Project Casserole: UK vs US DIY terms

A short and sweet post for you guys: as we've been working hard at completing the renovations to our home, I encountered some serious linguistic differences in the words Americans and British/Irish (Bi-rish) use for home improvements. I stubbornly refuse to switchover to many of them, resulting in a fair bit of confusion and sometimes hilarity. Here's a quick list for your amusement:

crown molding, or cornice (US) = coving (UK)

molding (US) = beading (UK)

spackle (US) = filler (UK)

baseboard (US) = skirting boards (UK)

drywall, or sheetrock (US) = plasterboard (UK)
hardware (US) = ironmongery, or fittings (UK)
shop-vac (US) = Henry (UK)

I'm sure there are more, so I'll update you when I discover them – but maybe you have some to add? Send me your additions to the DIY word differences list!

PS: Even though I use it liberally across the blog when talking about our renovations, DIY as a term is a uniqely British concept and saying. It not only encompasses the activity (i.e., the home repairs completed by an individual not a builder) but also the category of paraphenalia and associated jargon surrounding the activity. So if you talk about what you did over the long Easter weekend, you could say you "Did DIY" which isn't grammatically correct AT ALL but refers to the wearing of yuck clothes, going to B&Q, prepping, doing, cleaning – the entire lifecycle of a home repair. And it can be anything – renovation, repair, redecorating, replacing lightbulbs – anything home-related.

Flying over the Middle East

Happy Valentines Day, everyone! Apologies for the absence; I've been absolutely up to my ears with work and the house renovation over the last few weeks, and then had to fly to Doha unexpectedly last Sunday. It's one of the trade-offs of working with another culture that you have to give up your weekend sometimes to adjust to their schedule (Fridays are their Saturdays).

Anyway, I was flying back yesterday and for the first time we had an absolutely clear sky without cloud cover and could see the geography below in detail. I was so curious about the landscape that I switched off my movie to track our progress on the inflight entertainment system – and discovered we were flying above one of the most contested areas in the world.

Our flight path took us over Basra, where I saw the US military base, and on over valleys that looked surprisingly verdant. There were snaking rivers that I found out later are the Tigris and Euphrates, major arteries that empty into the Persian Gulf. We flew over other cities like Najaf whose names have become synonymous with the loss of American soldiers. And then we flew over Baghdad.

I never ever thought that in my lifetime I would see, even from the air, a city that has been defined, for the majority of my life, by war. As we passed, I kept imagining images of protestors pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein and how when I was in Germany for New Years they captured and executed him. I thought about the war that ideologically tore America apart for the first decade of the century and to this day splits people on basic democratic issues. And I thought, this is so close to a part of the world that I am drawn increasingly into on a personal and professional level that I can't ignore its proximity nor its importance.

Expats leave their home countries for opportunities and experiences, and so frequently those opportunities and experiences happen in places beyond their new homes. So even though an expat from  the US might assimilate to life and work in the UK, there's an even bigger challenge when her work takes her to the Middle East where cultural norms and values are that much more different.

It can be hard to be an American in the UK; it can be even harder to be an American in the UK who goes to work in the Middle East – where do you belong? Who are you representing? What is 'you'? Who are 'you'? I thought I had all of those answers, but confronted with such a symbolic place as Baghdad – even from 30,000 ft – I suddenly thought that maybe I don't have such a handle on it. And probably that means I'm closer to the truth than not.

Expat Thanksgiving – or, our first dinner party in the house

It's that time of year when every American starts thinking about turkey, stuffing, and football – though if my Facebook feed is anything to go by, it may not be in that order. Personally, I used to hate Thanksgiving: I didn't like starchy orange vegetables, I hated football, and with my small family the holiday felt like a cheap, orange version of Christmas with less decorations and no snow. Fast forward 15 years and I'm living in London where you pay out the nose for a can of Libby's Pumpkin (£1.39 a can!) and the butcher rolls his eyes when you ask for a turkey killed a month early. But creating my own Thanksgiving traditions is pretty amazing, especially as The Irishman has gotten into the Thanksgiving cooking spirit with me, and I'm really enjoying cooking and hosting expat Thanksgiving meals and introducing the holiday to curious Brits.

