Just a little video to remind you, when travelling, to pay attention to those little details.

No related posts.

I’m used to Prague already. I’m not “done” with it, not by any stretch.

But I realize that I am used to Prague.
How did I realize that? I spent this past weekend in Berlin, Germany. And it was great.

Why was it great? First, because I spent it with my family, plus another couple of friends and their kids. All good stuff. But for us all, Berlin was great, because it was a change.
We returned to Prague and the elation was gone. (Except for our collective 4 small kids who were pretty damned ready for bed)

Forget food, clothing, and shelter. What we need is change.

For me, CHANGE is:
- the single biggest time-slower
- the single most effective catalyst to appreciate what we got
- the single harshest reality slap

Change is a time-slower, because it forces you stop and focus. With change, auto-pilot gets turned off and you grab the controls. You ask yourself more questions (or you begin asking any questions).

Change helps you appreciate what you got. Depending on the change, maybe you more appreciate what you had; maybe you more appreciate the gain.
In either case, you and I both usually take that change and make it for the better.

And change can be a reality slap. I think we both know this reality slap in one form or another.

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What the hell?!? What are you doing? Why haven’t you done something about it already?
Yes, I’m talking to you! Dammit, man – pay attention!

Pull your seat a little closer, sit up straight, close your gaping mouth and listen.
Really. Focus. Pay attention…

You’re sitting there, behind your desk, in front of your computer screen. It’s Tuesday today, but that isn’t really important. It could be Monday, it could be Wednesday, it could be any work day of the week.

This week, next week, next month. It’s all the same. Same desk, same PC. Same Tuesday. Same, same, same.

I received a comment today. Some guy asking about getting a Czech driving license on my Czech driving license post.
Then it hit me – I haven’t received a comment in a long while.

No one asking “But what about…?” or “How would I…?”
Well, what about you? Why haven’t You written that question?

Am I writing this for my health? No. Sure, writing this blog gives me a smile.
But more importantly, it should be giving you ideas, motivation, the “ah-ha” moment to start a plan, screaming “By God, I’m going to Do It!”.

It’s okay. I see now you need steps. A Step-by-Step plan. Tell me if I’m right or comment below.

Before I dive into creating some all-encompassing how-to guide…let me ask some beginner questions:
1. Do you have a passport?
May seem simple, but it’s important, so I’ll repeat it. Get a passport. Caution: when you hold it in your hand, you may experience a little tingle. It’s normal.

2. Do you have your shit in order?
I mean, no $30,000 credit card debt, no summons in the mailbox, no parole officer hassling you… If none apply, you’re good to go.

3. Are you generally a happy person?
The answer is likely yes. However, if you feel like slicing your wrists after watching a sad TV commercial, then culture shock may not sit well with you. If you are a generally happy person, then you’re good to go.

Can You Do It? – Yes!
Deciding to just pack it all up and experience life elsewhere ….it’s not a hard decision.
It’s a very easy one. The hard part is in doing it.

They did it.
But it can be done. Most recently, just this past weekend, a couple I know (through this blog) did it. (Damn, I can almost hear the Dora the Explorer end theme song: “We Did It – Hooray!”)

They started with an open “What if” type of e-mail. Then they were busy on the ExpatYourself forum. I’ve been in e-mail contact, answering their questions from time to time. Just a sweet, normal couple from Arizona. Now they live and will be teaching in Prague, Czech Republic.
They did it. And so can You.

I look forward to hearing from you.
-Jeff

p.s. Have you read any of these books? A friend recommended them to me. If you have read them, I’d like to hear what you think.

The Four Hour Work Week

Rework

Switch

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Update – See Bottom

As I write this, both our son and daughter have colds with runny noses. If you’re a parent of toddlers, you know this means chasing your kid around with tissues every other minute.

Or the alternative is a snot sucker. I think the proper title is “nasal aspirator” but my name is more memorable, so I’m using snot sucker. I should trademark it, in case I go into business with my own!

There 3 kinds of snot suckers in the world:
A. those with a bulb (self explanatory)
B. those with a second tube for the parent to suck air from (yeech)
C. those that attach to a vacuum cleaner (wait, attach to a what?!?)

(Yes, I made this picture myself from an assortment of grabbed images.)

My wife and I only ever heard of the first type when we left the US with our lone 1-year old. Then we got to Europe. Our new friends hailed the vacuum-powered snot sucker as the best thing since sliced bread. We thought “No way – it’ll suck our li’l angel’s brains out!”

However, …frustration and a child’s sad eyes help you reconsider anything!

I believe the vacuum-powered snot sucker would not be possible in the lawsuit-happy United States.
Too bad, their loss: Mark my words: The snot sucker is even more effective than it is gross.

