Hey, guys, welcome back to the Girl Gone London channel. If you're new here,
My name is Kalyn.
I'm an American who's lived in the UK for almost 10 years.
And today I am revealing the worst parts about living life abroad.
OK, so in this video, I am talking about the downsides of living
life in another country, and I'm not talking about the downsides
of living life in the U.K. I'm talking specifically about the experience and what
it's like for anybody who is living life abroad, because a lot of times people get
swept up in the kind of romanticized version.
And that is all really good.
And there are lots of good things about
living life abroad, but there are some things to consider
that are downsides, particularly if you are considering
becoming an expat somewhere that I felt like I should be honest about.
OK, so the first downside is pretty obvious, but it's missing friends
and family who live pretty far away, depending on where you move to.
Obviously here in the UK from most places in the US, I'm about an eight to six to 10
hour plane ride and it makes it much more difficult to get back home to see people.
The time difference also makes it harder to keep in touch with people.
I wake up to text messages that I then
respond to, but then they don't see for a couple of hours.
And you just don't you underestimate how difficult it can be to keep in touch
with people and keep those relationships going.
A lot of people find that they lose out on some friendships that they used to have
when they lived in the same country, not because people are trying to be rude
or not respond, but you just start living this totally different life.
And again, add on the time difference and the difficulty in getting back to see
people or the cost and difficulty and people coming to see you.
It can really be hard to keep those bonds strong.
And that was something that I did know going into life abroad.
But it's definitely something to keep in mind.
OK, the next downside to living life
abroad is always feeling like you don't belong in either country.
So some people might have different experiences.
For me, I've been in the UK for almost 10 years and I still I feel like it's
physically home, but it's not necessarily I don't think I
will ever feel 100 percent like I belong here fully.
And that's not because people are making
me feel like I don't belong or anything like that.
I think it's just the reality of growing up and living somewhere for 18 years,
which was when I lived in the States and then transitioning to another country.
I just don't see myself ever feeling 100 percent like I feel like I belong.
And that has to do with my accent.
It has to do with the words that I use.
It has to do with cultural things that I
just didn't grow up with and will never be innately part of what I do.
And on the flip side,
you also end up feeling like you don't belong in your home country.
If you have lived even for like up
to a year outside of your home country, you can come back and have what they call
reverse culture shock and also feel like you don't belong there.
So I've heard people say I feel too
British for America and too American for Britain.
Insert whatever country you want to talk about here.
And a lot of expats really struggle
with this idea of where is home, what does home mean, where do I belong?
And sometimes people end up feeling like
they belong in both places or in every place.
And sometimes people end up feeling like they don't really belong anywhere.
I go back and forth, like I said,
I consider both places home and whichever one I'm in feels like home at the time.
And so that can be kind of confusing
to think of both as home, but then to also feel like I don't quite belong in either.
OK, the next down site about life abroad that I definitely didn't give enough
consideration to is what happens if there is an emergency or death in your family.
So I have experienced three losses in my family now, which have happened,
and I wasn't able to go back and be with that person.
And for some of them, I was not able to go and attend
the funeral or to go be with my family at that time.
Obviously, there are companies that will give you I think it's called here.
It's like grief.
It's not grief leave, but it's like
some sort of time off if you've lost someone, your family.
But, you know, if you lose three people within the span of a couple of months,
it becomes very difficult to keep flying back and forth.
A lot of people don't have the money.
It can be expensive.
And you really have to plan your finances and your trips back to your home country
far in advance, depending on how far you moved away.
And it's not as easy as hopping on a plane
and being somewhere within a couple of hours for most people.
So if there is an emergency or something
that you need to get back for, I didn't I knew that this would happen.
But you don't like to think about it when you move abroad.
I moved abroad.
Almost 10 years ago,
and I didn't start experiencing experiencing these losses in my family
until this past year, so that was almost nine years of not
having to think about this or deal with it.
But as soon as it did start happening
and it did come up, it feels terrible and it feels like you've
made all the wrong decisions and moving abroad because you just wish that you were
closer or that you could go and be with your family or get home a lot quicker.
The next downside has to do with feeling
like you don't have a shared bond with people based on your cultural background.