Last weekend I had a close friend visiting from Chicago so we decided to hold an expat Thanksgiving while she was in town. It was our first dinner party in our new house, so it was always going to be pretty special. I went all out with decorations and cooking, particularly in the purchase of this amazing platter from a thrift store:

We went to town with the table settings, using a cored butternut squash as a vase for some autumnal flowers. The Irishman found the idea on The Kitchn, and it looked great with two little squashes as a natural centerpiece. We left the table rustic, as I love my farmhouse table and didn't want to cover it, but I ordered those brass leaf candle holders on Ebay from a seller in the US to get some authentic harvest vibe going.

My friend helpfully made personalised name cards from a magazine, so each person got a different texture. It turned out really special and actually really appropriate for each person – they were a big hit.
 

I ventured out of my comfort zone to make my first pumpkin pie; it was a true collaboration as The Irishman made the shortcrust pastry and neither of us had actually ever made a pie before. So the crust isn't that great but overall it was very tasty.

Of course we had a bird – a 5.685kg turkey that took nearly 5 hours to roast. But it was worth every overpriced penny as the butchers had prepared it perfectly for us and it yielded one of the tastiest gravies I've ever had.

Our menu was pretty standard overall, with standard American recipes from my favorite cooking links:
Turkey
Chestnut stuffing
Mashed potatoes
Brussel sprouts and pancetta
Sweet potato biscuits (full disclosure: I am embarrassed to say I enjoyed a Paula Deen recipe)
Cranberry sauce

My American guests contributed acorn squash and pumpkin barley salad, which rounded out the meal and made it a really lovely potluck affair.

I'm doing another Thanksgiving meal next weekend for Brits, so I think I might change up the stuffing and the cranberry sauce. The New York Times is doing this brilliant Thanksgiving Help Line feature that's inspired me to try a few new things.

Tell me, expats: where will you celebrate Thanksgiving? What will you serve? Can you get turkeys easily? And Americans: what are your favorite recipes and traditions?

4 years and counting

Today is no ordinary Thursday. Today is the fourth anniversary of my arrival in the UK.

It's very interesting timing for me. When I think back to landing at Heathrow with 3 suitcases and a bike, I never thought I'd be a) still here, b) in a long-term committed relationship, c) trying to buy a house four years on – and yet it all feels completely natural. I guess what I mean is that I never thought I'd have eased into such a comfortable routine for myself in London.

Moving abroad often carries with it the dreams of travel, new experiences, excitement around every turn, and while there is definitely an element of that spice, I've also found a myself embedded in a rather normal domesticity that includes weekly veg boxes, dry cleaning runs, loads of laundry, HBO TV serieses, and occasional meals out with couple-friends. In essence, my expat life looks surprisingly like the life I probably would have had back in the US – except that I have a postcode with letters in it rather than a zip code with numbers.

And yet I still don't feel fully settled here in London. My recent trip home to US was an eye-opener for me in terms of realizing how much I missed simple American pleasures like driving through the farmlands of New Jersey, sitting out on my parents back deck in the sun, calling my grandmother without dialling a complicated access code and doing math to figure out what time it is for her. I don't know that I would be living in the 'burbs if I were in the US right now, but I do know that I wish I could have better access to the rolling green hills and hayfields of my childhood than I do now.

Even harder was seeing my friends at the wedding in Florida. I haven't been able to give you all a full debrief of the week because it was a rather bittersweet reminder that our respective lives have been changing in parallel, sometimes too much for me to bear. I listened to them recount all of the lovely details of weddings, vacations, nights out, that I've missed over the last several years with an increasingly sinking heart, knowing that unless I move back I will continue to miss out on these simple joys. On the one hand it was wonderful to arrive in a place and greet them as if no time had passed, and I felt so honored and secure in knowing that our friendships are still strong despite time and difference, but on the other hand it was desperately hard to leave them, yet again, to leave the sun and sand and get on a transatlantic flight to a cold, rainy, seemlingly isolated life.

