May 24, 2012: Bummer…. MAJOR bummer

We've had a tough week…Ryan lost his job offer due to work permit difficulties :( We are really bummed - Ryan really wanted the job and we both had allowed ourselves to start getting a little excited about it since it was moving along so positively. So where do we go from here? Back to the drawing board essentially. We're still moving forward with everything because we've determined that the move is still worth it to us even given all of the uncertainty, but it will just be a harder road than we thought in finding Ryan employment.

I'm not feeling very inspired to elaborate more just given my general "bummer" mood today, but hopefully the following weeks will give us a more positive outlook. Man, this moving abroad stuff sure ain't easy :( yup, I said ain't… it's just one of those days

May 21, 2012: What a difference a few months make!

I think I'm officially off to a horrendously bad start with the frequency of my posts - I will just have to blame it on the fact that it is not very exciting to be blogging to a non-responsive word document, hopefully once I can make this site public it will be far more exciting for me to post on a more frequent basis.

So after 2 months where do we sit? Well, #1 is that RYAN GOT A JOB OFFER! And #2 is that we've decided to go for it folks!!!

More details you say? Why certainly! So Ryan was offered a job in Geneva shortly after we arrived back home to the US.  It is with one of the places he met with while we were visiting. It is literally his dream job!  But, before you go celebrating like we wanted to - here's the catch - Ryan still needs a work permit.  There is still a risk that it could fall through if the Swiss government rejects it, but at this point the situation is looking more positive than negative and we're just crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. I will spare you all of the ridiculous details, but essentially the work permit process for both of us involves our employers posting our jobs for a few months to ensure that they can't find someone else suitable within the EU/Switzerland and then going through a lengthy application process to get the work permits. It is so incredibly frustrating to deal with the bureaucratic red tape in this process and now I officially know how non-US citizens feel working in the US. I have heard that the process for non-US citizens to work in the US is equally difficult. As I'm sure we will experience many times over during this experience - its certainly humbling to be an expatriate in another country. Anyways, I digress! Essentially Ryan is just playing a wait and see game for his work permit at this point.

Regardless of the uncertainty on Ryan's side, we've decided to just go for it. As I mentioned in my prior post, the opportunities outweigh the potential disadvantages and we ended up making our decision based on that. I'm expecting to be signing my official employment contract this week and then we will be shipping out anytime likely between mid-July and October (very precise time frame, I know). Essentially the timing depends on how quickly Ryan's employer can get his permit.

After we sign paperwork, we have to start digging into the HUGE checklists that my employer has been sending us, it covers everything and I mean EVERYTHING - shipping details, booking flights, health insurance, train passes, retirement accounts, tax preparation services, opening Swiss bank accounts, arranging temporary housing, arranging realtor for permanent housing, storage units for existing furniture, and much, much, much more. Its actually really stressful to look at the checklist and think of how much we will need to do before the actual day of departure, so we just keep telling each other that we need to take it one step at a time, otherwise we'll drive each other crazy. I also have to keep reminding myself that we're lucky that we at least have someone sending us checklists.  Has anyone else had to deal with an international relocation before? Any tips for how the manage the billion to-do's swimming around in our heads?

March 23rd, 2012: Recap of the trip of insanity

Phew! What a trip! The best way to describe it was a roller coaster of emotions, with many highs and lows.  Here goes with a list (I know, I'm so Type A it's not even funny!)

Highs:

1.    GORGEOUS! When the sun finally came out on our trip, the French and Swiss Alps were in full view - huge, snow capped mountains that border Lake Geneva, a 100 mile lake. Combine this with the old European style cobblestone streets of Lausanne and Geneva, and you have the recipe for a beautiful area. The cities were also such a great size, just enough to be "city"-ish and have a lot to offer, but not too big to be overwhelming or have shady, ghetto areas (by US standards).

2.    Very friendly people, both within and outside the office. We had dinner with and met numerous expats. They were so helpful and we could definitely see ourselves becoming very good friends with these people.  I was also continually impressed by the friendly nature of the Swiss locals. Also, this might sound like a small point - but I really appreciated that even though they could clearly tell I was American and speaking in broken French, they would make every effort to continue to speak to me in French and encourage me. I have had quite the opposite experience in countries such as France in the past.

3.    All of the same highs listed in the last post were definitely true as well (moving assistance, great career opportunity, ability to speak the language, etc. etc.)

Lows:

1.    The "job" thing for Ryan. In short, this is the most worrisome element for us because it would really impact a lot of elements of our lives over in Switzerland (income, daily life, career advancement, etc.). Ryan had numerous meetings while we were there, most were quite positive and hopefully there is the potential for someting to materialize into a job offer. Even though it was extremely stressful for him, I was extremely proud of all of the work he had done to get so many meetings and connections.  However, the concerning aspect still remains that even if Ryan found a job, we are told that it would be very difficult to get him a work permit because the employer needs to prove that Ryan is a "specialist" in his field and that they have done all they possibly can to hire Swiss or EU people before hiring non-EU people. So essentially, this is all going to come down to us trying to figure out what the worst case scenario is if Ryan can't get a job and determining if we are comfortable with the worst case scenario before we accept the offer.

2.    Holy expensive batman! We were SHOCKED at the prices in Switzerland. How expensive you ask? Hamburger = 32 francs = $35, McDonald's Snack Wraps = 8 francs = $10. Insanity, right? All of the expats we met though said that we were having typical initial sticker shock that every expat does and they were urging us not to try to compare because although prices of goods are around 30-40% higher in Switzerland, salaries are 30-40% higher too. So I am sorry in advance to any of our friends who come visit us… it will be an expensive trip :( but we'll provide you with a free place to stay and lots of food so don't let that discourage you!