Trust me, once you go vacuum-powered, you won’t go back. Three years later, we wonder what we ever did without it. Now, that’s adaptation!

UPDATE: I see a lot of people finding this page, looking for advice. (That truly amazes me, by the way).

So, let me provide you with quick links on what I see as the Best Model Snot Sucker, in each of the 3 categories I mention above:

A. those with a bulb (best for infants < 3 months)

B. those with a second tube (best for 3 months to a year)

C. the one & only vacuum powered snot sucker (1 year to adult)

Contact me by clicking here or the green guy. I will mail you one from the Czech Republic. Costs are $19 + $7 shipping worldwide
wow, what a great souvenir!

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A few days ago I read an article called “What Makes an Expat?.”

I really enjoyed it. I liked it so much, I immediately looked up the author, Kathy Hamilton, and asked if I could repost it here for you. I like the article because it’s personal, introspective and it just seemed to resonant with me and how I feel, too.

Here it is:

Thanks in part to online networking sites, I have recently reconnected with many former high school classmates. Once I left high school, I moved away from my hometown in south Texas and lost touch with almost all of my fellow graduates.
A handful of us attended the same university for a while, but did not stay in close contact once we found our own footing in a new, much larger academic world. I kept moving further away from my hometown, drawn to new experiences in unfamiliar cities and countries. To me, it is surprising how many of my classmates felt drawn to stay in the same area, often within a few miles of their parents’ houses.

These friends are comfortable in familiar surroundings. Many have extended family living nearby, and they have kept the same close circle of friends that they had in high school. Some are working in the family business, some have opened their own companies and others work for large corporations. Most seem to have stayed with the same employer for the majority of their working lives. Classmates who I am in contact with are very content with their lives and cannot imagine living far away from family and friends or making drastic changes in their career paths.

I, on the other hand, always knew that I would somehow leave my hometown behind. To me, especially in my high school years, my city seemed too small and suffocating. My family had often traveled abroad while I was growing up, so my brother and I grew up experiencing other cultures firsthand. This was something that the majority of my schoolmates and their families did not do. Is my desire to live elsewhere somehow linked to seeing large parts of the world at a young age?

Reconnecting with former classmates has made me wonder just what it is that makes some people crave the expat life, while others raised in the same community find their place in their own hometown. What is it that makes one person wander the world in search of adventure, new experiences and, possibly, a new home? Why is it that some people prefer staying within close proximity of where they were born and raised, never feeling an inclination to venture outside of their comfort zones?

While I love visits home and the chance to meet up with old friends, I cannot imagine what my life would have been like had I tried to settle down there for good. Even at a young age, I dreamed of traveling the world. When friends and I talked about our goals as teenagers, my hopes tended to be very different from most of theirs. Their plans included university, marriage and children. My goals were simple — to travel to faraway places and write about my life there.

One high school friend recently told me that she always knew I would end up on the other end of the world. Even in school, she said, I had different dreams from the other girls in my class. Not satisfied with simply reading about other cultures and countries, she remembers me planning my travels long before I was able to make my dreams a reality. Even back then, I wanted to live in other countries, instead of merely visiting foreign places on holidays.

My brother lived abroad for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the West African country of Niger. After his return to the United States, he did move far away from the south Texas city where we grew up, but he does not feel a great desire to travel the world. He, like many of my former classmates, is content to stay within his own comfort zone.

So, what makes some people want to wander the globe? Are expats restless souls in search of some elusive dream? Granted, there are numerous expats who leave their homelands because of the nature of today’s global business world. Some of these business expats are anxiously awaiting the day when they will be transferred back to their home countries. At the time, they may view the expat life as an inconvenience that must be endured in order to advance in their careers.

I am beginning to suspect that voluntary expats, those who move abroad for their own reasons, are a breed apart. The reasons for adopting the life of an expat are as numerous as expats themselves. Some people move abroad for love, to change careers, to search for adventure, to learn about other cultures or to find a place where they feel they fit in. There are expats who only stay in a country for a limited amount of time before moving on. Then there are expats, like myself, who travel until they find a new place to set down roots and call home.

Friends back in my south Texas hometown have often asked me if I ever plan to move back “home.” Since our lifestyles have been so different, it is almost inconceivable to them that I would feel more at home in a foreign country. There are things I miss about Texas when I am in Turkey, but there are also things I miss about Turkey when I visit Texas. As an expat, I will probably never totally fit into Turkish culture, but the flip side is that after living abroad for so many years, I feel like a bit of an outsider when I am in my own hometown.