So I am trying, on this anniversary day, to think of all the good in my expat life, rather than what I left behind. I am looking forward to travel to Barcelona, Ireland, the Middle East, around England and maybe more this year. I am looking forward to plans with lots of UK-based friends this summer – new friends who maybe didn't know me when I danced on tables in bars in Syracuse, or who ran wild with me through the streets of New York, but people who recognize the person I am now and find me endearing despite my rather American earnestness and volume levels. I am looking forward to hopefully finalizing a house purchase (more on that soon for everyone's reading delight) and I am hoping the place we find is a home not just for The Irishman and me but also a place for me to welcome all of my friends from far and wide – a little oasis in this big city I now call home, where we can pick up the conversation wherever it was left off.

That is my resolution for year 5 in the UK. I think it's probably going to be a pretty good one.

Follow Friday

I never really do that #FF thing on Twitter, mostly because I don't really *do* Twitter that well, but this week I am going to #FF here AND there to introduce you to my friends who just entered the blogosphere.

You may remember that I mentioned earlier about some friends who have decided to save up to throw it all in, quit their jobs, and travel across Asia for several months. Well, the dream is on its way and the one-way tickets have been purchased and the blog has launched! Head over to Banh Mi and You to read about their preparations for their big trip. PS: Their blog will soon have a sweet new blog look and feel, thanks to YOURS TRULY. When I get around to it.

I'd also highly suggest that you follow them on Twitter (@banhmiandyou) and join them as they embark for the biggest and most exciting adventure of their lives! Wheeee!

The emotional ups and downs of expat home buying

Photo from Flickr courtesy of Limonada

So no progress I can report as of yet on the house situation. Offer is in and we're waiting.

Waiting in these types of situations opens the door to all kinds of thoughts: the good ones like "what type of bathtub should we install if we redo the bathroom" and bad ones like "oh my god I cannot believe I am contemplating spending this much money in one fell swoop."

It also gives a person time to self-reflect in quite a deep manner. Lately I have been rethinking my identity as an expat, what it means to buy property in another country and who I will be afterwards. The expat adventure is obviously alluring; just look at how many expat bloggers there are out there, people who dream of selling it all and moving clear across the world. It's a thrilling and illuminating, self-improving and horizon-expanding experience that I advocate to everyone. But at what point does it stop being an experience and begin to just be your life? Does buying property make you a local, or a resident, any more so than paying taxes? Does it make you less American? Or does it just make you a person who lives somewhere else? And what does that mean?

On a more personal level, buying a house changes priorities in a way that completely reframes the expat experience. At this stage, if our offer is accepted, there will be no more jetting off for city breaks, no more long weekends in Paris, no more extravagant meals in foreign lands, no more big holidays in the sun – at least for the first few years. Does that mean I'm going to miss out? Do I actually even want to buy a house? Or do I just want to travel more and live in a small flat to be able to afford that pleasure? And if I refocus my energies on building a home rather than exploring the world, will I realize that actually I don't want to live here anymore? What if I end up hating England?

And of course, there is then the big elephant in the room of me buying a property with The Irishman – I refuse to call him boyfriend, but he sure isn't my husband – and what that means for our relationship. We've already had a few corkers in terms of arguments, and, despite having a very equitable financial relationship, the idea of purchasing a property together is putting our relationship under a microscope. Everything he does I scrutinize, I'm sure he is evaluating everything I do, every penny we spend separately and together I analyze, and I'm feeling like at some point we'll either end up hating each other or self-implode. Or both! I blogged before about how buying a property together is the biggest commitment two people can make, and it's proving itself to be true on a daily basis. I've already demanded a declaration of trust so that neither of us can clean the other out if we split, but I'm also hoping that we can get through this period of doubt and tension so much stronger than we entered it. But if we do split up, and own a property, will I stay in England? Will it still be my home? Is my entire expat experience based on one man? Is that healthy? AM I HEALTHY? OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING?!

