Face off

When you are far from home, connection is so important. Connection with your new location, with new friends, to the new culture, just to name a few. For me, there are two other vital connections which I have always tried to maintain, connection to where I am from, as this gives you some kind of identity in the sea of expats and their stories. Two, connections with the people back home, ensuring that those thousands of miles between you, are not a catalyst for distance becoming more than mileage. As I was sitting down with one of my weekly chats with home, I realised how lucky I was to be an expat in this moment in time, technology has changed the face of the earth, for good and bad, but for a me, sat in a random corner of the Gulf, its a god send. I ask, can FaceTime really be a substitute for face to face time?

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Under seasoned & over done

After a long weekend in Dubai, I’m fully recharged and my spirits lifted. There is nothing like a change of scenery to put things in perspective and after a week of being full of a desert cold, feeling very sorry for myself, the stark contrast of a weekend in Dubai helped a lot. Whilst I was more than happy to come back to the sandpit and normality, I find myself not as settled as usual. For the first time in a long time, I feel that I am on December escape countdown. Am I getting sentimental in my old age or are even the most seasoned Kuwait expats missing the seasons?

Same but different

There comes a time in every expat’s life, where that ultimate question will inevitably need to be asked. You get to that point, where something or in actual fact nothing, can happen to spark a debate over the dinner table. Pros and con lists are drawn, emotions run high but ultimately there is just one thing that needs to be answered…..Do we stay or do we go?

The greatest adventure

I, like the majority of the world, have become slightly obsessed with The Greatest Showman. There is something about this movie and its soundtrack that speaks to me, motivating me through desert workouts, making my baking sessions, a whole singing and dancing affair and rendering me to tears whenever I hear This is Me. However, the song that has me on an emotional edge, connects with me more than any other………Tightrope. And dear readers, it has become my very own expat anthem.

Live it, love it, grab it

Why would you do that? I don’t understand the appeal? Isn’t that just a real pain that lifestyle? When are you coming home? How long are you doing this for? Questions after question, all very typical of people that find out that you are an expat. It is so far from their comprehension, that they struggle to engage with you on any discussions about your weird, non conventional life abroad. My answer is, do I care what others think?

Location, Location, Location

Unfortunately we can’t all have Phil and Kirsty at our disposal, so when it comes to choosing a new expat location, do we always have the expertise to make the right choice? I know that in both our moving decisions, we have been led by the opportunity, rather than an emotional or situational need to move. Luckily for us it worked out, but I do look back and wonder were we just to blasé about the whole thing, what if it hadn’t worked?

The expat tool belt

In a recent article collaboration with Thelma & Louise Club, one of the questions I was asked was whether anyone could be an expat. Of course my answer was yes, I think most people can do this. 8 years ago I would never have thought I could, I wasn’t adventurous, I was a true home bird, didn’t really like travelling but somehow I ended up on this journey and its been the making of me. So that got me thinking…….In order to be a “successful” expat what tools do you need in your arsenal?

Home Truths

There comes a time in every expat life, where the novelties have worn off and it just becomes life. Routines are forged, every day flows into the next, without major discoveries or incident, and before you know it year 1, 2 and 3 are behind you. As Hubby and I approach the same time period in the desert, as we did in Prague we can’t phathom where that time as gone and how our desert life will have more longevity than our European adventure. I for one never envisaged that would happen, but love that it has. Like many expats, we entered the new year contemplating the last and having that annual discussion of whether we are happy, bored or indifferent to our current location and what plans should be made. As we are eager to continue on our sandpit journey, our travels will be for pleasure and Kuwait remains home. 

Own goal?

Well and truly back into the desert routine and that trip back home seems long behind me. Very quickly after landing back in the land of sand, it’s strange how fast I can now flip that expat switch and fall back into the everyday, which only shows how “normal” this all now feels. As well as hitting the floor running upon my return, of course comes the new year reflections, plans to be made, intentions drawn up, and like any obsessive planner I am, try to get some clarity on the immediate months ahead.  At first I thought perhaps my necessity for plans at the start of year, is just a distraction, something to focus on allowing myself not to get sucked into the January blues. It turns out, I am not the only one and that my fellow desert girls all seems to be grabbing 2018 by the horns. 

End as you mean to go on

Sorry for the absence folks, but this little thing called Christmas and family get together all got in the way of my blogging, so I know you’ll be dying to hear all about my latest adventures. For those of you that don’t stalk my Instagram account or have been living under a desert rock for the past month, you wont be aware that I had a very busy December and by the time I arrived back in the desert New Years Eve I had taken 12 flights in as little as 6 weeks! No wonder I was sick and exhausted, but do you know what I didn’t care, because in true nomadic expat style I finished the year with some fabulous travels. So at the start of 2018 I take a deep breath and reflect on the month that was.