EXPAT LIFE IN AMERICA: Cultural differences. This may be the single hardest challenge to overcome when moving to a new country as an expat. Hard to prepare for but even harder to anticipate. Sure, if you’re moving from Miami to Myanmar, you should be expecting that there’d be significant cultural differences, so you would plan […] Continue reading →
BEING AN EXPAT: As we come to the year’s end, I am thinking of my expat life in NJ over the last eight years, at a height of many thousand feet, in a plane on my way to Australia. It has been a long while since my last blog post, and much has happened in […] Continue reading →
EXPAT LIFE: The first hint that my Australian accent might not be ‘easy’ to understand for Americans, came on our second day here. We were in a CVS chain pharmacy, and I was searching for a cheap mobile phone. As there was nothing I could see instore, I asked a shop assistant where I could […] Continue reading →
EXPAT LIFE: Being an expat must give you early Alzheimer’s. I’m just waiting for the study results to show up one day proving me correct. No, it’s not the stress of moving to the USA that I’m talking about (although that does contribute I’m sure). It is the constant need to check and recheck your spelling when […] Continue reading →
EXPAT LIFE: We’ve just returned from another home visit to Australia. It was short but still very enjoyable. As with other visits, we saw our friends and family and looked at our house in Sydney’s Inner West. Nothing seems to have changed much except for one big exception. Somewhere, somehow between this year and last […] Continue reading →
EXPAT LIFE: Tipping in the USA has to be one of the most confusing things to deal with for the new inexperienced expat. There are no exact guidelines and it’s no exaggeration to say there is a huge amount of variety in local behaviours, traditions and practices. And here lies the difficulty. As an […] Continue reading →
RELOCATION: It’s always easy to be wise after the event. And there was never a better example than when we moved to the US on our first international assignment. In hindsight there are many things I wished I had done before relocating our family. Here are some of our learnings that were gained mostly […] Continue reading →
LIFE IN NEW JERSEY: I know you must be thinking “she’s kidding right? Everyday American food? How different could it really be? It’s not like she’s in upper Mongolia!” True enough. We don’t have any exotic stories about eating chicken entrails or monkey brains here in New Jersey. Nevertheless, all of us found eating here, […] Continue reading →
EXPAT LIFE IN AMERICA: Cultural differences. This may be the single hardest challenge to overcome when moving to a new country as an expat. Hard to prepare for but even harder to anticipate. Sure, if you’re moving from Miami to Myanmar, you should be expecting that there’d be significant cultural differences, so you would plan […] Continue reading → 
BEING AN EXPAT: As we come to the year’s end, I am thinking of my expat life in NJ over the last eight years, at a height of many thousand feet, in a plane on my way to Australia. It has been a long while since my last blog post, and much has happened in […] Continue reading → 
EXPAT LIFE: The first hint that my Australian accent might not be ‘easy’ to understand for Americans, came on our second day here. We were in a CVS chain pharmacy, and I was searching for a cheap mobile phone. As there was nothing I could see instore, I asked a shop assistant where I could […] Continue reading → 
EXPAT LIFE: Being an expat must give you early Alzheimer’s. I’m just waiting for the study results to show up one day proving me correct. No, it’s not the stress of moving to the USA that I’m talking about (although that does contribute I’m sure). It is the constant need to check and recheck your spelling when […] Continue reading → 
EXPAT LIFE: We’ve just returned from another home visit to Australia. It was short but still very enjoyable. As with other visits, we saw our friends and family and looked at our house in Sydney’s Inner West. Nothing seems to have changed much except for one big exception. Somewhere, somehow between this year and last […] Continue reading → 
EXPAT LIFE: Tipping in the USA has to be one of the most confusing things to deal with for the new inexperienced expat. There are no exact guidelines and it’s no exaggeration to say there is a huge amount of variety in local behaviours, traditions and practices. And here lies the difficulty. As an […] Continue reading → 
RELOCATION: It’s always easy to be wise after the event. And there was never a better example than when we moved to the US on our first international assignment. In hindsight there are many things I wished I had done before relocating our family. Here are some of our learnings that were gained mostly […] Continue reading → 
LIFE IN NEW JERSEY: I know you must be thinking “she’s kidding right? Everyday American food? How different could it really be? It’s not like she’s in upper Mongolia!” True enough. We don’t have any exotic stories about eating chicken entrails or monkey brains here in New Jersey. Nevertheless, all of us found eating here, […] Continue reading →