of time as we moved six months after our wedding.

When my husband and I first met, I was nineteen and loving life as a single girl in a vibrant city. We were introduced by a mutual friend who though we might enjoy the company of each other on our long commute from our outer Western suburb of Sydney in to town each day. After only a few short months of knowing each other, we had moved in together and were already planning our first attempt at becoming an expat couple in the UK. Sadly, it was not meant to be and we had to put off our adventure until 2007. I think making the decision to pack up and move over to the other side of the world isn’t one to take lightly and to do so, with only one person you know, takes guts and a whole lot of love, so I want to share with you five reasons why I love my husband so much that I packed my bags and moved to London for him!

  1. He lets me play stupid computer games instead of doing housework. Not every day but one day a week, he gives me a free pass to muck around online & play dolls with The Sims 3 as much as I want. He met and married a computer addict and surprisingly, it’s only taken ten years to come to terms with it!

  2. He understands that I need to see my family and spares no expense to make it happen. I last visited Australia in 2011. I was originally going for two weeks after a contract finished. I ended up staying for three months so I could spend Christmas with my family. He didn’t mind one bit. He also doesn’t mind that I’ve decided just today that I want to go home again soon, so he’s been searching flights for me

  3. He bought me a puppy to keep me company. We are a child-free family and intend staying that way until we go back to Australia, which means there is a high chance that we may actually not have children at all. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want something to love on when times are tough and I’m missing my family. After our first six months in London, I had my first ever homesickness experience and was so upset – G came home from work with a picture of a puppy in a frame and a note to say that I would be receiving a parcel in six to eight weeks. Sure enough, a puppy in a Royal Mail plastic box arrived to the day, eight weeks later! (Note – we are not reckless puppy purchasers! We had been thinking about it for ages, but I had not been in touch with our landlord to find out if we could have permission for a small animal, secretly, the Mr had already sorted it all out!)


                          4.    

                        1. He might have been places I haven’t been but he wants to experience them through my eyes for the first time. He’s been to far more places than I have, although I am slowly catching up. When I suggest a city he might have already been to for a visit, he doesn’t say no, because he knows how much I love to experience new places and have new adventures and he’s more than happy to play tour guide. He says that seeing my face light up is his favourite thing about traveling.
                        2. He challenges me every single day. Life isn’t perfect and neither should your relationship be. We both have faults and he’s quite happy to help me become a better person by challenging my thoughts & actions if he thinks they’re wrong. He’s never rude about it, he’s simply presenting a new point of view to help me become the best person I can be.

                        It might seem trite, but having the love of my life on the adventure of a lifetime has made it just so much better. I love being in love and I wish for everyone to have love in their life!

                        Happy Anniversary Bonnie & Ryan – may you enjoy another ten and more together!

                        Expat Diaries: The Cost of Moving

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                        Expat life.  
                        Living abroad.  
                        Being close to amazing new places to where you can travel.  
                        The world is your oyster.  Sounds pretty glamorous right?
                        Yes. Yes. YES! Lets go!

                        How about the things that people do not tell you about living the Expat life? For instance what about all the things you will pack or move with you?  For me, being brought up as a military kid, I thought I knew what to expect.  However even with the best made plans something can go wrong or unexpected.  

                        What Do You Bring with You as an Expat?

                        Household goods.  For those of you living in your home country, who have not yet embarked on the life of an expat, take a look around your house.  How many belongings have you collected over the years?  How many boxes would it take to pack it all up? Wedding gifts and heirlooms? Holiday decorations? Will your kitchen appliances, beauty tools, and electronics work on the voltage system in your host country? Depending on the weight can determine how much it will cost to ship your household goods overseas.  Do you you have a lot of heavy items like books?  How about your furniture? Are you shipping over a vehicle? Will you leave things in storage?

                        “This can all come right?”

                        What Ever You Can Fit
                        I N S I D E  Y O U R   S U I T C A S E

                        This is how we moved to England.  In suitcases and carry ons.  Between Ryan and I that was five suitcases, two carry-ons, and two ‘personal item’ bags that carried our laptops and camera equipment. We got out of the airport and realised there were no lifts in the train stations in England.  Which meant I had to leave suitcases as I took one down/up stairs, to return and get the rest.  That formula was repeated several times just to get from Heathrow in London down to the southern coastal city of Brighton.  We looked like travelers that had never left their country before and had no clue on how to pack.

                        “Only the first suitcase is free? I can’t pack everything in one bag!”
                        What You Can Afford
                        T O   S H I P   O V E R S E A S 
                        When my husband got out of the military we were stationed on Oahu, Hawaii.  The military would pack up and move our stuff as far as his ‘home’.  His last home of record was Arizona and that was still quite a long ways a way from where we would be moving to in England.  We could either pay the difference or burn all our possessions in a massive fire in Arizona. The later was not really an option. Nor was leaving anything behind in storage.  We got rid of all our furniture and then did a mass scale back of what we owned.  We were actually surprised with what we had when it arrived in England.  Then more surprised as months went on and we realised what we did not have.  Cue Christmas and realizing that our big rubbermaid container of holiday decorations, ornaments, christmas trees, and holiday photos did not make the cut.

                        “Christmas is cancelled.”