I guess what I'm trying to articulate is that while buying a property is emotional purchase regardless of where it takes place, as an expat it is even harder. It's surfacing all sorts of issues that I've either managed to bury or never knew I had, and in some ways they are harder to quantify than the figures on our mortgage spreadsheet. The only way to really deal with them is to just plow ahead, keep talking to The Irishman, and be honest with myself. Whatever will be will be and I will end up where I'm supposed to end up – whether it's London, New York, or somewhere inbetween.

The unknown expat dilemma

I've written about this before, about how hard it is to be far away from your friends and miss out on their lives. This becomes especially important when they get married and start having kids – unless they live in a country adjacent to yours to where you can get decently cheap Ryanair flights.

The sad truth of it is that I have now tiered my friends. I'm not worried about writing this and posting it in the ether because I've told them all before. Basically, I have had to be coldly rational and mentally sub-divide my friends as follows:

- People who, if they get engaged and invite me to their wedding, receive a card

- People who, if they get engaged and invite me to their wedding, receive a card and gift

- People who, if they get engaged and invite me to their wedding receive me in person at their wedding

The number of people in each category diminishes the farther you go down the list.

I haven't done this out of cruelness, but out of necessity. I'm at the age where every day brings another Facebook relationship status change to "engaged" and a subsequent "if I invite you will you come" email. And I can't go, most of the time. Airfare has gotten so expensive, and hotels are so expensive, and it's not fair to The Irishman to have to use all of his money and all of his holiday days to jet over to America for my friends' weddings.

This is coming up because one of my friends is getting married in Florida in April. She is in the bottom tier, someone whose wedding I will not miss despite only having gotten engaged 6 weeks ago thus giving me 5 weeks notice (it's okay, she's ALWAYS late). But now my challenge is to decide whether to go to the wedding for the weekend, or morph it into a week's vacation in Florida. This is definitely a "first world problem" but one that is important - to me - as I'm trying to make it to see my friends get married on the beach without breaking the bank, and get the most value out of a 10 hour flight.

This is the sad reality of expat life: weighing the pros and cons of jetlag, hotels, and baggage fees just to share your friends' big moments. It's another sad reality that I desperately wish, at moments like this, that I traveled more for work so that I had more frequent flyer miles in the bank – even though business travel, especially the up-and-down- in-and-out-in-a-day type, is absolutely exhausting. But at least I could redeem some miles for an upgrade or something.

This part of expat life is not glamorous, nor is it exciting; it is exhausting and tedious and often heartbreaking. Yet had someone actually given me this heads up before I moved abroad, I'm not sure I would have taken it seriously. It's just one of the things you have to accept with the visa, like being called love all of the time and standing in long immigration lines. 

Bloggybody

Yet again, it's me, back at the blog after a noticeable absence, about to apologize for a lack of posting and etc. But this time, I'm not going to: I've been busy in the real world, and haven't really had the time or patience to chronicle it all in the virtual world. I'm not sorry about the lack of posting but I am sorry abut the lack of sharing.

So what have I been up to since my last post?

The last three weeks have been, well, just life. There were some highs and lows, celebrations and despair, decisions and reversions on decisions, trips abroad and time in my house. In no particular order, I...

...finished up a knitted baby gift over many evening hours for my dear friend Alex, whose baby shower is Saturday (which I cannot attend, to my chagrin) and who is due in September...

...played kickball at my friend's third annual Colonists vs Commonwealth 4th of July kickball game (we lost, again)...

...saw La rondine at Opera Holland Park and spotted Gok Wan and Joanna Lumley in the audience...

...met up with many friends for meals and drinks...

...missed my company's summer party at the delightful looking Dock Kitchen...

...agonized over whether to buy a pair of shoes in the Net-a-Porter sale...

...sort of tried to stay on track with my marathon training programme...

...decided, with The Irishman, to put off the plans to move until he makes some career decisions that will affect where we live...

...spent a weekend working on and off in the office and at home...

...went to Paris for 5 glorious days of shopping, eating, strolling, and seeing friends.

And now?

