LIFE STATUS UPDATE: THE PAST TWO YEARS IN REVIEW AND WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW

lenagrosso 13/01/2016

Oh man… I’m struggling here! I don’t even know where to begin. I want to tell you about my life in the past two years, what is really happening right now, I want to share our plans for the coming months, our next moves… I want to make a life update but I truly don’t know how I should write this. I can’t even figure out a title for this post!

At this very moment (when I started to write this post, about two months ago) my husband is publishing an ad to rent the apartment we’ve been living for the past two years. I never liked this apartment… Everyone says it’s a great apartment, but I hate it! I never felt completely comfortable living in here… I don’t know exactly why, sorry, no reasonable reasons to explain this feelings of mine. Ok, after I was able to buy some furniture and hang some pictures it became less hateful, but still. Maybe it’s because for more than a year we really didn’t like living in this area, maybe it’s because when we entered in this apartment it was super dirty and the furniture was the most ugly I have ever seen, maybe it’s because when we came I had the mind of a super emocional pregnant woman and that feeling stuck… I really can’t explain. I even convinced my husband to change apartments in case we stayed here! But we are not staying here…

Let me start from the very beginning. In 2012 we were living in Berlin, I was taking daily German classes and my husband was working from home. After only a couple of months living there, my husband got an offer from CERN. Of course he couldn’t say no, so we left in September and moved to Saint Genis Pouilly, a little French village in the border with Switzerland.

We arrived in early fall and although the landscape was absolutely stunning it didn’t strike me, like I didn’t fell in love with that place. We struggled to get an apartment, we struggled to get used to the higher prices of that area and we struggled with the lack of street activity and life. I mean all we would see was traffic, a lot of traffic, ugly, very ugly buildings and deserted streets.

Then the winter came and things got even harder because being as pregnant as I was I couldn’t do the only thing people do in that area during winter: winter sports! I couldn’t even go up on higher mountains… It was boring as hell and I spent a lot of time at home, in a house I hated.

But not everything was bad, I’m not that pessimist! We had good friends, we got to know a lot of new places around Switzerland and France and we got used to the prices. We even came to like Swiss fondue!

In March 2014 our daughter Olivia was born and everything went better and better! The Spring came, we started to go out more but it was only when I joined the Toddlers Group at CERN, when Olivia was 7 months old, that I began to like living in there. Going there twice a week helped me to know new people I could relate and talk to and because of that I got to discover new places to visit and things to do. Going to this playgroup also made me get out of the house more, gave me some sense of purpose and really brought a lot of joy to my life!

And we also re-started traveling! Yay! When Olivia was 5 months old we flew to Portugal so the family could meet her. Then we went to London, Berlin, La Corunna, Copenhagen and Portugal again several times. We also wandered a lot around Switzerland and France. Our baby is a natural nomad! She really enjoys wandering around and discover new places, I’m so proud of her!

After almost a year and a half we began to enjoy living in Switzer-France. We had friends, very good friends who showed us a lot of the positive things of living in there. We had those nice routines of having breakfast at CERN on Sundays, when the place was empty and really peaceful. I started to like our house and began to call it a home. I opened this blog! I started to make plans, just in case we’d stay there. Life was good, I couldn’t complain!

Long story short, my husband’s contract at CERN was finishing and we began to think about our next move. “Should I look  for a job in Geneva area so we can stay here?” “Do we want to stay here?” “What would you like to do next?” “Where do you want to go?” Me and my husband (mostly him) started to make these and many many more questions. For me it was clear: “I want adventure! In a few years I’ll have to settle down because I want my daughter to have roots, but for now, let me still be a bit crazy and let’s move again!”

And so we did. My husband got the job he wanted for almost 3 years and we got to move back to our beloved Berlin!

We packed our things, 9 boxes total, we put them and our car in our old garage, we left to spend Christmas with the family, we came back to Saint Genis Pouilly to spend New Year’s Eve with our friends and then, one week later, we sent the boxes to Berlin and on the January 2nd, we packed the car and drove there!

In this exact moment I’m seating on a very uncomfortable sofa in a temporary apartment in Berlin! I’m so happy to be back, I feel like I belong here. Things are more complicated because moving with a toddler is not as easy as I thought it would be and the housing prices in Berlin really went up! I guess the city is changing… We still need to find a permanent place to live, a kindergarten for Olivia, German classes for me and much much more but I AM HAPPY! And exhausted…

I’m 100% sure 2016 will be another great year. I have a feeling so much more is coming… 😉

I’m sorry for this late update… It took me a while to get my words straightened and with the moving I couldn’t even think of writing. Although if you want to be on top of things, you should follow me along on Instagram, there I post pictures of what’s happening in real time.

Categories: MOVING Tags: Berlin, CERN, last two years, life, moving, nomad, remembering, review, Saint Genis Pouilly, status, travel, update 7 Comments