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A fellow blogger asked me recently how living overseas has changed me, and this post is my answer. This is not the same as ‘Why Everyone Should Live Overseas.’ Of course some of the items below may have developed without moving overseas, but living overseas has certainly facilitated the process.
I won’t tag anyone, but I would be interested to hear of other expats’ lists—feel free to pick up on it and do your own, then let me know here!
The lovely Emily, who helps to run this site, suggested we hold another carnival to highlight the expat mum experience.
I think that is a wonderful idea.
So ladies, please send us one of your favourite expat pieces and we'll post them all here on Friday 3 July. You can email your contribution to expatmumsblog (at) gmail (dot) com. Please send them by Thursday.
Looking forward to hearing about your experiences.
-Susanna
This post was written by Susanna, an Expat Mums Blog founding contributor. You can read more at her blog A Modern Mother.
We conducted a thoroughly scientific test at dinner last night. What was the American or British word for certain things? The boys failed miserably on ‘pavement.’ They were convinced the British word for a path that you walk on was ‘sidewalk.’ The poor things have entered a world of confusion. They can no longer remember if a word is British or American.
The same with the pronunciation of certain words. They can’t remember the correct way to say ‘garage’ and ‘taco.’ They sit and discuss it back and forth with each other. “I think it’s tarco, no it might be taco.”
And the accents are slowly starting to change. To Americans, they sound incredibly British. At a baseball game recently, Declan was at first base waiting for his teammate to hit the ball. He shouted out ‘Hit it to the heavens!’ to encourage his friend, but he sounded like a character from Brideshead Revisited and everyone started laughing.
It’s always fun to get together with the gal pals.
I’m fortunate I have a great bunch of friends that I hook up with at least once a week. One of my friends lives next door and we do our morning walk together.
Someone asked me recently ” what do you talk about with your Japanese gals?”
What don’t we talk about?
Most of the time we talk about our kids. Mrs A and Mrs T both have a daughter Kev’s age. Mrs F has a son Doris’ age
and there a couple more a year below or a year above one of mine, so lots to talk about on the kid front.
We mostly go to the same school, know the same people etc and 3 of us are the same age, Mrs T is 10 years younger.
ONE of the things our break back in the UK allowed me to do was to see how much learning a second language has affected the boys ability to speak English. We spent a lot of time with friends who have similar age children and it was interesting for me to compare their English linguistic developments.
Luke appears to have been the most affected. Aged 18 months when we arrived he is now 2 1/2. I've never really heard him say much in Bosnian, but understand from his teachers at nursery that it is at a basic level: Yes, no, won't, don't, mine. In other words all the most useful words for a toddler. His English isn't bad at all, but there is a definite difference between him and his English peers. Having said that, after 5 weeks in the UK where he only heard English led to the most remarkable advances in his language skills. Who knows whether this jump was due to occur anyway, or whether being back in England encouraged it.
People flock to Australia for a variety of different reasons; whether it be affordable housing, a more relaxed lifestyle or work related opportunities... maybe even to escape demanding relatives… but the most common reason why we Brits move to Australia is because of the weather.
But as Australia is such an enormous landmass, the weather is extremely different depending on which State or Territory you decide to live in.
We arrived at the start of winter several years ago and our first stop was Adelaide, South Australia as we had relatives there and thought it would be a good idea to descend on them first - while we recovered from jet-lag and let them ferry us around and feed us etc.
We had visited Adelaide a couple of years earlier - but this had been in late summer, so the weather had been just beautiful. This time it was not the case…
I have lived in the UK for so long now - nearly half my life - that I hardly consider myself an expat anymore. I understand the etiquette of queuing. I can make a decent cup of tea and I can discuss the both the weather and driving conditions on the M25 with genuine enthusiasm when smalltalk is required. Sometimes, when I talk about the British I say "we".
When I had my first child three years ago, however, I was once again reminded I was living in a foreign country. The English childhood has certain rules and codes that are a mystery to me.
Are you a mummy blogger? Are you from the UK or do you live there? If you answered yes you need to join our growing community of British Mummy Bloggers.
British Mummy Bloggers is a friendly and supportive group of parent bloggers that love the UK. And don't let the name fool you -- there are some members with dangly bits as well.
The group is very active and discusses everything from man flu to how to stop the whinging to why we blog and photo tips. There are groups for reviewers, stay-at-home mums, working mums and mums that want to discuss books.
So what are you waiting for? Check it out...
This post was written by Susanna, an Expat Mums Blog founding contributor. You can read more at her blog, A Modern Mother.
Photo credit: Violet Posy
At LaLa's school they have "Birthday Lunches" for the children. Yes, it sounds nice in theory, but let me explain the problem. At the beginning of the year in LaLa's Reception class there were 27 children, but most of them left at lunch time (as they were only 4 years old) and went home. That left 12 kids for lunch and the remainder of the day. For a "Birthday Lunch" the child is allowed to pick 8 kids for their table at their special lunch. Most of the time at the beginning of the year the parent of the birthday kid would generally just pick up the tab and pay for the other 4 children to join in at the birthday table. Now, all the kids stay all day. It has made these "Birthday Lunches" quite a problem. They have become competitive.
Nothing sends fear into the heart of an expat like a phone call. Its not necessarily middle of the night, like the stereotype. It can be any time of day. But there is always something slightly wrong about it. Its before work, or mid-afternoon and the voice on the other end of the phone is beloved, but out of place. They shouldn't be phoning you, not now, not at this time.
And then comes the news. And the sadness, guilt and regret breaks out of the dam that has been built up for a long time.
Continue reading "Things that you lose that you can't get back" »
The ability of scent to evoke long-forgotten memories never ceases to amaze me. Walking along, busily going about my day, I am occasionally stopped dead in my tracks by my nose. I sniff the air again to be sure and then a flash of memory (sometimes brief and hazy and at others prolonged and detailed) comes and burns itself to the back of my eyelids.
External stimuli are shut out as my mind desperately attempts to grab at the bucking legs of these memories, lassoing and then corralling them for safekeeping.
I am always complaining about my host country, so I thought today I would redress the balance and list Ten Things I Love about France.
Please feel free to add some of your own...
The wine - It is cheap enough to bath in. Which you may need to do due to the astronomical cost of water.
Petrol stations that sell alcohol - This is most useful on a Sunday afternoon when everywhere else is shut and you are gagging for a pint of white wine.
Continue reading "Ten things I love about living in France" »
