Negative Nancy

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I recently mused that if I carried on complaining about things in New York / America I’d earn myself a Grumpy Old Man badge, and then had a friend tell me that I sound frustrated or angry all the time.

Whilst it’s fair to say that a healthy percentage of my content has been more critical in tone, I feel it would be remiss of me to not point out the following (some would say obvious) fact: moving countries is hard work.

This blog was always intended to cover the trials and tribulations involved in uprooting ones entire life and moving it three and a half thousand miles across the ocean and, guess what, there are many vexatious things about a country in which you haven’t spent your entire life!

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Move, bitch

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In case anyone thinks I’m being in any way sexist, I am of course referring to the Ludacris song ‘Move Bitch’ that has been co-opted into some of the most hilarious videos I’ve seen.

New York City has a problem. Now, I know it’s not a problem isolated to this particular city, nor even this country. I am also aware that London has its fair share of it too, but I swear it is nowhere near as bad as it is here (despite AJ’s protestations to the contrary. She’s supporting her hometown, I get it. But Jesus Harry Christ people, get the fuck off your phones.

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Timehop: Paris

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I reinstalled Timehop just over a year ago; the infamous app that lets you relive past triumphs, miseries, and WTFs all in one handy place on your phone.

It recently reminded me that it had been two years since we opened our office in Paris – it’s gone now, replaced by the acquisition – and I felt like doing some rambling reminiscing on the matter.

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Exploring the Amazon

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I recently talked about what to pack when moving abroad, with the tactic acknowledgment that you can’t bring everything with you, and the stuff. that you do send after you will arrive months later.

What this means for most people is that you’re going to have to buy an awful lot of stuff at the other end, and that can be a daunting task. Thankfully, we have online shopping. In particular, we have Amazon.

I’ve used Amazon for years on and off, as I’m sure most people reading this have too. Once I got here though, Amazon became our lifeline. As it turns out, they now stock damn near everything.

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America doesn’t want me to have a phone

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When I moved to America, I decided that – to begin with – I would just use my corporate phone for everything. It seemed simpler and one less thing to have to buy and setup, plus it would let me wait for Apple’s announcements and see what those brought.

In November, I decided it was time to get myself a phone and split my personal stuff out from the company device, which always left me feeling a little uncertain.

You would think that, after having secured a bank account, a social security number, a place to live, and a house full of furniture that acquiring a phone would be easy.

You would be mistaken.

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You say tomato …

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You say ‘toe-may-toe’, and I say ‘toe-mah-toe’. You say ‘Poe-tay-toe’, and I say ‘poe-tah-to’.

‘Trousers’ are ‘Pants’. Holidays are ‘Vacations’. Pavements are ‘Sidewalks’. Flats are ‘Apartments’. ‘Fucking awful drivers’ are ‘Drivers’.

And, apparently, ‘On Time’ is ‘Five minutes late’.

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Signs of Reggie

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I recently talked about the process I went through to pack up all my gubbins and travel with, or ship it to the USA. I made a conscious decision that I would move with just what I needed to live; clothes, my laptops (for work of course), things to wash and clean myself, and … that was about it. Everything else would be shipped in boxes over the course of a few months or, if I hadn’t owned it in the first place, simply bought outright.

Once we’d found a place, the question of cleaning it quickly came up, particularly with wood floors throughout (dust magnet) as well as a long-haired canine in residence. A vacuum cleaner was needed, and fast, but my shiny-almost-new Dyson was in a box awaiting a boat to bring it across the ocean.

Faced with the prospect of buying another one to achieve our immediate needs and then having a duplicate a few months down the line, I decided to go a different route.

Enter, Reggie.

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Pack it up, pack it in

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If you’ve ever moved house, you’ll be familiar with the chore that is packing. If, like me, you’ve moved eight times in the last four years, you will be so intimately familiar with it that the mere mention of packing sends you into a whimpering foetal position.

Packing to move house is easy though, really. You get a load of boxes. Put your stuff’n’things into said boxes. Hire a van, lorry, or friends & relatives, and cart it all off to your new place. It’s laborious and tedious work for sure, but it’s not rocket science.

Moving countries is a little more complicated. Especially when you have nowhere to live at the other end.

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The Big Adventure

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When I began this journey, it seemed like one of those things that was so far off that it might never even happen. There were so many layers of approval to be signed off, stacks of paperwork to be completed, and plans to be made that it was easy to think of ‘relocating my entire life to New York City’ as some abstract idea. This concept held even as the day of departure grew ever closer. Somehow, it was ‘just something I was doing’ rather than a seismic shift in the wonky tectonic plates of my life.

Finally, after nine months of waiting, wondering, speculation and admiration from others for this huge change I was undertaking, the day came and away I flew. Almost three months later – nearly a year to the day I asked about the concept of moving to America – my friends and family back home have asked with excitement-tinged voices “So, how is it living in New York??”

My answer is always a resounding “….eh.” It’s only when chatting to my parents last weekend that I realized why. The Big Adventure was never ‘moving to New York’, and it’s taken me a while to realize that.

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No Cheese, Please.

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Anyone that has known me for longer than a few minutes and has had a meal with me – or discussed food – will know that I don’t like cheese. It smells and tastes like feet and is a great way to ruin food.

There are a few exceptions to the rule – basically if it’s very mild and / or doesn’t taste of cheese, then it’s fine. Mozzarella on pizza is a perfect example. Even then, if there’s too much of it, I don’t like it.

You would think that this would be a major problem for me if I had relocated to France. Now, we all know that Americans like their cheese but they are also the Czars of Customer Care (written alliteration counts). In a world where you can order a meal at a restaurant, painstakingly swap out every component for something else, and still have your order taken with a smile (as opposed to the punch in the face such an act truly deserves), you would think that getting a meal without cheese on it would be simple, right?

Wrong.

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