Week 14: Expat Highs and Lows
Friday will be my last day at my job in America. We were supposed to fly back to Florida in ten days to be at my friend’s wedding and to pick up our cat, but no longer can due to the logistical problems Covid has created. And lockdown is extended—again! This time until February 7. It’s hard. We finally get to live in Europe and for the last 14 weeks, we have really just been confined to our home and some really, really beautiful hikes nearby. While I post pretty pictures and videos every week, and we are absolutely smitten with living in Austria, it’s also important to share the hard parts about being an expat. But—we choose to focus on the good! So, here are some of the good things to write about this week.
Our story was featured on Expat Focus. Click here to read the post.
We were on a walk a few days ago and someone stopped us asking if they could say hello. Turns out they were our neighbors at the top of the hill and one of them also happened to work for a company in Chicago (small world!) Our other neighbors who live below us are finally coming to our apartment to hang out today. Here’s to hoping we can create meaningful friendships with those who live around us!
We do not get American TV here, but thanks to YouTube Live. We were able to watch Joe Biden and Kamala Harris be sworn in to office. Then I made this illustration. If you’re interested in a capturing your loved ones in their most whimsical form, click here to order an illustration!
We have had six German classes thus far. We’ve learned the alphabet, numbers, colors, sentence structures, and basic conversational phrases. One of our recent homework assignments for the class was to write a few sentences introducing ourselves and present them to our teacher. This is what I wrote and presented —
Hallo! Guten Tag. Ich heiße ist Sarah. Mein Mann ist Eric und wir sind die Hollis Familie. Wir habe zwei Hunden, Charlie und Daisy, und ein Katze, Denzel. Wir sind Amerikaner und Kommen aus Chicago. Eric arbeite bei Hofer und ist eine Director. Ich arbeite bei FCB und Ich bin Senior Art Director. Wir leben in Gmunden. Unsere addresse ist Dr. Franz Thomas Straße 24. Ich spreche sehr gut English und ein bisschen Deutsch.
I sound very robotic trying to speak it out loud in class and Eric corrects me on my pronunciation after every other word. But for not knowing any German 3 months ago and now having the skills to read and write some of it is super cool and I’m excited to see our progress by the end of our class in May!
‘Til next week
xoxo
The Pack Mama
