12 Experiences I learned from moving to another country

Hello, my name is Rose. I was born and raised in Venezuela and, since I recognize myself as a person, I want to travel and experience other cultures. I knew that the outside world was very different from what I saw every day, so I made the decision to emigrate and look for new opportunities in my favorite city: Buenos Aires.

I share my personal experience with readers of awesome.club so they can see what I learned from a year living abroad.

Losing the structure of everything you know means thinking more about the future, because, even with all your papers in order, you don’t know how the political or economic decisions of the country you migrated to will affect you. In my case, I also had to learn to manage resources like water, gas and electricity, as excessive consumption could become an impossible expense to cover.

Fortunately, as in many cities around the world, Buenos Aires offers plenty of entertainment options for free or at very low cost, so running out of money is no excuse for staying indoors. Oh, and of course, buying on sale is a great way to stock up on clothes for the year.

When I lived in my country, I was a professional with many achievements in my field, but that soon stopped being important because I wasn’t living the life I wanted. When I emigrated, I had to leave this role, as it is not easy to enter the job market in Argentina. I decided to focus on my other skills and strengthen the ones that could give me more opportunities.

The beginning was difficult, but after a year I can say that I’ve been able to turn my career around and find that there are other things I really enjoy doing, even though I didn’t consider them from the beginning. The most important thing is to be willing to reinvent yourself and have a lot of patience to create a professional path in a new country, or be creative to create a project from scratch.

Spanish is one of the richest and most difficult languages. Every country in Latin America, except Brazil, has its variant, so it doesn’t matter if they speak the same language: you’ll have to learn new expressions or neutralize yours as much as possible to make yourself understood. In a year, my accent is still intact, but I ended up incorporating words that, many times, replaced the ones I brought from home.

However, at other times there are expressions from my country that are impossible to translate to local particularities, which becomes equally frustrating and fun.

What seemed insignificant in my home country became my Achilles heel in Argentina. The situation took me by surprise and the paperwork to legalize and stake the documents I left in my home country became a nightmare. To avoid unnecessary stress, prepare all in advance: diplomas, civil documents, medical examinations, etc.

When I arrived in this country, I knew only two people in real life. The others were emergency telephone contacts that a family member shared with me when he learned that I was coming to Argentina. These people, and then many others along the way, became incredible friendships and a new family, as well as the help I needed to understand the customs of my new home.

The desire to satisfy society’s or even family’s expectations can delay personal projects to the point that the person annuls himself. When I got here, I gave myself the opportunity to live at my own pace, to do the things I would never dare to do at home, but I also had to dedicate myself to maintaining my home, my health and my finances so that everything else worked.

Things that would have been irrelevant in my country acquired a new dimension in my new home: getting a job interview (even if they didn’t give me the job), buying new furniture or even obtaining a coveted document became special reasons that go building my history as a foreigner. Though it sounds cliché, I’ve become more grateful for the little things.

Getting used to a new climate is often part of the experience of living in another country. I left a city with a stable climate and perfect temperature for one with unpredictable changes. Before leaving the house, I should look up at the sky, check the forecast and pray that nature didn’t decide to make fun of the meteorologists that day. I’ve also learned to dress in layers, in case these changes surprise me on the street.

When I left my country, I only managed to bring a backpack, a handbag and a large one. My whole life would have to fit in them, so I had to deal with the clothes I brought and buy a few pieces on the way to cover everything I couldn’t pack. However, priorities have changed over time and I’d rather borrow some things than buy them to use them once and then have to carry them around.

No matter how planned the trip is, there can always be unforeseen events along the way that can interrupt the migration process. Any change is magnified by being in uncharted territory and in a vulnerable condition. It was these difficult times that forced me to improvise new strategies and be more flexible with the situation, something I might not have been able to do in the comfort of my own home.

I wanted to familiarize myself with my new country as quickly as possible and it came very naturally to me to exchange arepas for invoices and participate in rituals such as mate. Arriving at parties on time (and not two hours later, as in my country), singing “Happy Birthday” in a different (and much shorter) way, spending more time outdoors and walking a lot more than at home are just a few of the things I made part of my life here.

Hallacas: the main dish of Venezuelan Christmas

An immigrant becomes a person hybrid: it is impossible to be totally from one place or another. At first, I rejected my roots, but then I was preparing the typical Venezuelan Christmas dish to feel a little warm from home and also to share some of my traditions with my new friends. I think it’s normal that the first thing is to try to fit in to adapt and then the details that we miss from our home country will appear.

It’s a gift to find sweets from my country abroad

There are features of my country that I can appreciate now that I am at a distance and that I am grateful to have been part of my upbringing. It’s also nice to hear some well-known music and perhaps have the opportunity to experience some of my childhood pleasures again. But, in any case, it’s always good to have an open mind and gratefully accept the way of life of the country that received us.

Emigrating is a constant learning process, but it doesn’t have to be suffering. My experience was very positive and I believe that living in another country has given me a new perspective on the world and myself. Have you ever been through something similar? Did you find it difficult? Tell us in the comments.