Thursday, April 1, 2010

Good Times

'Cross the Pond & I met for lunch on Tuesday at this lovely coffee shop called Ginger and White (seriously: one of the best flat whites I've *ever had*).  She's a newly arrived work-at-home-expat-mom and I'm awaiting my frickin' visa papers to get processed so I can start my new job.  So lunch in the middle of the week?  Can do! :)

Aside from deciding to form a Mutual Admiration Society because we both thought we're about 7 years younger than we actually are, it was nice to get out and meet a new expat and talk about our experiences.  Most of my expat conversations are with folks who arrived at the same time as me with my old employer, so I find that our experiences are somewhat homogenious; it was nice to chat with someone else and get a completely different perspective.  But, it was all a bit odd:  Since I read her blog, I felt like I knew her better than if she were a total stranger and we were meeting for the first time-but that's exactly what we were.  I'm sure she must have felt the same.  Either way, it was nice to finally put a voice to the words.  Hopefully, once she's settled in to her new flat, we'll be able to get together again.

On reflection, I found that my conversation with her about getting settled in-and all the trials that go along with that-brought me back to my own experiences, and I couldn't help but feel a bit stressed!  That seems to happen whenever I talk to anyone about 'just arriving', read a blogs about someone's first few months here, or even go back and re-read my old posts.  Yeesh.  But, on the flip side, it makes me appreciate how much easier life is now-and just how settled I do feel here now.

1 comment:

  1. It was a lovely lunch. Hope my tales of woe didn't stress you out too much. Definitely getting together soon. It was fun! And I know what you mean about thinking you know someone but realizing that the blog and the person are different yet the same.

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