So, what it is that makes someone decide to leave their own country and relocate to another land? Maybe it is a restlessness inside of us. Perhaps it is a longing for a place where we can create a new life. There are times, however, when I look at the lives of my friends who stayed put in our hometown and think that it might have been nice to always reside in the same place and have the same circle of friends who have known me since grade school. In reality, though, I really cannot imagine having stayed in my south Texas town. For me, İstanbul has been the home I longed to find.

A few words about Kathy, from Kathy:
A displaced Texan by choice, my first visit to Turkey was in 1981, on the heels of a military coup. In spite of the short-term civil unrest, I continued to return for vacations until finally succumbing to the lure of Istanbul and moving permanently to Istanbul in 1998. My work as a correspondent for one of the national newspapers covers expat lifestyles, culture, food and off the beaten track historic sites. My work has been featured in Hali, Modern Carpets & Textiles, Time Out Istanbul, Rahal Turkey and Taste Anatolia. Personal essays are included in the non-fiction anthologies Tales From the Expat Harem; Mexico: A Love Story; A Woman’s World Again and award-winning Call Me Okaasan:Tales in Multicultural Mothering.

Jeff here again to mention if ever you find yourself shopping in Istanbul’s famous bazaars, it’s better if you go shopping with Kathy.

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I’m not just adventurous in real life (yeah, right), I’m adventurous in website administration.

My dream of helping people live overseas suddenly found a glass ceiling – enough time to answer e-mails.
So, one idea I came up with is to create a forum where people could ask questions (and I still answer them), but future people could see the same questions (& answers!).

A central place for questions. Easy access to (everyone’s) answers. It’s a win-win idea.

I present the world’s newest Expat’s Questions and Answers forum: www.expatyourself.com/forum

You may think it’s light on the questions so far…you’re right. You need to ask them first.

Please post your questions there and I will be very diligent about answering them.

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Before I talk about expats, let’s go over a typical ice-breaker conversation in the United States:

Charlie: “Hey, Alice – I want you to meet Bob. Bob, this here’s Alice. Talk amongst yourselves.”

Alice: Hi Bob. What do you do?
Bob: I’m a butcher/engineer/shepherd/{any trade you want} You?
Alice: I write for the local paper.
Bob: Oh, that must be interesting…how long have you been there?
Alice: About 4 years. Yeah, I like it. I meet a lot of interesting people.
Bob: That sounds interesting.

Should sound familiar. It’s pretty much the dialogue you have each time you meet someone, right?

Okay, now how about the same ice breaker between expats?

Jeff: So, where are you from?
Martin: UK {note to non-Britons: they never say Great Britain! }
Jeff: Cool. American. How long you been here?
Martin: 8, 8 1/2 years – you?
Jeff: Just 4 years.
Martin: What do you do?
Jeff: I work at {insert multinational company or global datacenter}
Martin: Oh, yes, I know a lot of Americans there. You know Buddy Sowenso?
Jeff: I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know him yet. What do you do?
Martin: I’m teaching English at the {insert language school or city college}.
Jeff: Oh, okay. Do you get home often?
Martin: Once, maybe twice a year. You?
Jeff: Not as much. Been back just one time

[ ...... after more socializing / drinking ..... ]

Martin: I couldn’t believe it …Totally didn’t expect that!
Jeff: Unreal…only here, right? So, plans to return home?
Martin: Yeah, probably after another year or so. You?
Jeff: I’m almost ready. Maybe after another year or so.

See any differences? Talk amongst yourselves.

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Last Friday, I celebrated my birthday. Drinks, dinner, dancing – expat style.

My favorite thought of the night: “What a small world we are!”
Let me share with you why…

A few weeks back, my wife had asked me how I wanted to celebrate my birthday. An easy answer – “With friends!”

Where did we celebrate? A small but tasty Peruvian restaurant close to Prague’s Old Town Square. Martin, the restaurant manager, was extremely accommodating and helpful with planning.

We almost reserved the place exclusively, but not quite. Still, with our party’s talking and laughing, the 20 of us easily dominated the restaurant atmosphere, until we finally settled down to order dinner around 9pm.

We shared several bottles of wine, many favorite drinks and a lot of delicious food (Lomo Saltado rocks!).

I took a moment to enjoy my pisco sour (Peru’s national drink), looked around at the range of friends around me …

Then it hit me.

I looked again around the table. I told myself where they’re from, starting from my right: Peru, Malaysia, Brazil, Germany, Russia, USA, Czech, UK, Canadian, Italy…

It hit me that with some 20 people, we represented 10 countries. With hardly a problem for all, English is the common language. Maybe after some drinks for courage, some friends try practicing what they studied years ago, but English usually comes easily for expats.

