Will Cyprus stay in perpetual division?

With EU-Turkey relations at an all-time low, the reunification of Cyprus seems like a distant prospect. This week I saw an island where the frozen conflict has become largely normalized. Unlike in Berlin, this wall doesn't look like its falling any time soon.

Sometimes, old wounds just won't heal. So it is with the island of Cyprus, where a 180 kilometer scar runs from shore to shore, and has been festering for four decades.

I visited the island for the first time this week, and those wounds were on display right from the start. As my plane flew across Greek Cyprus, over the capital Nicosia, I could see the giant Turkish flag painted on the mountains to the north, taunting the Greeks. It reminded me of the Alexanderplatz TV Tower in Berlin, built to be unavoidably visible everywhere in West Berlin during the Cold War.

The trip was, admittedly, somewhat of a box-checking exercise. Of the 32 European Union and EFTA countries, there are three left that I haven't visited - Cyprus, Slovenia and Romania. I'm heading to Slovenia next month for a conference, and have resolved to do a weekend in Bucharest before the year is done. Then - I win?

Berlin: the uncapital

People often use 'Berlin' as shorthand for a powerful Germany. But in reality this is not a power center, economically or politically. And many people like it that way. 


I've been in Bonn, Germany the past two weeks, covering the UN climate talks. It's my first time in the former West German capital, and it's been a very eye-opening experience. 

One of my clients is Deutsche Welle, Germany's public international broadcaster (roughly the equivalent of the BBC World Service). I work for them in their Brussels and Berlin offices, but their headquarters are in Bonn. So these weeks were an opportunity to finally meet many of my colleagues in person for the first time. 

When I tell people outside Germany that DW's headquarters is in Bonn, and Berlin has a much smaller satellite office, they're surprised. "Why wouldn't they be based in Berlin?" they ask. In fact, DW's situation is not unusual. Very few German media companies are based in Berlin. The TV stations and national papers are often based in Hamburg or Cologne, maintaining only small 'Berlin bureaus'.

Three different Berlins

My journey from Schöneberg to Neukölln to Prenzlauerberg.

Ever since going freelance in March of 2015, I’ve lived an itinerant life. In addition to keeping apartments in Brussels and Berlin and traveling between them, I’ve also gone traveling in the Southern hemisphere over the winters.

It’s been a fantastic and enriching experience, but today I’m reining it in. I’m on the train from Berlin to Brussels now, having given up my Berlin apartment. The back-and-forth was just getting too exhausting - I had to pick one city or the other. Professionally, that city has to be Brussels - at least for the moment. But that’s a subject for another blog entry.

Gleisdreieck: the new Berlin wall

The old border between East and West may be imperceptible these days, but Berlin still feels like two different cities.

This week, after I had finished moving into my new apartment in the Neukolln neighbourhood of Berlin, I went to the annual re:publica conference nearby. It's an event focused on the politics of the internet - a subject close to German hearts. 

It is held at The Station, an extraordinary event facility housed in a former postbahnhof - a train station for mail. Today it sits under a dizzying intersection of several different train lines at Gleisdreieck Station - where U2, U1 and DB long-distance tracks converge. It has a beautiful outdoor area that faces Gleisdreieck Park. 

But this spot wasn't always so lovely. For decades this area was a barren weed-filled wasteland under and along the railroad tracks, separating the West Berlin neighbourhoods of Schoneberg and Kreuzberg.

So Dave, what's all this about you moving to Berlin?

Today begins a new chapter in my life as I search for an apartment in a new city.

I've arrived in Berlin for the first day of my German adventure. I'm here to cover a climate conference and then look for apartments, getting ready for the big move here next month.

I'm a journalist, originally from outside New York City, and I've been covering EU politics in Brussels for the past six years. It's been a great experience, but after so many years in the 'Brussels bubble' I realised I needed to get out and really see what's going on in Europe. The European elections last year really drove that message home to me. I've been trapped in the bubble too long and have lost touch with what 'real Europeans' are thinking.

And...we're back!

I've decided to burst out of the Brussels bubble and head for Berlin. I would say this calls for reviving the blog!

One year ago I put my blog Gulf Stream Blues into retirement. Today I can announce some exciting news, I'm moving to Berlin!

More details to come, but for now I'm taking the ol' blog out of retirement and relaunching it as 'From Brussels to Berlin'. The reason is that I will be based between both cities.

I'm very excited! Watch this space.