So whether it's in the workplace or with your neighbors or with friends
that you meet here, you really underestimate how much
of a relationship, whether it's coworkers or friends or whatever,
has to do with your shared cultural backgrounds and cultural experiences.
So the amount of times that I have to have
someone explain to me who this British celebrity from the 80s or 90s or whatever
is or this toy that everyone used to play with or just shared experiences that they
had growing up in the UK during a certain time, they can be really difficult to feel
like you are always having to have someone explain those things to you.
And it's not even just related to the past either.
It's also things in the present that just
culturally you're inherently not as tuned into, depending on your expat experiences
and who you hang out with or what kind of culture you're exposed to.
Obviously, if you know you are married to a Brit and you spend time with their
British family and you only have British friends or you only have British
coworkers, then maybe you would get more of that cultural experience.
A lot of expats, maybe you've come with your partner
from another country or you work with a more diverse group of people.
And so just in relating to Brits, sometimes feeling like you don't have that
that shared cultural experience and often have to have people explain
things to you, you just really underestimate how much
that goes into creating a sort of friendship or relationship.
And I say to my husband, you know, trying to explain this,
like when I'm in the U.S. and I'm talking to new US people, even if we didn't grow
up in the same exact area, if they're kind of about my age,
I know there are certain things that I could mention, just like as a throwback
reference or as a reference to something cultural.
And chances are they'll know what I'm talking about and not just have heard
about it, but they'll have experienced it as well.
It's just part of how we relate to people.
And you can obviously build friendships
based on things that are happening now and things that are happening in your life
and nothing cultural but cultural references and historic references.
And I don't mean like about like old wars.
I mean things that might have happened
in the media or on TV, on the radio celebrity's back in the day.
You would be surprised how much this comes up, particularly in workplaces.
So constantly feeling like I have no idea what people are saying,
even though I have lived here ten years and they're still making references,
references that I don't get can be a very isolating part of being an expat.
And the last thing I wrote down as
a downside of life, of life abroad is visa stress.
So I am fully on board with the fact that I had a cert.
I had to qualify for certain visas.
I've had to go through the visa process.
I have been on like six different types of visas.
So I've really gone through this.
I'm still I've just applied for my indefinite leave to remain
hopefully get citizenship at some point this year.
But it is so stressful.
This also depends on the country that you're moving to.
Different places have different rules or make it easier or harder.
But I have definitely felt for the past at least five plus years when I've been
on stricter visas based on partner visas with my husband, you kind of just feel
like your whole life is dictated by these visas.
And by that I mean there are going to be financial requirements.
Obviously, that makes sense.
But there are also things that you don't necessarily think about.
So a certain amount of days that you have
to have been in the country for that visa to qualify for the next one.
And when you apply for citizenship, they look back like three to five years,
depending on what kind of visas you've been on to see if three or five years ago
you were in the UK on that day, which is just completely arbitrary.
So you have to kind of keep track of all,
you know, years and years and years of your life.
Think of if you're if you don't live
abroad and if you're not an expat, think about every every single thing you do.
You need to document.
I need to remember five years ago, you know exactly where I was on March 20th.
Twenty, sixteen, or whatever it is, it just it's it's stressful kind of living
your life based around visas and it's also stressful going through the applications.
Have I included the right documents?
You know, some of them are easier than
others, but a lot of them really require you to fill out a lot
of paperwork or go through a lot of different steps.
And so that is definitely a downside of life, but a very necessary downside.
I will not argue that it's not necessary,
and I'm just super happy to hopefully be coming to the end of it soon because it it
does add another layer of stress when you're trying to adapt to living in a new
country and also dealing with visa stress and things like that.
OK, so that brings me to the end of this video.
A lot of them are more obvious downsides,
but some of them I didn't necessarily give major thought to before I moved abroad.
And I feel like this channel is meant
to be an honest experience of living life in another country.
And those are some of the obvious downsides wherever you choose to move to.
I'm not saying it's not worth it.
I'm not saying don't do it.
And I'm not saying that I regret it.
I'm just saying those are things to keep
in mind that might be obstacles along your journey.
So I hope you enjoy this video and I'll see you guys next time.