Some things you should know before you move country by yourself
Reading time: 5 minutes
By Alice Austin
Right now I am sitting in a coffee shop in Berlin at 10am on a Saturday morning. I’ve joined a meet up group called Shut Up and Write. I woke up this morning not wanting to cycle my way over here because it was new and uncomfortable, but now I’m here, on a morning I would have spent alone, and I’m going to tell you 5 things you should know when you decide to move country as a single person:
The first month is shit
As you’ve downed your last jaegar bomb and bid a teary farewell to the dozens of close mates you have at home, you hop on the plane and with a sigh of pride you take off to your country of choice for a new life and a new adventure.
Then you land, you don’t speak the language and you’ve got no mates.
Don’t let the boring stressful stuff ruin your time
Moving country is a cheeky combination of everything stressful that you can possibly imagine but without the comfort of your family and friends being there to help you out. You’re probably starting a new job, you’re looking for a place to live, and again, you don’t speak the language and you’ve got no mates. You can open a bank account by walking into your local branch of Deutsch Bank right? Wrong.
You’ve got to ‘register’, Fraulein. You’ve got to wait three months for an appointment at the Burgeramt and then you get a card that says you can open a bank account.
It’s alright though, you’ve got a nice normal house mate. If you consider normal a neurologically acid-damaged hippy with a penchant for paganism and a habit of unplugging everything in your room in case there’s a fire.
The point is – don’t let this stuff ruin your time. Amongst it all, you’ve met some great people, had an epic night out, cycled home at 8am slightly hammered and all of this will get sorted out so chill.
Be tactical about who you hang out with
If, like me, you’re highly sociable and terrified of spending over 2 hours alone, moving country is going to be a race to make as many friends as possible as quickly as possible before the ticking time bomb of loneliness/boredom kicks in and you quit your job and move back in with your mum.
HOWEVER, as we all know, most people are annoying. It’s important you are cut throat with your plans. If, for example, (I know a friend of a friend who does this, not me obv), you realise you’ve got no plans on Friday night and frantically text everyone you know in Berlin and then someone gets back to you who you don’t like that much, and then you agree to do something with them, but then an hour later the one you really wanted to hang out with invites you out, what do you do? I’ll leave that for you to decide.
Rely on yourself rather than other people
A life lesson for the clingy, co-dependents at the back aka me. I’m not sure if this is the same for other cities, I think it might be a cute little Berlin thing, but people refuse to make any plans with you. Literal example from today – Me: What time are you free today? Pal: Late afternoon-ish?
Are you… joking? Cool, I’ll sit here and pick the skin off the bottom of my feet while you let me know if we can do something (don’t even know what) any time between 3 and 7pm. Sounds sick nice one.
So make sure you’ve got an entire day of plans that you can do by yourself – i.e. Go to a meet-up like Shut up and Write and fire out a hilarious yet astute blog post about moving country.
No one can hear or cares about your screams
Don’t even talk to me about self-pity. I looove self-pity. Sometimes I’m with my mum and mid-conversation I just start snivelling because I can. She’s like “What’s wrong?” And I’m like “Various small problems that aren’t really worrying me but you’re here and I feel like crying so I will.”
Say auf Wiedersehen to any form of pity party, pal. IKEA delivery hasn’t turned up and you can’t call to ask where it is cos the options are in German? Incredibly constipated and don’t know the German word for ‘laxative’ so have to just shout it in English to the guy in Rossmans and end up buying Lactase pills instead? Friday night plans got cancelled because some arsehole did exactly what you would do in Be tactical about who you hang out with? Shit scared to watch Stranger Things by yourself but haven’t got any pals close enough to come round and watch it with you? Get over it, move on, proceed with squeezing out that bi-annual dump. This is all part of the moving-country-alone package so embrace it and deal with it.