Gulf Stream Interrupted

Gulf Stream Blues is going into retirement, while I concentrate on launching the new EuropeanVoice.com.

Regular readers may have noticed that my blog entries have been few and far between over the past months. Last year I was promoted to being editor of EuropeanVoice.com, the web site of the newspaper of the same name which was launched by The Economist 20 years ago.

It's an intense time, as we work to relaunch the web site and prepare for coverage of the European elections this month. I have to face facts and acknowledge that I just don't have time to write in this blog any more.

I launched this blog in 2006 while living in New York, in preparation as I struggled to find some way to get to Europe. I had been consumed by an interest in the European Union since reading a book called The European Dream by former New York Times reporter Jeremy Rifkin.

End of the Swiss chapter

I’m flying back to Brussels from Zurich at the moment, watching the snow-capped Alps to my left fade into the distance as we turn to follow the Rhine to the sea. This weekend was an emotional one, as I spent it helping my dad move out of his Swiss home.

He is moving back to the US this week, his company has transferred him back there. And with that, a very significant chapter of his life – and mine – has come to a close.

Switzerland was where I began this European adventure six years ago, so it was a bit jarring to see my dad’s empty house today and walk out the door for the last time.

Protest over Ikea meatballs - welcome back to Absurdistan

I’m back in Brussels after spending the Christmas break home in the US. It was yet another trip where I spent most of the time regaling people with the insane stories of the strange place I now find myself living in. I’m pretty sure most of my American friends think I’m making this stuff up. I only wish.

After describing the impromptu general strike three days before Christmas which forced me to pay $500 to rebook my flight home, I moved on to describing to my friends the other union strikes I have witnessed since moving here. From the impromptu metro driver strike that was called after a driver claimed he was punched by a passenger (it turned out the driver had punched the passenger) to the October garbage strike in which the garbagemen went around town lighting the trash bags on fire and throwing them into the street, there’s plenty to describe. And let's not forget the time the taxi drivers blockaded Brussels Airport because an unlicensed taxi driver had been grazed by a bullet while he fled from police during a high-speed chase.

Today I learned about a whole new anecdote of insanity I could have described to my perplexed American friends. According to this story by Belgian news station RTL, the restaurant owners association in Belgium (Horeca) is busing homeless people to Ikea as a protest against their low meatball prices. When I first saw this story I assumed it had to be a joke. Clearly I’ve been in the US too long! Because I forgot that when you hear about something this absurd happening in Belgium, it’s probably true.

An itinerant decade

I came to a startling realization yesterday. 2011 will be the first year in a decade that I have not moved to a different city during the course of the year. Since 2001 I have packed up and moved to a new city at least once each year. And there has actually never been a year in my adult life where I haven’t moved to a new apartment! 2001 and 2011 have the exception of being years where I moved to a new apartment, but in the same city.

I say ‘startling’ because it’s a kind of bizarre way to live one’s life, constantly moving to new cities. Of course not all of those moves were to unfamiliar cities I had never lived in before – a lot of this was moving away from New York, then returning, then leaving again. But now that I’ve managed to stay in one city for an entire calendar year, does it mean I’m settled here in Belgium? If it does, I don’t feel it. I’m in a good place in my life here – I’m enjoying what I’m doing, have an interesting job, good friends and a good apartment. So I think I’ll be here at least another couple years. But could I live the rest of my life in Belgium? Absolutely not. So when will I know when it’s time to leave?

As US recovers from Irene, GOP may hold relief funding hostage

I've just returned to Brussels after a weekend of trying to navigate the hurricane-hit Northeast US. It was a bit of an adventure trying to get from Connecticut to JFK airport yesterday, navigating around floods and downed trees. As I flew out on Monday I had the feeling I was being airlifted out of a disaster zone.

Though Hurricane Irene itself may have packed less of a punch than the worst-case-scenario predictions, the aftermath of inland flooding and power outages is creating a mess from New Jersey to Vermont. And according to reports, funding for the recovery effort may be the subject of political brinksmanship in Washington over the coming weeks and possibly months.

I had gone to New York for two weeks for my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary and my new nephew's baptism, both of which were scheduled for this past weekend. Needless to say, both were cancelled. I had to quickly make adjustments to my plans on Friday as predictions for the hurricane got progressively worse and the New York City mayor announced all public transport would be suspended from noon on Saturday.

