New Country, New Lifestyle

I don’t know what I feel when people ask me the question if I am looking forward to leaving Doha.

” Do you feel excited? as I understand that it’s a month to go…” a friend of mine in the office asked me.

I gave him a blank look, as if I couldn’t understand what he was talking about, before I answered him.

“I don’t know really…, I feel like it was just a routine of packing and sorting out things…” The truth is I don’t know what I should feel; should I feel excited? or should I feel anxious? or should I feel skeptical…?

I was a bit excited at the beginning and that was 7 months ago, when I started packing for the trip and think of what to take in my traveling bag for our travels to the Indonesia, Australia and Sri Lanka for a couple of months. But then I was a bit overwhelmed of how much I had to pack and downsize into one travel bag only.

London here I come… or it’s Bristol?

We arrived in the UK after three months traveling, I felt the first thing I needed to do was to look for a job and settle down.  My thoughts were that if I was out of work for too long, it would be too hard for me to catch up with the technology in the working force as well as people might forget about me. But it turns out to settle down in a new country was not that easy. Life as a trailing spouse in a new country obviously not as easy as life as an expat. Living as an expat, everything was organized by the company, instead of having to do all the paper work myself.

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Waterfront city life, is this it?

We were lucky that the first day we arrived was just to pick up the key to our apartment in the middle of Bristol City from the housing agent and then go shopping  for bed sheets and warm clothes instead of shopping for furniture and having to sleep on the floor for the first few weeks. The apartment was fully furnished and ready for us to live in. But then there is the question whether this is our last destination or we wanted to live somewhere else not in an apartment?…. and not in the City?

I must admit, that having lived in an apartment in the heart of a city for the last 20 years made me question about whether I want to live in an apartment for the rest of my life, and whether Bristol is our last destination before… we downsize? or go to a retirement home? or I worry too much for nothing?

Entering UK at the beginning of winter, I was greeted by a rainbow, something new from winter in the desert

There is this question that whether this is our last destination or we want to live somewhere else?

But then, a new country means a new experience, as well as re-living in a  ‘normal’ country.  Qatar was more of a city country rather than a country with many cities. Which means I don’t have to live in a city all the time as in the UK there are options of living in a smaller towns or even in a village without being out of touch with the rest of the world and it would be a new experience for me.

I guess this is the question for somebody who has too many options, or for somebody who has been in too many places and experienced too many things, or even somebody who doesn’t know what she wants … like me. But one thing I knew was that I could not imagine how we could live our life if we were still on the road; so I am so glad that we have a permanent base where we can keep our belongings and to change our bedsheets or even re arrange the interior layout of the living room before we are off again somewhere, either for a day trip out of town or exploring Europe like l never had before….