The Story Where We Moved To The Other Side Of The World

The boy and I knew we wanted to travel and work overseas. He waited for me to finish my degree, then we started thinking about maybe going to London (to join the million Kiwi’s already there!) It’s an attractive city for NZers and Australians because it’s an English speaking country across the other side of the world and in short travelling distance to other amazing European cities...

But I'll trackback a little... In Wellington, Steve worked with some cool cats from Germany called Michael and Anne-Kathrin (A.K). They left us in Jan 2010 to move back to Germany, but around May, Michael contacted Steve about a possible job opportunity at the design company he was working for. 

So we looked at each other and said 'Omg...Zomg...etc' for a little while. Then decided: 'YES!' Then: 'should we really!?' Then: 'it's the other side of the world!' Then: "We can't speak German!" Then: "Who CARES- it's in the middle of Europe!" Then "OK- we'll learn!" Then: 'Really? Should we really?' Then: "Omg! When we're 70 thinking back about how we didn't take the Germany opportunity we're gunna be like those bitter old people that gave up opportunities in their lives and are now angry at the world!" Then: "OK, we're going."

And then! In July, the day before we went on our long awaited holiday to Bali, it was confirmed that we were moving to Frankfurt, Germany, with Steve's first day of work being 01 September. AWESOME. (and EEK!)

Auf Wiedersehen, NZ! 

The furthest we’d ever travelled was gonna be Bali (like, that week!) and we were about to leave everything and move to the other side of the world (it’s apparently 183,66.40km away- yes I googled it!) 

With no real time to do a rushed German course, we put 'German for Dummies' on our ipods, packed up, sold or donated our stuff, found new people to fill our room in our flat, spent as much time with friends as possible and had an Oktoberfest themed leaving party! We left Wellington (love that city!!) and had two weeks for a roadtrip around NZ saying bye to our friends and family (and to love-squeeze our baby nieces and nephews while they're still small!) cos who knew when we were coming back!!

We left NZ for 3 nights in Sydney with Steve's sister, then 2 nights in Singapore for a bit of sightseeing/friend visiting on the way. Then the 12 hour flight overnight to Frankfurt. (Jet. LAG) I'm SO glad we broke up the flights with stops in a couple of cities. Lucky we had the amazing Michael and A.K to pick us up from the airport, feed us, let us get clean and nap. I remember going into Steve's new office that very day after a 2 hour nap and I was still so out of it! First impression= zombie look!) We ended up staying with AK and Michael for almost a month while we found a place to live- we appreciate it SO much!! Best Germans ever :)

So there we were, in a strange new country where we didn't know the language, halfway across the world. Sometimes it’s challenging but it’s really just a huge adventure! And we're lucky everyone does about 8 years of learning English at school so pretty much anyone under 35 can speak a bit of English. I take a language course every morning during the week, and I'm learning bit by bit.

Our VISAS allow us to stay in Germany until August 2011 and in the next few months we'll decide if we'll stay here or move on to the UK or somewhere else, who knows!

So that’s our moving-across-the-world adventure! We're so lucky to be right in the middle of Europe and we hope to visit lot's of amazing cities while we're here- I’ve made a little map of mid- Europe where I’ll add dots on wherever we go! If anyone has any must-visit European cities I'd love to hear! You can tell me all about it here :)