Somehow this month marks ten years since Tucker and I first sold most of our belongings and moved abroad. We really had no idea what we were getting into or how we were going to maintain the kind of life we knew we wanted, and even now, I’m not sure I could tell you how exactly we’ve managed to continue moving abroad again and again. I think it’s mostly been an experiment in just how flexible we can be, which is fitting because that’s one of the first skills you develop when you move abroad!
Over the past ten years, we went from the US to Poland and back to the US (to pay off all our student loans), and then we headed to China for a few years and then back to the US (this time for global lockdown), and then onto Mexico, and now Canada. It’s been a crazy decade to say the least, but the places we’ve lived and the people we’ve met have continued to shape us year after year in innumerable ways. And for this month’s somewhat reflective post, I want to share some of the many ways we’ve changed and grown as a result of our expat ways.
We’ve become flexible to the extreme
As I alluded to earlier, when I think of the many skills we’ve developed as a result of moving abroad, flexibility has to be at the top of the list. Whether it’s little things like using Celsius with some people and Fahrenheit with others or big things like not knowing where we’ll be living next year, we’ve gotten incredibly good at going with the flow. When I look back at my early observations from our first year abroad, it always makes me laugh at how hard it was for me to relinquish control. Now I feel like I struggle when I have too much control! It seems I’ve really grown to love letting the universe decide for me.
We’re totally fine with ambiguity
Another early observation I often made had to do with not always understanding what was going on around me. In unfamiliar places with new languages and customs, the level of ambiguity you experience on a daily basis skyrockets. Are we supposed to do something here? Should we ask about that? What does this mean? Questions like these and general uncertainty used to plague us. Until they didn’t. Until we learned that there’s really no wrong way, only different ways. Eventually, we also learned the difference between being expats as opposed to pioneers. Expats get to rely on the experiences of those who came before them, and we definitely do. But if/when that fails, we’ve also learned to simply accept not knowing.
We’re stoic bureaucracy-handlers
One of the most taxing parts of maintaining legal status as an expat has to be all the paperwork: visas, residencies, IDs, taxes, health cards, driver’s licenses, bank accounts, etc. The list is never-ending. After so many years and so many forms and appointments, I can very confidently say that bureaucracy is messy and incredibly frustrating everywhere. We now just assume every process will take a few attempts and several months (if not years) of our lives, which has really helped set expectations and allowed us to remain stoic and unfeeling while jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop. Government office waiting rooms are great places for mindful meditation, you know.
We’re accidental minimalists
In addition to becoming masters at handling immigration processes, we’ve also become expert movers. We know exactly what we need and want in our homes, and over the years, we’ve shed all the fluff. And whenever we happen to collect additional fluff, we’re systematic and unsentimental in removing it before the next move. People are often surprised that we’ve moved countries so many times with nothing but suitcases. Quite a few suitcases, but still. It’s actually pretty easy to do when I remember all the things we took on our first move that we never used. Or when I remember all the things we’ve used in a particular place that wouldn’t make sense anywhere else. These days we tend to take a lot more art with us and a lot fewer dead appliances.
We’re expert home-makers
Speaking of homes though, we’ve had a lot of them over the years. From country to country or even apartment to apartment, every place we’ve lived has always felt like home. Early on in our expat experience, someone advised me to prioritize setting up our home because we’d be surprised at how quickly “later” becomes “never”. Well, we took that to heart and always make sure our apartment is set up before tackling other tasks. We also work really hard to make sure we feel at home in the community as well, which means joining groups, meeting neighbors, learning names and faces. It can be difficult being the new people in town, but we’ve found the quicker we reach out, the quicker we feel at home.
We’re nothing if not adaptable
Another skill that makes itself known every time someone visits one of our far-flung homes is our adaptability. No dishwasher? No problem. Drinking hot water in summer? Sure, why not? Have to do everything over the phone? Got it. Everywhere we’ve called home has changed us in so many ways. Sometimes we forget what was normal for us before moving abroad because we’ve so strongly adapted to several different lifestyles now. This is how I know it doesn’t really matter where we live or what we do because the skill of adaptability is such a broad and encompassing one, that I know we’ll be just fine anywhere.
We’re always adopting new habits
Likely due to all the adapting we’ve had to do over the years, we’ve also gained quite an assortment of international habits. For example, at some point, we became a strict no-shoes-inside household, and when I think back to all the shoes that walked across our carpeted US apartment floors, I shudder. I also can’t believe we lived 25 years without an electric kettle! You’ll have to pry that out of our cold, dead hands now. Similarly, after living in both tea and coffee cultures, we now find ourselves enjoying both regularly. We also find ourselves checking sunset/sunrise times, the weather, and the air quality index more than most, which are all habits we picked up in different places at different times. It’s interesting to note which things stay behind in the places we leave versus which ones we take with us as the ghosts of homes’ past.
We’re an interesting mix of cultures to say the least
Similar to our eclectic mix of habits picked up from around the world, I would say that we ourselves have ended up a strange mix of all our homes. It’s rare that someone immediately places us as American. Even when hearing us speak, our accents don’t give much away, especially when speaking something other than English (you’re likely to hear a very strange combination of linguistic features depending on the day). We also have very strong inclinations toward European showerheads, the use of chopsticks, and what should and should not go on a taco. We self-identify as Polish-American-Canadian-Tapatío laowais, and we’ll happily talk your ear off about life in Poland, the US, Canada, Mexico, and/or China because each of those places is a part of us and always will be.