I'm back in the office, trying to repatriate myself into the working world. The weather is chilly so it feels like September, and I'm trying to keep the summery spirit rather than seek comfort in soft woolly sweaters. It's hard though with a dense sky that looks like lead and temperatures hovering at 19°C.

But I have much to look forward to!

This weekend a friend from the Netherlands visits to see art and eat food, next weekend we have tickets to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and another excursion to a local pop up restaurant, and after a quietish weekend in between I'll be traveling to the Lake District for the first time! Then it's off to Ireland for a rugby match of some sort, and then Brittany to celebrate the marriage of Jon et Alix, mes chers amis français. After all of that, I will be out of money and running upwards of 15 miles a weekend so by the time it really truly is September, I will be ready to start some serious hibernation.

And of course, I will try to blog about it all.

Back to the Future

I'm a bad little blogger; I've been back from the US since Monday and haven't really made the time to write a post saying HI and how great my trip home was. I blamed this on the fact that The Irishman hid my camera cable so I can't upload pix from our trip to post, but really that's just me making excuses.

Jetlag this time has been an odd one. We took the overnight flight from Newark Sunday evening after a delicious Easter dinner and though it felt like I didn't sleep much, I think I did because I was FINE on Monday. Like, did laundry, went to the park and read in the sun, and wasn't cranky fine. Meanwhile The Irishman spent all day on the sofa and couldn't put two words together properly. But now, man, I get home from work at 6:30 and I am BEAT. And I get up at 8am and I can't open my eyes because at 4am I've been waking up bright eyed and bushytailed. I have no idea what's going on, but I am really hoping this goes away stat.

Anyway, about my trip home. In Philly, I made sure my bestie got married in one piece - she won't mind if I say that she got horribly sick the week before her wedding and us 'maids had the job of telling her how beautiful she was (AND SHE WAS GORGEOUS) through the pain. It was hard for me, though, because I felt guilty that I only flew in to shower her with presents and Grazias, rather than being there for her throughout the wedding planning process. Yet another one of the travesties of expat life: not being there for your bestie until the last minute.

Also in Philly, The Irishman and I ate a lot of his firsts: first cheesesteak, first pork sandwich, first soft pretzel, first Amish deli, first whoopie pie... He was in heaven. I was just trying to pace myself so my 'maids dress fit. Then The Irishman celebrated his first Seder with my family. He wore his first yarmulke and chose a fetching teal one; I was so proud of him for jumping in and fully embracing the holiday.

In New York, I crammed about 10 meals into two days so I could see my peoples. Every trip home it gets harder to spend quality time with people; meetups are shorter and less deep and I consciously feel the distance growing between myself and my friends. I know they care, I know I care, but the truth is I'm less involved with their current lives and vice versa. I'm learning to accept that, and to be okay with it. It's no one's fault, we're still friends, and it's enough to be able to see each other and pick up with wherever we left off - even if it is only in hour-long chunks.

And then we had Easter, where The Irishman was the star of the show. Again. Honestly, they love him more than me.

But the oddest part of the whole trip was that I was excited to go home because it was vacation, not because it was home. I forgot a lot of driving directions, like the backroads around my parents home that lead to I-95. It didn't feel like my place anymore; I am increasingly offended by American TV and anachronistic customs. Yet when I left, I didn't feel like I was going "home"either. Landing at Heathrow didn't feel like relief - it was just where I was going. So at this point, I just feel nationless. It's actually quite a freeing place to be, not being held down by some invisible cultural rope to a set of customs and expectations arbitrarily assigned by birth; I feel liberated but bewildered, like a kid who is home alone for the first time and knows she can do whatever she wants but isn't quite sure what that might be.

My bestie told me something funny after her wedding; apparently her family were quite disappointed that I wasn't actually British. She had told them that her friend from the UK was attending, and when they met me, heard my accent, and learned I was from New Jersey it was all a bit boring. I loved that. Expat life continues to amuse me in all of the oddest ways. So here I am, back in England, back living my odd stateless life, back to living my future.

Well then. I'm off to the pub.

Got my passport!

I'm good to fly this day next week!

Phew!