So where do we sit with regard to this monumental decision at the end of this trip? Absolutely, ridiculously, torturously, TORN! This is such a great opportunity and we loved the area and the people, we could really see ourselves living there.  And why not do something risky like this when we are young, don't have a house, and don't have kids? But, we are very concerned that Ryan would not be given the ability to work and that would have a big impact on our lives. Although, as Ryan and I were talking last night - what is the alternative for him? Would it be better for him to take this risk, hope that he could get a job, and if he doesn't take the CFA, do an online MBA, make some money on the side doing odd jobs, and do other resume building activities in preparation for moving into his next role? At this point, the worst case scenario might not be all that bad…. I wish this were Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and we could do a poll the audience and ask, SHOULD WE DO IT?! And oh yeah, we have one week to decide if we want my company to move forward with presenting an offer. Talk about one of the biggest decisions we've ever made -- so wish us luck, retrospectively of course :)

March 17th, 2012: Pre-visit jitters and joys

Since I can't share our new journey in life with everyone yet, I decided the second best thing would be to write all my thoughts in this blog so that whenever this does become "official" I can post all of my entries for you to read so that you can get an idea of the process we went through in making living in Switzerland a reality.  I plan to also continue to update this blog so that you can follow our adventures overseas!

Where to begin - we have been interested in living abroad for awhile. It has always been a desire of mine since I never got the opportunity to do it in college and Ryan has always wanted a repeat performance of his study abroad semester in college in Italy -- one of the perks being that he wants to grow his hair out long again like it was in Italy :)  I'm really lucky to have such an adventurous soon-to-be husband that will take risks and jump on opportunities like this. My company has always had a lot of opportunities for doing "secondments" abroad, as they are called because it is such a large company with offices in almost every country.  After a few phone conversations to confirm whether this opportunity would be a good professional fit, Ryan and I had quite a few serious heart to heart convos on whether this was something we really wanted to pursue. Obviously as you can see, we decided to proceed forward and we decided to visit to ensure that we were interested in moving here. Ryan and I decided that he needed to come visit as well to check out the local job market and make the decision with me as to whether he would like to move too.

So, as I write this, I'm sitting in row 36D of Air Canada flight 2030 en route to Geneva from Montreal and what a travel adventure it has been so far!  I left work at 4PM on Friday and headed straight to the airport, my flight to Montreal was pretty uneventful but then the fun started when Air Canada cancelled my overnight flight to Geneva last night. So instead of arriving to Geneva on time and spending Saturday exploring the city with Ryan and attending dinner with a colleague, Air Canada put the whole flight up in a hotel last night and scheduled a new flight this morning.  Apparently Air Canada pilots were on some sort of "unofficial" strike and the pilot called in "sick" as a form of striking.  Thanks a lot buddy!  In the meantime, Ryan was also travelling - except to Zurich and then via a train to Geneva (since he can fly for free on US Airways and US Airways only flies to Zurich). So poor Ryan got to the hotel thinking I would be there waiting to explore the city with him for the day - instead the receptionist had to give him the bad news that I was still stuck in Montreal. So now we are about an hour or so from landing in Geneva at 10PM Saturday instead of the originally planned 10AM Saturday.

All bad travel chronicles aside, I'm extremely excited for this trip, but also a bit nervous. For those of you that know me well, taking risks and making big changes is NOT my specialty - in fact, I'm probably the world's worst risk taker.  In the spirit of full disclosure, below are the considerations that are currently the most worrisome to me that we are trying to work through and evaluate before I sign any contracts:

1.    Being terribly homesick for several years (are we really okay with living SO far away from our family and friends?)

2.    Living in the world's most expensive country - we don't want to lose all of our savings upon moving (as an example, a Big Mac costs around $10 in Switzerland!)

3.    Ryan finding a job, getting a work permit, going to grad school, or finding something else to do that will further his career as well and keep him happy (the Swiss government is EXTREMELY strict on who they give work permits out to, without a valid work permit - you are not allowed to be employed).

Despite these potential "scary" points, we have to keep convincing ourselves that nothing good will come without taking a risk in some shape or form. From everything I have heard, the Geneva/Lausanne area is exactly the type of place that we would enjoy settling down in for a few years.  Here are a couple of initial quick tid bits on the area that we found in our beginning research that raised our interest in looking into living here:

1.    Switzerland and the Geneva area in particular have consistently been rated as having the highest quality of life in the world;

2.    The French border is only 6 miles away from Geneva and Italy is only an hour away (read: numerous, easy weekend trips, holler!);

3.    The local language of the Lake Geneva area is French and Swiss French is very similar to "French French"; therefore, the fact that I learned French for 7 years means that I have a slight advantage in the language which is a definite plus (and my company will provide local language classes);

4.    Geneva is a very international city and consists of around 50% expats, which means there are LOTS of people who are willing and interested in making new friends;

5.    Geneva is a relatively small city (of around 200,000) which makes us happy because we don't want to live in a huge city like NYC or Singapore and at the same time, we don't want to live in the European version of the boonies;

6.    The area seems GORGEOUS! If you watched The Bachelor this season you can attest to this - Switzerland has some of the world's most beautiful mountains, lakes, and towns - and I cannot wait to see the beauty first hand;

7.    The perks of moving abroad for a company are great - they provide a lock of packing, moving, and "home leave" assistance. So, essentially we could move abroad with (relatively) minimal hassle and expense.

8.    This opportunity is also a great way for me to grow professionally (as well as for Ryan when/if he finds the right job/grad school fit here). International experience in the business world is always viewed positively because it is a test of flexibility and resilience.

So there you have it, this is essentially a recap what we've been thinking about over the past few months and where we stand today - at the crossroads of a potentially amazing journey for the next few years!