From Jedward to Dana: the best and worst of Eurovision 2011

It may be that there was no contest more appropriate for reality star twins John and Edward than Eurovision. The Irish duo, who became famous in the UK after enjoying inexplicable success on the TV singing competition X Factor, will be competing for Ireland in this year's Eurovision Song Contest next week. They are just one act in a year marked by astonishing comebacks, pleas to stop climate change and even – most intriguing of all – France's entry singing entirely in a language other than French!

Much like the Sanjaya phenomenon on American Idol in the US, the public support for 'Jedward', as they came to be dubbed by the British press (and they are now competing under that name in Eurovision), seemed to be driven by Simon Cowell's clear distaste for them. The identical twins are undoubtedly horrible dancers and singers, but their hammy gimmick act won the hearts of the British public. But can they win the hearts of Europe? The UK is most likely to vote for them, and there will be some in continental Europe already familiar with them from watching British X-Factor. The song is actually quite catchy, but in order to win they would need to majorly polish their dance moves and I'm not sure I see that happening. Still, they've got something. But their main gimmick is going to be seriously undercut by the fact that Slovakia's entry this year also features identical twins. Here's the video of the Jedward song which, for some reason, was shot at the Eiffel Tower in Paris (trying to woo those continental votes?)

"Ah well, it's Belgium"

Kate Ryan is a peculiarly Belgian singer. The young Belgian pop tart, who headlined the Bal National celebrations in Brussels last night celebrating the eve of Belgian independence day, might sum up all the contradictions of this strange little country.

Born in Flanders and a native Dutch speaker, she sings in French in order to be understood by her whole country - as Francophones rarely speak Dutch but the Flemish usually speak French. She is also, and I think most Belgians agree on this subject, objectively terrible. Her most well-known tunes are catchy enough, but they are all just dance remakes of old French songs from the 1980's. But she persists in Belgian celebrity status, headlining festivals and somehow considered a national treasure. And yet when she came on stage last night, I couldn't help but notice the profound looks of disinterest on everyone's faces. Ryan, who's had a modest string of hits on dance charts across Europe over the last 8 years, is probably the most well-known Belgian singer of the moment outside the country.The disinterested Belgians at last night's concert seemed less than enthused about that fact.

The celebrations of Belgiumhood went well into the night last night, and I was probably wise to elect to work from home today. At the moment huge fighter jets are flying over my apartment, spraying coloured gas in the form of the Belgian flag. I wasn't even aware Belgium had an air force! The gaseous flag in the sky is hanging over many smaller Belgian flags on the streets below. In fact the past few days have been notable for the huge number of tricolour national flags on display, something I usually never see here.

Diversions and divisions in Israel

I’ve never received such a shock from reaching into my pocket. Having just emerged from a relaxing float in the Dead Sea, I had snapped a few photos before starting to make my way to my rental car to continue my journey through the desert. But when I reached into my bathing suit pocket to get my car keys my eyes just about popped out of my skull when I realized what I had done. I had left my keys in my pocket while floating on the surface of the dark, murky water. I rushed back to where I had been floating but I knew it was no use – it was impossible to see into the water, and impossible to feel anything at the rocky bottom. I was stranded in the middle of the desert, locked out of my car with only my camera and my wallet.

I had actually just begun my journey through the Dead Sea area, having rented a car in Tel Aviv and driven down intending to visit the ancient fortress of Masada, the Ein Gedi nature preserve and the main Dead Sea spa. I was driving through the West Bank when I reached the sea, and as soon as I saw it I couldn’t contain my excitement. I parked the car at the first spot I could enter the water and rushed in with reckless abandon. So when I realized my horrible error I was literally in the middle of nowhere, with no phone for miles, in the middle of the disputed West Bank territory, in searing 40 degree weather. It was not a good situation!

Madrid

I had an amazing time in Madrid this past weekend – my first visit to that city. After several weeks in cold, rainy Brussels it was a welcome respite. It also made me realize just how much I’m starting to miss being in a big city.

Madrid reminded me a lot of New York. With its grid street pattern of cement blocks, tall buildings, extensive and efficient metro and intense late-night nightlife, it was a bit like being back in the big apple. London is like New York in a lot of ways, but in those key areas I’ve listed above it is definitely not. So Madrid is probably the second most “like New York” city I’ve seen in Europe. The nightlife there is not only a lot of fun, but it’s also very relaxed and not as rigidly structured as the nightlife in London, where people go out very early and the rest of the evening has all sorts of rules about when things close. Comparing it to nightlife in Paris, it does have similar late-night hours, but I would definitely never describe Paris nightlife as being “relaxed”.