We’re excited to make every day an adventure
All these fun little quirks keep us tied to the places we used to call home, but one of the best parts of being a perpetual expat (no matter where we are) is the fact that every day becomes an adventure. The smallest tasks are new and exciting, and we never know what we’re going to learn. This is really why we keep doing it; why we haven’t “settled down” yet. We’ve learned to love the daily micro-adventures and mini-challenges that keep us on our toes and forever entertained. Every time we start over in a new place, we get to experience so many firsts again. We get to find a new set of favorites and develop new habits that only enhance our lives. An adventure a day certainly keeps the boredom away!
We’re constantly learning and reflecting
And last, but not least, all this moving and growing and changing allows us to continually learn and reflect. Before each move, we get to look back at our time in a given place and reflect on everything we did, all the changes we experienced, and what we could or should have done differently if given the chance. And then…we get another chance! I sometimes refer to Poland as our “first pancake” because with hindsight, it’s easy to see how we’ve continually gotten better at being expats. All these skills (and more) have been honed over the years, and we’ve learned how to make the most of our time in the places we call home. Of course, we also realize just how lucky we are, so to all our homes: thank you, dziękuję, xièxie, gracias, and merci for the best decade of our lives!
This was an obvious choice for this particular list because we only spent about 23 hours in the country. It was our first foray into long-layover travel, and we definitely fumbled our way through it. It wasn’t too difficult to get from the airport to the city center (and back again), but as we set off with absolutely no plan, it was mostly just a long walk around the beautiful canals. Amsterdam is a great walking city though, so even with our random ambling, we were able to take in the numerous and iconic bridges, bicycles, and fry-stands. We also explored the infamous Red Light District and (from a distance) the I AMsterdam sign, which is sadly no longer there.
Next on our “must return to” list is Finland, which might not have been an obvious choice seeing as we spent almost three weeks there, but at the time we 1) had very little money to spend, 2) were exhausted from finishing up our undergrad degrees, and 3) had just gotten married, which as anyone who has planned a wedding can attest, left us feeling a bit burnt out. Typically when we travel now, we avoid suitcases, and we move around a lot, but as this was our first trip sans car, we failed miserably at both packing lightly and at utilizing public transportation. We also weren’t able to afford train passes or much of anything at that time; in fact, our flights and accommodations were wrangled together with the help of some of our wedding gifts and useful family connections. Regardless of what now seems like a trip very far removed from our usual preferences, at the time, it was magical.
Technically we’ve been to the Bahamas a few times now, but does it really count if it’s on a cruise? I mean, don’t get me wrong, cruises are fun and economical, but they definitely keep you in a bit of a bubble. For this reason, I would love to go back to the Bahamas, without the big boat. I think it would be amazing to fly into Nassau and explore New Providence Island a little more slowly and a lot more thoroughly. There are several forts I want to see on the island, not to mention the art galleries, lighthouses, and, of course, the beaches (especially the ones on the far side of the island). At some point, Tucker and I want to get our diving certification so we can explore the depths too, or if we don’t have time for that, then I want to do one of those bubble helmet dives instead!
Germany, unfortunately, represents another set of rookie moves on our part. We spent a year living just a few hours over the border in central Poland, yet we failed to A) make it to Oktoberfest and B) visit Bavaria, the most quintessential of all the German regions. While I do sorely regret not making time for southern Germany, we did really enjoy our time in Berlin and Potsdam, looking at the incredible architecture, sampling the infamous brews, and picnicking in numerous parks. It was an absolutely lovely time, but of course, I’d love to go back for a festival or two. It’s really not our fault we missed Oktoberfest; we had wrongly assumed it took place in October, but really it’s more of a September event that actually ends in early October. Ah well, it’s on the list for our inevitable return trip. As are other famous places like: Neuschwanstein Castle, the Rhine, Cologne, and, of course, Bavaria.
Perhaps unlike any other place we had been, Mongolia intrigued us in so many ways. It’s really a breathtakingly beautiful country that exceeded every expectation we had for it. We visited for about a week in 2017, but unfortunately, a lot of that time was taken up by work (conferences, presentations, etc.) In our free time though, we were able to pretty thoroughly explore Ulaanbaatar, including temples, yurt neighborhoods, live-music bars, and amazingly trendy restaurants. We also took a short road trip out to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, which was honestly a bit frightening for me (mostly because we opted to dismiss the rental insurance), but ultimately it gave us the best glimpse of what life is like outside UB.
Last on this list (for now) is a place we actually visited just last year. On our way back to China from a work event in the Philippines, we took a bit of a roundabout path that allowed us to spend almost a week in Malaysia, well, in and around Kuala Lumpur anyway. Malaysia is a tricky country to fully explore in a short amount of time because it’s made up of part of a peninsula (West Malaysia) and part of the island of Borneo (East Malaysia), the two regions being about 400 miles apart. For this reason, although we feel pretty good about our exploration of the amazing capital city, typically called KL for short, we still really want to explore some of the other regions of this incredibly diverse country.
We never made it to a beach while we were in Malaysia, so maybe we’ll start there on a subsequent trip. There are many islands off the coasts of both West and East Malaysia that look amazingly beautiful and relaxing. There are also several world-renowned national parks, which are home to a collection of unique indigenous species that Tucker really wants to check out. Of course, as we found in KL, Malaysia seems to enjoy extreme sports as well, so maybe we’ll try the popular zip-lining, white water rafting, or jungle trekking activities while we’re at it!
Of course, there are three countries, not previously mentioned, that are and will indefinitely be on our return radar: the United States, Poland, and China. These are the places we have the greatest connection to, and thus will need many re-visits and reunions to sustain us. Luckily, our friends and family in Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando, 
Dani Francuz Rose 