The bride and my bestie told me yesterday she was a wee bit worried about all this (oops, sorry Kat) but it's all resolved. Now I have a document that is valid until March 27th, 2021. WHOA. I haven't even thought about the 20s!

Also interesting is that this here passport is an ePassport. I've never heard of such a thing! How very high-tech-Bourne Identity-Big Brother of them.

Anyway. One less thing to worry about. Now, fingers crossed that the alterations to my bridesmaid dress that will cost me £30 turn out well...

Expat joys: passport renewal

Image courtesy of Flickr: Ho John Lee

One of the cruel jokes that the US government and its worldwide counterparts have devised to play on us unsuspecting tourists is passport validity. My passport is technically valid until July 18th of this year, but most countries in Europe require that it be valid for three months after the date of entry into that country and many others require 6 month validity. So technically, from April 18th I can't travel on the damn thing unless I'm going back to the US. Which, funnily enough, I am - on April 14th for my friend's wedding and the Passover and Easter holidays. So in my infinite planning wisdom, I decided to wait to renew my passport until my return to the UK.

Fast forward to the new job, new client and new project, and now I may have to go to Prague in the middle of May. So I checked the embassy website for passport renewal processing times - 15 working days - and did the math to realize that waiting until I returned from the US wasn't such a smart idea. But as of yesterday, there were 20 working days until I leave for the US... so I crossed my fingers and sent it off. I dashed into Snappy Snaps for some of the worst photographs of myself at the exorbitant rate of £12.99 for 2 photographs, and paid a courier service £25.50 for the pleasure of taking my application to the embassy and returning it to me (hopefully before 5pm on April 14th when I have to leave for Heathrow). Add those charges to the $110 passport renewal free, and I just spent about £100 in the space of an hour - all to renew my most important identity document THAT IS STILL VALID FOR 4 MONTHS. I wish I could get a prorated discount refunding me for the time left on the document. I know, I know, stop laughing but I think it's only fair.

Add to this the fact that my visa is in what will now be a cancelled passport. The UK government strongly suggests that I send my new passport to them so they can transfer the visa sticker into the new book - for the princely price of £200! It is legal to carry both the old, cancelled passport with the visa sticker in it as well as the new passport, so that is what I will be doing. I've already donated enough of my post-tax earnings to the Border Agency; as much as I love have stamps and visas and stickers in my passport, none of them are worth that much financial pain.

Before and after 30

I received so many nice comments and notes about my last post (not the veg one, the one before, the one about life) that I thought I ought to come clean regarding its impetus. Basically, it came about because of a little mental breakdown I had last Monday.

I turn 30 in less than two months.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! she cries, frantically trying to hide her 6 grey hairs (3 more than last year) while desperately examining her eyes for faint lines and the start of wrinkles.

I know. I know that the world doesn't end when you turn 30. My friends who've already taken the plunge say its better than your 20s! One in particular calls it the decade of decadence! Apparently I'll actually be a woman! And I'll feel more confident and self assured and life will be GREAT!

Hey, I'm down with that. And actually really looking forward to it.

My freakout actually was more about 30th birthday PARTY. Specifically, who would and wouldn't be there.

In my perfect world, all of my peoples in the US would magic themselves to London and all of my peoples from this side of the pond would magically all be available and have babysitters and plus-ones and disposable income and we'd tear up the town and party til the break of dawn and I would be skinny wearing an amazing dress with high heels that I could dance in for hours and my hair would be perfect and I'd be tipsy drunk but not sloppy and hey while I'm at it a limo would be there for the night to take me and said peoples to all of the party spots we want to go to.

Back to reality: Two glasses of champagne insures unruly behavior. Heels don't actually allow me to comfortably enjoy an evening on the dance floor. I barely go out on the town, so while I'd love to go out I wouldn't have the faintest idea of where to actually go. And now for the worst part - who would come? My American friends can't, and shouldn't, fly over here for a weekend. Most of my friends here are either married and living out of London with newborns or are good friends that I spend time with, in couple-y situations, but not as besties. Basically, at that moment I was mostly upset that 30 was a big glaring light illuminating the fact that I don't have close friends here like I have in the US. And that felt like a failure.