First week in Brussels

Well I made it to Brussels in one piece, and I’m halfway through my first working week here. The move went very smoothly, and the transition to being here full-time hasn’t been all that jarring considering I lived here for a month last year and have been coming to the office here about once a month over the past year. Still, it should be a very different experience living here than it was just working here.

Given that I moved my whole life in five suitcases via train (with the help of my saint of a boyfriend), it was almost eery how much this seemed like a non-event. I never felt very stressed about it, didn’t spend much time packing and generally didn’t think about the whole thing very much at all. I guess I really do have this moving thing down to a science now.

Moving to Brussels, Part 2

Well it’s official – I signed the lease for a studio apartment in the St. Catherine area of Brussels yesterday. Flat-hunting turned out to be relatively painless. I looked at some really nice places. It’s insane how cheap rent is in Brussels, if I had gone with an unfurnished apartment I could have gotten a really nice place that I could never afford in London or New York. But I decided to go with a furnished smaller place with a cheaper rent. There’s really no reason I need a big one-bedroom apartment, and I’d rather use that saved money to get out of Brussels frequently! And I was really not looking forward to the prospect of having to furnish a place, especially when I don’t know how long this little Brussels adventure will last.

This is, after all, essentially a trial. I’ll still be a UK employee on a temporary (one year) secondment in Brussels. Once that year is up (or possibly sooner) it will be time to decide how I like living in Brussels. I gave it a little test last year for a month, but spending the full year there will really let me see if it’s somewhere I can live comfortably.

London plans ‘USA Day'?? I'm out of here!

Well it’s been up in the air for awhile now but today it became official: my company is moving me to Brussels. I will be heading over there 1 March.

In the past year of doing this job covering the EU I’ve been living in London (where the company is based) and just going into Brussels when required. But someone in our Brussels office is leaving, so I need to be over there full-time now. I’m looking forward to it actually. Covering the EU from London has been a bit like trying to cover the US Congress from New York. You can do it (people do) but you can’t do it very well. Sure, you can hop on a Eurostar or Amtrak train to attend the key hearings, press conferences and events. But if you’re not immersed in the EU or DC bubble, you’re just not fully connected

Vienna - Back to the Start

It’s interesting visiting a city again after a ten year absence. I’m on a bunpy flight back to London at the moment, after a very nice few days in Vienna. I hadn’t been there since I went on a trip with my high school band in 1998. Vienna was actually the first city I had ever visited in Europe. Given that this city was my first ‘introduction’ to this continent, it was interesting to go back there now that I’ve lived in Europe several years and have travelled extensively through it. Needless to say, my impressions were far different this time around.

I don’t remember much about that first visit – actually the main impression I remember from it was of a city full of sex. I was just 17 at the time and I remember me and the other high schoolers being amazed when we turned on our TV the first night in the Vienna hotel and saw – get this – breasts! We couldn’t get over it, there were breasts on a main Vienna network! Then we looked out of our window and saw a real live prostitute – or at least a person who we convinced ourselves was a lady of the night. Exploring the city I remember us seeing a few scattered sex shops and thinking truly Vienna was some kind of throbbing sex-obsessed mecca.

It’s amusing to look back on because in reality, Austria is one of the most conservative countries in Europe, and Vienna is known as one of the continent’s more staid and prudish major cities. But to some band geek teenagers from conservative America, it seemed pretty wild!

During the year I lived in Prague in 2002 I kept meaning to take a train down to Vienna but I never made it, which was a shame because I was there studying Central European history. Much like Prague, Vienna is a city reflecting many different eras of European history, from the glory days as capital of the enormous Habsburg empire to its awkward cold war role as a supposedly neutral zone. Because if this Cold War confusion Austria has never really had a period of national soul-searching about its Nazi past, unlike Germany. It remains a staunchly conservative country with an especially hostile attitude toward foreigners. It maintains the toughest asylum rules in Europe and getting a visa to work there is notoriously difficult.

Vienna is a bit like Prague on steroids. It's jam-packed with massively intimidating counter-reformation architecture. But thought it may look like Prague architecturally, the vibe is very different. Miraculously spared the ravages of Soviet domination through sheer luck, Austria is a prosperous country that maintains the third highest GDP in the EU. Despite the fact that it was once part of the same country as its Central European neighbours to the North and East, Austria today bears much more resemblance to Switzerland than to Hungary or the Czech Republic. The two Alpine countries are both beautiful, efficient, prosperous and, above all, uncompromisingly conservative. Austria had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the EU in 1995, and public approval ratings of Brussels remain among the lowest in continental Europe. Obsessed with its Catholic Habsburg heritage, Austria is also one of the more religious countries in Europe.