                        What Your Family Will
                        A G R E E   T O   M A I L   T O   Y O U

                        As we made our final stop in the US before moving abroad to England, there were still things that we would need but not as urgently as our first couple of months.  If you are a person who as traveled and moved all her life like me you take the time to pack that stuff up in small ready to mail boxes.  However if you leave your stuff at in laws who dislike you, they will conveniently ‘lose’ these things in their storage but oddly enough keep things for you that you had thought was going to the charity shop.  Keep in mind that boxes and shipping prices can be quite costly.  Also if you have anyone mailing things to you be aware of what charges your host country will tack on.  We have had to pay £25 and up just to pick up packages from family because they put the price of the contents over a certain amount. Which is quite an unexpected surprise when you go to pick up the mail.

                        “WHY?!?”

                        What Your Keep Behind
                        I N   S T O R A G E   B A C K   H O M E

                        For us we do not plan to move back stateside.  We also do not have any place in the US where we could call ‘home’.  We also felt that if we could go without things for two years or more than we really did not need to hang on to them only to have it sit in a storage facility.  To me thats nothing short of hoarding. Even my mum has gone through her things in her garage so that she only has what she needs and will use. This is what worked for us. It may not work for everyone.  You may even know that you will return even if you do not have a certain date set in stone.  Why take things that could break or be lost if you could keep them in storage or at a relatives.  Just be smart and keep what you think is best.

                        “Get rid of it all!”

                        Moving between cities/towns
                        O F  Y O U R   H O S T   C O U N T R Y

                        For the majority of my life and all the moves that has come with it, the US military had always moved my household goods.  I never had to worry about the weight of my belongings or having to sort what I could part with and what was essential. To be honest I think as a teenager the military probably moved a whole lot of ‘junk’ and paperwork that I did not really need to hang onto at that point. We have moved within England four times in the last two years.  The first two moves we only had what we brought with us on the plane so we needed nothing short of a taxi.  However our move from Brighton up to Bath was our first move of everything we have here in England and to a distance that is hours away.

                        “What? I have to leave stuff behind???”  
                        What We Learned from Moving within England:
                        Even moving within the country can be quite costly.  As we do not have a drivers license to drive our own moving truck we had to look to moving companies here in England.  They call them ‘removers’.  After an email inquiry and phone consultation about our estimate they set up our moving date.  This was the first time I have ever experienced a ‘two day job’ and unfortunately it became three days.  Long story short is they packed up everything in boxes for us the first day and then came with a moving van the second day.
                        “Customer service in England?”
                        However the van they brought the second day was no where large enough to put in everything they packed up and our furniture.  So they scheduled for a larger van the next day.  To me this van was no bigger, though technically it was somehow larger, and I got the same reaction again.  I should point out that each day in this process it has been a different set of men, never the same guy twice.  We eventually just had to say ‘okay, take this and this, and leave this’.

                        “Why can’t you just do your job correctly?”
                        What We Had to Do When the Moving Experience Went Bad:
                        My husband later drove down with my mum from Bath with the largest rental car they could get to try and bring what they could.  Rental cars are mostly all small here in england and there were no ‘mini van’ options.  So in the end there were many things that did not come with us including furniture.  Literally my husband kept taking photos of the car packed with what they could fit around three adults and what was still in the apartment. It was frustrating to say the least. I think the one item I have been most sad for is my sewing machine.  It ended up costing more than we planned or had to spend and then some for the items we had to replace that included a couch to sit on in our living room.  So we learned that moving here is costly and has made us not want to move in country any time soon.

                        “Just breath!”

                        What We Did Not Expect:
                        I do not think my husband and I fully realised what the statement meant when we would say ‘oh we can just buy this again in England’ or to what extent the more we said it back in the US.  Yes you can go without your dishes and appliances, but have you thought about how much dishes will add up when you need to buy them again?  I had been spoiled by places like Costco, Sam’s Club, Target, and yes even Walmart.  Places where you could find whatever you needed in one place, for a low price, and even in bulk.  It is not the way nor so easy in England.  We did not expect that.  In the end we have tried to slowly repurchase things we needed.  Which began with furniture from IKEA in December seven months after moving to England earlier in May.  Our kitchen still hosts as much appliances, dishes, and tools as a college dorm.  Which ironically matches the Dorm sized fridges in England.  

                        “I love Target!”
                        What does the future bring for Expat Life?
                        The downside to social media websites like Facebook and Pinterest is that you get to see how your friends and family back ‘home’ live life or goals of how they would like to live.  Houses in many places back in the US are much larger than here and can be bought for almost as much as rent on a small flat in England.  Looking at the large houses my friends now own, the furniture they have acquired, the painting, and decorating that they have done makes me feel a little gutted that I have missed out on that experience.  However I would not trade that material ideal for the opportunity we have to live and travel abroad.  To each their own and this is the life we chosen.

                        “Where’s my three story house with a pool?”

                        Yes there are still thing we want and things that we need, but go with out.  I highly dislike that feeling of ‘want’.  I would rather be able to travel than look at our check list of things that would greatly improve life.  I know being here in England has really shifted my focus on shopping from the view it had when I was living the American life.  I said goodbye to the land of large, oversized, and available 24/7 and embraced the much smaller, more compact, and where-stores-close-at-5pm-on-a-Sunday ex-pat life.
                        “Its 6pm and we just ran out of milk.”
                        Q: Have you ever experienced moving abroad or to another country?
                        What were your expectations and how did they change after your move?