The Expat Cast

Season 2, Episode 6. When one moves abroad, a lot gets left behind. Most importantly: people. Managing relationships with loved ones back home can be one of the hardest parts of the expat life. So today, two expats with totally different experiences sit down to chat about how they’ve managed.

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Season 2, Episode 5. By coincidence, Chad and Jared signed up for the same college study abroad program in Vienna, Austria. Although they knew each other from around campus back in Michigan, it wasn't until they were tossed together into an unfamiliar place that they became close friends.

Now, 7 years later, Chad lives in the Czech Republic and Jared lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and they keep their long-distance friendship alive as co-hosts of the Untranslatable Podcast, where they discuss an array of fascinating linguistic topics.

The two come onto The Expat Cast to chat about how their experience in Austria drew them together, what they've done to maintain their German language skills, and why they started their podcast.

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Season 2, Episode 4. It's Valentine's Day! We're celebrating with an episode about long-distance love. Host Nicole dated her boyfriend Gordon for 2 years, while she lived in Chicago and he lived in southern Germany. Guest Meg dated her boyfriend Lucas for 3.5 years, while she lived in Philadelphia and he lived in Zurich.

The gals are old friends from theater camp who bonded over their long-distance relationships with German men, thus prompting a long-distance friendship. Now, the women are living two hours apart from one another with their partners. Reunited after 4 years, the two dish over how they survived long distance, why they stuck it out, and what benefits they found long distance had to offer.

Any Newsies or Lady Gaga fans out there? Check out the mash-up video Nicole and Meg made nearly 10 years ago, that randomly went viral.

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Season 2, Episode 3. Your host Nicole is, as Leslie Knope so eloquently put it, a "punk ass book jockey" aka a librarian. Now having experienced librarianship in a handful of libraries across America and Germany, she's got a unique perspective on how different communities' reading habits look.

Plus, she's a huge book worm herself! (Duh, you get rejected from library school if you aren't) (Just kidding) (But am I?) So it was great fun to have fellow expat book worm Steph Fuccio on the podcast to geek out over reading.

The discussion explores our journey as readers and as expats, and we try to figure out how and why our reading habits have changed over time, location, and financial status.  

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Season 2, Episode 2. Does your identity as an introvert or an extrovert impact your experience as an expat? Can America be understood as a more extroverted culture and Germany a more introverted one? And if so, what does that mean for foreigners?

This episode, we sit down with Joe, a fellow American in Germany, to discuss how his extroverted, outgoing friendliness has impacted his long-term happiness in Germany. Now in his seventh year living in Germany, Joe is slowly started to experience frustration when trying to interact with Germans, especially strangers in casual social situation.

Check out the Season 4 episode, The Introverted Expat, for the sister episode to this one.

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Season 2, Episode 1. It's 2019! Is one of your goals for the new year to learn German? Super, then buckle up and brace yourself for some German-learning resources, tips, & venting. Of course, to learn German, or any language, a course is a great idea. But if you can't take a class due to money, access, or whatever, no fear. Our discussion focuses on free methods that are available to everyone.

We explain why Tandem partnerships are so effective, advocate for labeling everything in your room/apartment/home/office/life auf Deutsch, vent about akkusative and dativ, and swap our favorite German-language TV shows, podcasts, books, and more.

For a full list of resources mentioned in the episode, click here.

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We're BAAAAACK.

Almost.

Starting in one week, on January 25, The Expat Cast will be back in your feeds every Thursday. We'll be bringing you new interviews with expats all over the globe, with a special focus on expats in or from Germany and the German-speaking world. You can look forward to more laughs, more resources, more commiseration, and more verbal eye rolling at whatever cultural difference I find annoying that day.

Prost to Season 2!

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Season 1, Episode 25. "The things that I'm worried about now are more future tense."

Floridian Kris enrolled in the US Army in part because he was eager to travel, and he was happy to find himself stationed in Germany between missions. After two years of getting to know the German culture, Kris decided to learn the language, too, and shortly after his time in the military ended, Kris decided to call Germany his home forever. He shares with us how he came to that decision and what it is about Germany that he loves so much.

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Season 1, Episode 24. Some people move abroad for a big, fancy job with an incredible relocation package. But many of us move abroad on our own, for love or in pursuit of a better life or whatever it may be. And for the DIY expats, there's no relocation package. There's sometimes even no job lined up and only limited savings.

Jenny and Nicole both moved abroad for love, on tight, tight budgets. They share the life hacks they've learned, like where to get the cheapest but yummiest groceries, what kind of adventures might be possible on your local public transit, and how shopping for new clothes and furniture from other people's trash can be fun and effective.

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Season 1, Episode 23. When host Nicole was preparing to move to Germany, one of the websites she frequented was Live Work Germany. It seems like they've got a resource guide for every bump in the road of moving to Germany, from registering your address to navigating a foreign qualification recognition process - all up-to-date, all in English. As a librarian who loves a good resource, Nicole has long been a huge fan. So it was an honor to sit down with the man behind it all, James!

James moved to Germany from England 12 years ago for a job after studying the language in university. He didn't expect to find a new home to the extent that he did. Lucky for us all, his career evolution led him to launch a website and blog to help other expats and want-to-be expats figure out the practicalities of moving to Germany. He also chats with us about his new service, where users can send in their German correspondence and get, in English, a short run-down of what they need to do.

LIVE WORK GERMANY

Check out all of James' incredibly helpful resources at Live Work Germany

Sign up for James' new German Correspondence service

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Nicole will be tweeting @wearexpats from December 10-17.

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