Americans Abroad

What a horrid time to move to a new country! I moved overseas in July of 2019 and was only starting to find my way around when it all locked down. We bought a house and moved during the alpha spike and had to cope with movers, contractors and repair people.

I'd never lived in Europe and had little time to go through everything so I made a lot of mistakes. One serendipitous mistake was the movers tossed in my plastic ice cube trays. I got here three months before my container arrived and spent a really hot summer with ridiculous tiny ice cubes that melted as soon as I poured a drink, so I was thrilled when I unpacked my big fat American ice cube trays.

We brought our new Toyota Prius. It was less than a year old and we couldn't have gotten much back if we'd sold it, and buying a car in Europe was expensive. What was a really small car in Texas is a tank here. We lost the radio and maps functions but we knew that in advance, had to make a few changes to make it street legal here (like fog lights). It's currently having a bizarre issue that is apparently unique to US Toyotas so the mechanic spent a long time on the phone getting instructions on how to fix it. Hopefully it will work out OK but I'm still glad we brought it. I wouldn't ship a car if it wasn't that new, though; it just wouldn't be worth it.