Life somewhere else

Not everyone gets to step out of their life and experience it from the outside looking in. That’s what I love about being an expat.

Traveling and living abroad stretches and changes you and questions your motives and habits like nothing else does. From the amusing musings like why do Austrian eggs only come in packages of sixes or tens? Is a dozen not a thing here? And then, the immediate analyzing, why on earth does that bother me? Also, where did the black beans go? And what happened to decent Mexican food? Why do all stores close between 6-7pm even on weekdays? And nothing is open on Sunday at all. Why are freezers the size of a dresser drawer? And refrigerators barely bigger? It’s all part of adjusting to someone else’s normal. And sometimes someone else’s normal clearly trumps your known and normal too. Like abundant national holidays…hello more vacation days when Daddy is at home! Amazing museums to visit at very economical prices. Lots of free and low priced activities for children. Wonderful green spaces and parks. Organic food galore. History, art, culture surrounding us at every step. And the church bells. Oh, the church bells.

It’s all perspective. What we categorize as good or bad – it all comes from our sense of normality. What we grew up with is what’s best, right? How about maybe not? It’s incredibly easy to narrow our mindset and defend the known just because it feels good. But you will never know what else is good unless you open up your mind and take that step outside of your comfort zone. New is not necessarily less than. Different is not worse. It’s just different. The conscious choice and perspective to not minimalize the other than you is something you are put face to face with every day when you live abroad. If you open up to the new, it’s scary at times. Always humbling. And so rewarding.

Seven months into the journey we began because we simply wanted to let the new in and see where it would take us, and we are still new and still learning. Still working on that perspective daily and taking stock of the goodness around us and what is growing within us. We are still humbled daily and working on challenging ourselves out of the comfort zone that we have created in our world here.

So, explore Vienna and this expat life with me. You won’t have to study German to do it! Maybe. 🙂 Here’s your place to sit on your couch and still be able to look through the cracks at what it’s like to live and love another side of the world.