The Irishman, ever the sweetest gentleman, suggested that, if I were this upset about not having my American peeps with me on my birthday, perhaps I should go to them - ie, flying to New York for a 30th birthday vacation. When Virgin announced their fare sales, it really did seem like a possibility. But something was stopping me from clicking BUY NOW for the tickets. I discussed this situation with my friend Kat who, ever pragmatic (she is a Taurus after all), gently suggested that maybe I had to shift my expectations of what my 30th birthday should be. I thought about that for a while, and realized that she was right.

Rah rah partying and dancing might have been a total option for my 30th birthday had I stayed in New York, and it would have been BALLIN'. But I didn't stay in New York. Instead, I moved to London and fell in love with a lovely man who just happens to be 5.5 years my senior and therefore at a different lifestage than me. We are old souls whose idea of a night out is more of the wine drinking variety, rather than raging. While I do every so often miss putting on a sparkly top and bouncing to Rihanna, I have to accept that at this point in my life I actually don't want to go for it all too often. AND THAT'S OKAY. It may be what I want to do for a big milestone birthday, but if it can't happen because I don't have the people around me to go for it, well, that's just life. MY life. Who knows - maybe 35 will be a bitching dance-on-the-tables-at-the-club event. But it's not going to happen this year and secretly I think I am more relieved than disappointed.

The part about close friends around me? That, I realized, isn't true either. What is true is that my friends in London are different than my American friends: I don't have anyone here like my friend Rietje, with whom I speak another language of design, boys, and giggles, or my friend Sloane, who sees all of my faults but thinks I'm okay anyway. But I DO have more than a handful of warm, funny, endearing and sweet boys and girls I call my friends here in London. I am not alone, nor a failure. I have to accept, however, that as I age and as life slides through different stages, friendships will be made in many different forms. It's not because I'm American, not because I'm different, but because this is how life works.

So I decided to embrace my birthday party in the same way that I've embraced my age. I'm going to be 30 and I live in London so that is where I shall celebrate. I want the people I care about most in this country around me, so I've chosen to plan a big meal on the day before my birthday at a child-friendly place so that more of those mommy-and-daddy friends can join me. I'm going to get a sparkly dress, alright, and maybe some beautiful heels as well (at a restaurant, I can sit down) and I will definitely drink champagne. And I will sit with my peoples, and laugh, and smile, and think about how far I've come in the last 30 years, and hope that all of those people around me on that night will be in my life for the next 30 years.

It's not going to be epic, but it's definitely going to be perfect.

A tale of two cities

A week or so before Christmas, I received advice-seeking instant messages from my two expat friends - coincidentally both named Jon.

Spanish Jon is one of those friends that you just expect to be a superstar. He grew up in Brooklyn and is an architect with a Master's degree from Harvard School of Design. Only the best students get into that programme, and it produces famous architects like Philip Johnson. Spanish Jon met his girlfriend, Ana, while studying abroad in Denmark and after finishing his masters degree he moved to Spain to help her take over her father's architecture studio. I visited them in 2008, while Jon was in the middle of completing even more studies; apparently all of his US qualifications were null and void in Spain, as it's part of the EU, and he had to basically retrain all over again. That's some bureaucratic bullshit. Anyway, Spanish Jon was IM'ing me with bad news: he didn't pass his exam, and therefore couldn't practice architecture in Spain. I didn't get the full story from him as he was understandably upset. I couldn't believe that of all people, my good friend who is SO SMART and SO TALENTED could be in such a situation.

A half hour later, I got an IM from French Jon. French Jon met his girlfriend Alix while she was interning in his office in New York, and after 2 years of long distance that included him flying to France nearly every month he finally quit his job and applied to graduate school in Paris so they could be together. Fast-forward to now and he is in a sustainable development masters program at HEC, the most prestigious business school in Europe, and he and Alix are engaged to be married (SO looking forward to their wedding in August!). French Jon's message was much more expat-related: the impending holidays, commercialism, disconnect from family and friends, and general isolation were getting to him and he really was questioning WHY WE DO THIS.

