This is going to hopefully answer another set of questions I received:
I’d love to know more about how you feel about living in the States. Why did you decide to stay here instead of going back to Germany? What surprises you about living here? Are you ever planning on moving back to Europe?
I guess I should start all the way back in 2005 when we first moved here. Back then it was pretty common to do a postdoc in the US if someone wants to work in academia (my husband). We came here with every intention to leave again and go back “home” to Germany or at least Europe after those 3-5 years that mentioned postdoc work was complete (is it ever though?). Never in my life would I have thought I would move to the US one day. I got on my first flight in my late 20s and the farthest away from home I moved was in the next bigger city (Hannover) which is only an hour away from my hometown.
It so happened that my husband was offered a really great opportunity where he did his postdoc that was not that easy to beat – and so it happened that we stayed longer than the 5 years planned. I still considered myself an expatriate – a person who lives outside their native country – and I still thought we would move back eventually. We had our kids in 2008 and 2011, they started daycare, preschool, school and before we knew it they are half grown. I had a really rough time in stretches because I don’t like living so far away from family but I also knew that if we moved back just because I pushed really hard and my husband would take a job he would not be happy with just to make me happy that would not go well either. So far it was just all coincident that we stayed (at least in my thinking). In 2018 we decided to move to a bigger house and ended up talking to a realtor to also look at houses to buy. That also made us talk about how we imagined our life to go in the next couple of years/decades to come. I think that was the point when the realization set in that we were here to stay and it helped me to settle this in my mind, too. So stepping into our very own house we became immigrants I guess – people who come to live permanently in a foreign country. Yes, it is a better career for my husband but also for me the work I am doing at the University offers better pay and more appreciation I could ever expect in Germany. After having visas and then green-cards all these years we applied first to keep our German citizenship and then also applied for the US citizenship. We were able to vote in the 2020 election for the first time and it felt so good to have a say in what happens in the country we call home now, too. I am still not ruling out that we move back at some point or back to Europe in general but I think we will stay for sure until the kids finish high school. They know German but they only know Germany from our summer visits and it would be hard on them now. You can have a really good life in Germany but we also have a really good life here. We are fortunate enough that we have good salaries, good retirement through our jobs and health insurance.
One thing that really surprised me is how international it is where we live. Since UC Berkeley and I guess the whole Bay Area attracts so many international students and workers it makes it very diverse and colorful. I have friends from Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil, France, Argentina and my kids went to a daycare run by an American-Japanese family. That is something I would miss would we move back to Germany.
A couple of other things I was surprised about:
- Most restaurants closed at 9pm – why so early?
- You finish eating and you will get the check right away – sometimes even before that. This really took some getting used to.
- Learning English 9 years and then using the language every day are two very different things (subtitles were my friend and it really helped to get used to it).
- You always have to add the tax to the prices.
- How great the park system is. Besides the National Parks there are so many state parks.
I am pretty sure there are more that I don’t remember right now.
Are we ever moving back to Europe? I honestly don’t know. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. It may depend where the kids end up? When I learned something in all this then it is that you can make plans and than life ends up completely different and not in a bad way at all. We very likely would have a reverse culture shock by now since time did not stand still over in Europe either. I hope that by the time we retire we still have some time to explore the world. A lot of our free time is spend with visiting family and exploring the US a little closer to home during the shorter breaks.
Did you end up in a place close to your family or do you happen to live far away, too? Are you planning to move in the coming years or do you think you will stay put?
Home here and there 
I liked reading this, thank you! Very interesting to know how you came to be here, why, and why you ended up staying. I’m glad you are citizens now, the US needs good people.
Restaurants in the US are definitely weird. When I was in France last year, we kept wondering why they wouldn’t just bring our check when we were finished. We didn’t want to linger, we wanted to get to our next sightseeing thing. When we found out that you ask for your check (awkward and borderline rude here), it was an adjustment, but I found we slowed down and enjoyed everything more.
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Thanks for considering me good people!
One other thing I noticed (maybe related to slowing down) – in the US everything seems to be on a time line. Restaurant visits, birthday parties, etc.