Over the past few days I couldn’t help continuously comparing Vienna to Zurich, where my father lives. Though the ethos and culture may be very similar, of course the size of Vienna dwarfs that of Zurich, as does the monumental scale of its public buildings. Switzerland, after all, was never the centre of an empire. The Habsburgs left some monumental mementos from the days in which they ruled over nearly 70 million Europeans. It’s often been said that if Martians came to Earth, they would mistake Vienna as the capital of the world.

At the same time there were plenty of reminders of the Swiss mentality, particularly in all the Christmas markets around the city serving Gluhwine. It made me excited that I’ll be in Zurich next weekend for a Thanksgiving dinner at my dad’s house. Zurich at Christmastime is beautiful, and the gluhwine aint half bad either!

Over the weekend I was able to do the three main tourist attractions – the Belvedere, St. Stephan’s Dome, and the Hofburg. I reluctantly went to the exhibit about Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”) rather than the treasury, but actually I’m really glad I did. It was a fascinating exhibit about a monarch who, though legendary in Austria, I actually didn’t know that much about before. I did know quite a bit about her husband Emperor Franz Josef, and it was really interesting to see the state apartments where he conducted the business of the empire. You could see he was really consumed with the business of running the massive state. According to the tour he rose at 6am every morning and worked tirelessly until 10pm. Of course I took all this information with a dose of salt given the Austrians’ proclivity for glorifying the Habsburgs.

Perhaps the highlight of my trip though was just earlier today, when I stopped in to the crypt of the Kapuzieur Kirche, where all the Habsburgs were buried after 1633. The church itself is small and unassuming, but down in the crupt lies some absolutely massive tombs, including the largest containing the remains of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband. It’s a gigantic iron box mounted with angels and flourishes, and on top sit effigies of the imperial couple, who seem to be sitting on a bed embroiled in some kind of marital tiff. Further along are the tombs of Franz Josef and Sisi, along with their son Prince Rudolph, who died in the Mayerling suicide pact. Sisi’s tomb is decked out with the Hungarian flag and regalia, a testament to her sympathies for Hungarian independence (it is said it was she who finally convinced her husband to make Hungary a co-equal kingdom with Austria, creating the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

Of course it wasn’t all fun and games, I was in Vienna for work – attending a conference on upcoming changes to an EU law on biocides. The conference actually went pretty well, I’ve been covering the subject area for a bit so I felt comfortable talking with people there about it. This is in marked contrast to how I used to feel covering private equity conferences for my old job. It wasn’t a subject I was particularly interested in so it was hard to feign enthusiasm for it at the cocktail receptions. It’s so good to be covering politics again!

On my way to the airport today I also stopped at Donau City, Vienna’s version of London’s Canary Wharf or Paris’s La Defense. Like those two it was built in the 1970’s to form a business area outside the city centre where skyscrapers could be built with impugnity. However unlike the other two it doesn’t seem to have ever gotten off the ground. It was built around the United Nations Centre, which was constructed after Vienna was made the third seat of the UN in 1979. I have to say my heart goes out to anyone who has to work in this monstrosity, it is monumentally ugly. The whole complex just has giant grassy holes in it too. It looks like there were intended to be building sites but they never got around to it. The whole thing just looks rather small and unfinished, yet I didn’t see any construction activity going on there at all. Has Vienna just given up on its La Defense?

The trip out there at least provided an opportunity to actually see the Danube, Europe’s largest river. Oddly enough Vienna’s city centre is nowhere near the river, so it’s quite a hike to get over there. But ti was worth it to see these mighty waters flow south toward Bratislava, Budapest and Romania.

So all in all it was a good trip. I spent a near fortune though – museums in Vienna are not cheap. I’m looking forward to a few days at home back in London before Thanksgiving in Zurich next weekend.

Indulging in a Moment of Homesickness

Apologies for not having written in awhile, I’ve been away in the US – moving around between different locales so much I didn’t get any chance to write. It was a good visit “home” after having not left Europe for ten months – the longest I’ve ever gone without visiting the US.

