So, this is your first time?

We decided we wanted to move overseas quite some time ago.  I can't remember if it was just before or just after Crystal and I got married, but either way, this move has been in the works for several years.  In fact, it was our marriage that interrupted Crystal's plans to move to South Korea. She had intended to continue her work on her Masters degree by teaching English as a second language there.  Then I popped the question and screwed the whole thing up, so I guess it was already decided that we would be moving. Perhaps I just didn't know it yet.

The company I work for contracts with an on-shore/off-shore software development firm that has an office here in Cluj-Napoca (It's pronounced Klooj Nah-Poka.  Most call it Cluj, for short).   About a year ago, I started sowing the seeds that it might be a good idea for me to travel to Cluj to meet the team who writes our software face to face.  I wanted to shake their hands and get to know them a little better, since I'm the one in charge of the whole software thing.  We got here in late June and stayed for about 10 days, arriving back home in Greensboro, NC on the fourth of July, just in time to watch the city's fireworks in the distance while we waited for a friend to take us home.  It was a fantastic trip and before we got on the plane for our return flight, I was making plans to pitch the idea of our moving here.

Needless to say, the pitch was successful and we arrived again in Cluj a just few days before Halloween. I'm still a bit amazed that we managed to pull it off.  We sold or gave away almost everything we owned including two cars, a whole bunch of furniture, and lots of kitchen stuff.  We rented an apartment here that we had looked at on a whim during our first trip, booked our flights, planned a really big going away party and a whirlwind trip to catch up with family and friends before we left, and, believe it or not, we got our two dogs certified as healthy by the USDA.  Yep, that's USDA Certified dog.  When you consider that Crystal and I both continued to work full time, I think you would agree that it was a pretty busy four months.

This is what happens when they do maintenance. Had the
notice been in English, we might have known.

So, all of that was before we got here.  It was all, relatively speaking, smooth sailing.  Despite the fact that much of what we were doing was new to us, we still had a pretty good idea of how it was done.  We knew how the systems worked (yard sale, banking, travel, lawyers, USDA!?!?) and we could use them pretty easily to make a bunch of big changes happen fairly quickly.  Since we arrived here though, things have changed a bit. We have had adventures, hangovers and surprises both good and bad.  We've tried new foods, new drinks, new ways of thinking, and tried to introduce a few new things of our own.  All the while, we've been flailing. Not wild, gangly, every-one-is-afraid-to-come-anywhere-near-us flailing, but that "Oh shit! This water is deeper than I thought it was" kind of flailing.  And I suppose that's what we'll keep doing.  At least for a while.

We are flailing expats.