We have the pleasure of introducing Grant
Parker tweeting @gparker546 as our
guest blogger today. Here, Grant talks about his move from the USA to Germany
and the challenges of…
Finding My Feet In A New City
Picture source: Wikicommons
My expat experience began on a road trip as
I was moving from Georgia to Seattle. It
was a pleasure seeing all the new and fascinating American locales, but so much
time alone can be dangerous. I left each
city thinking “That was cool, but not as
cool as Berlin.” This slowly morphed
into “Man I wish I were moving to Berlin
instead of Seattle,” and somewhere around Minneapolis I finally landed at “Well…why aren’t I?” With no real answer to that question I
reached sunny San Francisco, turned back east, booked a flight to Berlin, and
one month later I was here- no plans, no contacts, and no satisfactory explanation
as to why other than “I wanted to see what would happen.”
I guess I hadn’t really thought through exactly
what kinds of challenges an expat faces when he relocates point blank. Work in Germany doesn’t
immediately present itself. Apartments
to rent don’t fall from the sky. The
work permit application process left me spinning, but you have to start at the
bottom, so I became a frequent visitor of the ausländerbehörde- or work office.
On my third visit in as many days I got turned away for “filling out the
wrong form” and, left with no other recourse, cried right there on the front
steps. “What have I done”, I thought. “No one is
helping me”.
It didn’t improve company morale that I had
already moved four times in a two month period; friends of friends of friends
offered temporary abode. One night I found
myself sitting in the beautiful apartment of a complete stranger who was out of
town, leaving me to man the fort.
Everything in it was so foreign, so personal to someone else, and I
realised just how flighty I had been with my concept of home; how loosely I had
held on to where I came from. I tried to
imagine a time in the future when I would have my own floor to walk on, and a
bookshelf to hold my own books. The more time I spent trying to find these
things the more I realised what it takes to get them: command of the language, time devoted to
searching through what is a notoriously internet-unfriendly city, and most
importantly personal connections. That
night it all struck me as so unapproachable.
I felt like the only boy in the world.
That is until one small website start-up I
came across who decided to take a chance on a suitcase kid and hire me on as a
“marketing intern”, all because I said I wanted to learn. That was the day that Berlin really started
for me.
Ironically, this website turned out to be the
one site I had been hoping to find all along!
The company’s mission is to unite lost internationals like myself with
the businesses and services we need to get our life going. Apart from the myriad resources available for
apartments, jobs, sports, etc., the team opened up my world personally. The two founders- Mario and Anja- genuinely take
care of me here; we cook, play ping-pong, and watch the snow fall from our
office in Mitte. At our monthly events
I’ve met fellow internationals with whom I’m building good friendships, not to
mention the business contacts. Had I not
stumbled upon this job early on in my Berlin career who knows how long I would
have floundered around trying to establish myself? The warmth with which they welcomed me and
all expats has already forged strong loyalty, and let me feel like I’m on my
feet again. I’m very lucky, but most
important to remember is that my success is not exceptional. If I can do it, literally anyone can.
About the author
Grant Parker is a 24-year-old writer, traveller and avid gymnast currently setting up shop in Berlin, Germany. He writes two personal blogs, studies SEO and computer programming, and has been working for g1obals.org since October.
You can check out his other writings at http://apply.g1obals.org/blog and http://grantparkertumbler.tumblr.com/ or tweeting at @gparker546