I have been in both places. I have been at the point, all too often, of utter frustration when the realization that I've moved from being a big fish in a small pond to the smallest of plankton in a big sea where no one cares whether I survive, let alone thrive. I've also had too many moments of desperation, wondering why I'm putting myself through this exercise of establishing my identity in a country that isn't mine. Both are easy extremes to swing to at any point when you realize your expectations for life aren't quite matching up to reality.

What did I say to the Jons? Well, there isn't much you can say, is there? I can offer a shoulder to cry on and talk through options (like with Spanish Jon), and I can offer perspective and reminders of the wonderful things about expat life (like with French Jon). But at the end of the day, the expat experience is what you make of it and though there are some fundamental truths that we all encounter (banks! cell phones! flights home! bureaucracy!) we each have our own story. Sometimes it's hard to remember that and encourage our own individual growth while we're so desperate to assimilate. Not in the way you might have back in your homeland, but how you could grow now: it's not worth it to ponder what you "might have done" if you were back in your old life, or "who you might have been" because even if you went back tomorrow, you'd still be different from the person you were when you left. You'd be better.

Recently I encountered this very helpful article on Expat Women about the expat's hierarchy of needs. She is totally right. The top self-actualization point really is all about striving for that deeper meaning and confidence in what you're doing living all the way across the world. After the glow of the first year wears off, and austerity measures and tube fare rises kick in, it is so easy to ask "why". Coming up with an answer that fulfills you, though, is the tricky part. I think I'm at stage 4 - I still haven't figured out, after 2.5 years, what's in it for me. I think an underlying New Year's resolution is for me to come to terms with just how being an expat fits into my persona. I want to be Danielle, not Danielle the American or Danielle who comes from New York. Expat, for me, should be a footnote, not body text, in the story of my life - and it's my responsibility to write it that way.

Mail - e and real

One of the cool things about living in London as an American is that when you go to bed, the US has their whole evening ahead of them - which means that when you wake up, there are oftentimes fun treats in your email inbox from your American friends. Yippee!

Or, there can slightly uncomfortable emails in your inbox like the one I got today from my dad saying my he read my real mail and my US bank account balance was overdrawn. I have a student loan that I pay on monthly direct debits from my US account, and periodically send myself some cash - when I remember. So I'm not sure which is worse - my dad reading my mail, or my dad finding out I'm slightly disorganized in life enough that I forget to send myself money on a regular basis. Sigh.

Blogger Kristina wrote an apt post about how being an expat involves 2x as much paperwork as just being a "normal" citizen, and sometimes I think I got a bad roll of the dice to have lived in the two most paperwork-intensive countries in the world. Although Jon might remind me that I'm lucky to not have to deal with French redtape, it is weird to realize that I actually maintain 6 bank accounts. SIX. For one girl. Sheesh.

And wherever you live, it's really easy to get caught up in day-to-day life and forget about paperwork - bills, renewals, forms, etc etc etc - that's why there are wonderful things like direct debits and automatic payments. But multiply all of that by 2... and combine the fact that my job is pretty much all admin... I'm suffering from admin overload!

And of course there is that pesky "permanent address" issue that I'm sure all expats face - where does all of that American mail GO? I'm lucky that my parents are kind enough to collect my mail and stack it up in a pile for me. Every so often they'll package it up and send it over, or if they are visiting they will bring it along. They didn't used to read it all, but after an incident when Citibank started changing all of their terms, and not telling anyone except by letter, they are doing what any good parent would do - read my mail. I suppose I'm okay with it; I suppose I have to be okay with it. They're gracious enough to take on some of my bloody admin, for which I am grateful. But it is weird - that's MY mail, and MY bank account, even if it only has $15 in it!

So I guess it is a good thing I have my dad opening my mail - now I just need to get over the embarrassment, and lack of privacy - of him finding out my innermost financial secrets. And I guess also grow up and get organized, stat, so I can stay on top of all of bank accounts and debits and various other annoying life necessities.