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I can so much relate to the “expat to immigrant” title of this post… I never moved here with the intent to stay (at least not consciously). At the time, I thought we’d move back to Germany after Jon finished college… and then one thing or another kept us here. It’s a strange thing to think about because yes, we made the conscious decision to move here, but did we make the conscious decision to stay? For me, it feels like that just “happened”.
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Exactly. I think it’s quite common and a lot of expats turned immigrants go through the same feelings.
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This is so interesting. I lived in Ireland my junior year in college. I love it and thought about staying or moving back after college, but I never did. I do live near my family of origin. I can walk to my parents’ house in 10 minutes. My siblings and half of my husband’s siblings are all nearby, which is nice. I’ve never been to California. I’d love to visit there. I enjoyed your observations about restaurants and the variety of people who live in your area.
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In some ways I envy you. I always imagined living close to my family but I am not sure if maybe the idea was more appealing then the reality would have been for me. I do enjoy every visit we have with them and I hope that will never change.
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Thank you for sharing. I always wondered if your husband was German or if you had met in the US.
I am also wondering do you speak German at home so that your kids grow up bilingual?
After I lived in the US as an exchange student I always wanted to move to the US. That didnt happen for various reasons. Then I met the husband and it was a thought we entertained. He grew up very americanized. But thinking about it realistically the health system would be a real problem for us. So we looked into Canada. Even went there and checked it out. Wanting to get married there just to realize it may not be the right fit.
So here we are on Berlin. I have – besides that year in the US – never lived further than 30 km from my parents. Even though in my teenage years I dreamed of living anywhere but Germany.
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See, and I never would have thought I would move this far away let alone stay there and become a citizen. I think Berlin is a pretty cool place.
Yes, since we are both German we speak it at home and our kids are bilingual.
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Thanks for answering my questions! I feel a bit nosy, but I’m fascinated in what makes someone move to another country. This was so interesting. It does seem like it would be a hard decision, but I do understand that once you have kids, it gets harder to just up and leave again.
I want to know about your kids’ language skills, too. Do they know German because you speak it at home? Are they fluent?
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I was thinking about writing it for a while already because I had so many feelings about it so you gave me the perfect starter.
Yes, we do speak it at home and it was the first language they learned. They are almost fluent – my daughter more than my son but the grammar is not always correct. We mostly don’t understand them when they try English with us 😉 And we have them go to German school ones a week to keep it up, too.
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This was so interesting to read. I can totally understand how you would feel kind of “temporary” and not fully invested in this country until you really committed to staying here for the long haul. Love your list of things that you had to get used to! My husband and I were just telling our daughter the other day about how different it is to sit in a restaurant in Europe and not feel pressured to give up your table.
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It is nice to not feel guilty to leave right away. I met up with a friend the other night and we had dinner and were sitting there for a good two hours after we finished. It was lovely and no-one is bothered by it.
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Wow, this is interesting! I think it’s really hard to live outside the country where you were born and grew up. Like you said, the area you live is very international so that makes it easier. I wonder what it would be like now if you moved back to Germany- like you said, time didn’t stand still there. I agree that it would be unfair to relocate the kids at this point, and if they eventually get married and have kids, you’ll probably want to be close to them, right? If you can think of more things you find surprising about living in the US as opposed to Europe, I would be interested to hear them!
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I will think about it and follow up if I remember even more! I still remember finding this so interesting when we first moved here and it felt like I was constantly comparing. I am sure that would be the same now when we moved back to Germany. Yes, I would love to live close to where my kids are when they settle someday. We will see where they end up.
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I can relate to your experience. I moved to the US in 2006 to pursue my phd. I wasn’t sure what to expect after I finished. Then I got a job and stayed, got married, had kid. Then again life took me to Asia and I am surprised how much I like the expat life, so we may not go back to the US again. Both my husband and me are from China. Will we ever go back to China? maybe when we retire, but I stop planning for the future and be open to new adventures. 🙂
glad to have found your blog through the challenge.
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I think the whole experience made me realize how unpredictable life sometimes can be. It’s good if you can just go with the flow sometimes – we will see what the future brings.
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