“Where are you from?” is usually a conversation opener, but after knowing someone for a while, it’s just forgotten. But group together 20 friends who are also expats from all over – and the “small world” effect can really kick in!

Just something to consider the next time you’re among a large group of your friends – where are you all from?

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Before you read any farther, let me reveal the number one secret to becoming a successful expat (a fulfilled, content, wealthy expat – however you want to describe “successful” – the secret applies 100%).

One word: Attitude

Yes, it’s just about attitude. It’s not about paying off your debts, not how many friends will throw you a farewell party, or even how much planning you do before leaving. It’s about having the expat attitude.

The Expat Attitude is the mindset that says “I have wanted to live overseas and, dammit I’m going to go.”
Do You Have It? YES, You Do. You have what it takes. Let me help you find it.

Tips to Find and Develop Your Expat Attitude

1. Seek motivation and energy from within yourself.

Normally, we get motivated only after others recognize what we’re doing. In short, you do something good, others applaud you. Unfortunately, that’s not enough when deciding to be an expat. Why? Because a lot of people will not “clap” for you. Instead you’ll hear “What are you thinking?” or “Are you crazy?” So, you may need to find more motivation from within yourself first. Only after you’ve done it and can share how great it is, then you’ll hear more “I’m crazy for staying here.”

2. Goals – set them to be SMART

If you haven’t heard yet what a “SMART” goal is, here you go: a goal has to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound. An bad example of a smart goal is “I will exercise more next month.” A good example of a SMART goal is: “I commit to doing 10 push-ups each night for a month.” After one month, which goal do you think actually amounted to some action?
For optional definitions, check out Wikipedia’s SMART criteria article.

3. Understand the power of progress

Having a SMART goal is one thing, but some goals take so long to complete, we get bored or demotivated before we finish them. If you goal takes several tasks, make yourself a list of those tasks and enjoy how you ‘tick’ off each task. If still too daunting, maybe each task should be a SMART goal on their own.

4. Lean on your network

No one says you have to go at it alone. Have a friend, relative who can encourage you, ask you/pester you about tips 1 through 3 above? Oh, and if that person is very affected by your living overseas, it’s a very good idea to clue them in early. Like, don’t wait to tell your wife “Honey, we’re moving to Portugal next week – isn’t that great?!”

Hey, if you think this helped you, sign up for updates – put your e-mail in the box on the right and every post will come directly to you.

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As an expat, are you the elite or the hired help?

Every expat knows their answer. The answer is different, depending on the country. In fact, it depends on two factors: what country you’re in and what country you’re from.

Depending on where you are, and from where you hail, you rank higher in social status or you rank below others.

In one case, your job is something that very few if any native citizens can fill. In the other case, they assume you fill a vacancy which no one locally wants.

In one case, native citizens assume your salary is much higher than theirs. In the other case, because you’re not local, you probably earn a pittance.

Why? In both cases, it’s because you’re an expat. Let’s look at some examples.

Example 1: Local workers in Prague perceive foreigner workers from the West as the “elite.” Take me and my job here: I sit alongside of a few Czech management peers, doing nearly identical work. However, my salary is 1.5 to 2 times their salary, which is already several times the nation’s average salary. Sure, sometimes I get teased as being on an expat contract (which I’m not) or being overpaid (which I am), but I’m fine with it. Wouldn’t you be?

Example 2: Another personal example. As an English teacher in South Korea, my salary was well above the cost of living, easily allowing me to send 20-30% back home. And my accommodation was provided for free. Sound good? Well, the accommodation was actually a 12′ by 12′ classroom, complete with chalkboard and a long, fluorescent ceiling light. Instead of desks and chairs, my classroom apartment had a bed and dresser. Water was available from the school’s bathroom. So, while my commute to work was only a flight of stairs, I was clearly the “hired help.”
In verbal and nonverbal terms, the perception from the school director and his staff was that I was only a mouthpiece which spoke native English and my value stopped abruptly there. And I was fine with that, too, as it was all part of a great experience.

Example 3: Foreign workers in Dubai are the extreme -on both ends. Laborers from countries such as India, Philippines, Pakistan or less developed countries may earn more than if back home, but are considered much worse locally. And the least fortunate will end up living in squalor in labor camps.
On the other extreme end, Dubai workers from the west, e.g. Europe, Australia, US, enjoy a lavish lifestyle, commonly including free housing, paid school fees, even annual flights home -above and beyond a massive salary!
In fact, this is the case throughout much of the Middle East. But Dubai is arguably the extreme even when compared against its neighbors. If you can respect some particularly strict social laws, then get a job anywhere in the Middle East, and you’re living large!

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