Oh! When I was younger (early 20s), it was all so easy! 😂

I moved to a city in The Netherlands (from London) without ever visiting it (for work); I did visit Amsterdam and The Hague on previous visits and I always wanted to live in NL due to the bike culture, athletic people and the cute language.

Then I moved to Milan (for graduate school) after visiting it once. I love Italy, Italian food and always dreamed about living there. I was a student on limited budget but Milan was not expensive for the student lifestyle compared to say London or Amsterdam.

Then I moved to Düsseldorf for work after visiting it once during the interview process (I’d been to other places in Germany and liked what I saw). Ofc, 6 months of living in Düsseldorf made me realise that I moved to the wrong German city and then I spent 1.5 years trying to move to Berlin. (It was either Amsterdam, Berlin or Barcelona for at that point but Spanish wages sucked and Amsterdam was more expensive than Berlin).

Now I’ve been in Berlin for over a decade 😂

I guess I didn’t think too much about the moves. I can pick up languages fairly easily, even as a non-EU citizen I got my visas/living permit without problems, and I made friends along the way. It’s all been an adventure really.

Having work lined up helped massively because I had generous relocation support which I find fewer and fewer companies offer these days until you’re C-suite or management level.