I put “home” in quotes because at this point I’m not exactly sure where home is, and the slight disorientation I felt on this trip was a reminder of that. My family is now spread out all across the world, with my dad living in Switzerland and my youngest brother living in Australia, while my mom and my other brother are still in the US. While in Connecticut I stayed in the house in which I grew up, but it’s now empty and tenantless. While in New York I visited Roosevelt Island where I used to live, but I don’t know anyone who lives there any more. My friends kept talking about the new resurgence of witty sit-coms on American TV and I hadn’t even heard of any of them (though I did get to watch them – Glee, Modern Family, Cougar Town – they’re pretty good).

These days New York is feeling like a different city from the one I left. Times Square has been pedestrianised, the west side elevated train tracks have been converted into a park, and there are even bike paths criss-crossing Manhattan now! There were a lot of new things I had to check out. The Times Square refurb was pretty underwhelming, essentially it just looks like they’ve put a bunch of chairs in the middle of the road – not a very pleasant place to sit and eat lunch if you ask me. I was particularly amused by the fact that they’ve painted the pavement in the new pedestrian zone green in order to approximate grass. I appreciate the effort to try to make New York a little more pleasant – one of my biggest complaints about the city is that there’s nowhere to just sit and relax. But they way they’ve done it now just seems to highlight the fact that New York just isn’t a very pretty city. But it is just temporary, and hopefully if they decide to extend the scheme after the end of this year they’ll actually extend the raised sidewalk into the pedestrian area to really separate it from the road.

On the other hand Mayor Bloomberg’s other big effort at urban beautification, the new high line park on the west side rail tracks, was quite pretty. I just hope they really do follow through on extending it, because it’s quite short as it is now (just from 14th to 20th street). But my favourite part is that it provides some great views of the Hudson, which is nice because normally you never see the water in New York (my other big complaint about the city).

Autumn in New England

The second part of the trip was spent in New England, first visiting family in Connecticut and then attending my friend Sharyn’s wedding in Maine. Apparently it now snows in October in New England, it strangely did so twice while I was there. Though it was freezing up in Maine it was also very beautiful, fully demonstrating New England’s reputation for amazing fall foliage.

It was great to see so many old friends from high school and college and get updates on what everyone is up to. Of course every time I visit the US I’m always asked the same question – am I ever going to move back? Over time my answer has softened from a staunch “hell no!” to a more deliberative “I wouldn’t rule it out.” The reality is this: though I don’t see myself leaving Europe any time soon, I have no way of knowing if future circumstances might warrant a move back stateside. Certainly, the election of Barack Obama last November went some way in restoring my faith in my homeland – though the recent ugliness displayed in the healthcare debate has dulled that down to a realistic acceptance that America didn’t change overnight just because Obama was elected.

I usually tell people that I just don’t think I could go back to the US and give up the quality of life I’ve become accustomed to in Europe. I can’t imagine going from getting 30 days of vacation a year to 5 (EU legal minimum is 25 vacation days per year, 5 is how many I was allotted at my last US job). After getting hassle-free guaranteed medical care here, I can’t imagine going back to having to scrounge around for healthcare and then pay huge premiums once I have it. I can’t imagine being back in a culture obsessed with work and advancement, where cultural knowledge and intellectual curiosity is devalued in favour of wilful ignorance and celebrity worship. And I can’t imagine going back to watching a broadcast news media that has reached such epic levels of dysfunction.

The Trade-Off

But despite these downsides to US life, it would definitely be nice to move back to New York – to be back with my friends and family, to have a consistent and stable group of people to surround myself with, and to be able to once again make oblique pop culture references that people would understand! But unfortunately this is what you give up when you move abroad. It’s a trade-off, essentially. The reward is adventure and excitement – the satisfaction of challenging yourself in a new environment where you know no one. The sacrifice is that you give up the stability of life at home. I sometimes feel envious of people who have tight ‘cliques’ – small groups of friends who see each other all the time. Though I have a lot of acquaintances in London I have very few close friends – a reality driven home when I returned here after six months on the continent to find my London friends had pretty much forgotten my existence.

But would I give up everything I’ve experienced over the past three years in order to have that stability? Absolutely not. It may get lonely sometimes, this itinerant life, but the rewards make it worth it. For me at least. But I can also see the value of staying in one place your whole life. It may not be glamorous, but it’s a valuable thing to be able to be surrounded all the time by people who love you and will always be there for you. Living abroad, I have to be content with getting that in small doses when I visit my family and close friends.

But, it’s always a nice feeling when I’m able to do so.