My friend Megan (who is an amazing travel blogger and was actually the first one to encourage me to do this blog), just told me she's going to be doing the whole expat thing herself, moving to Hong Kong for six months with her husband! I love it because while my time is almost up, hers is about to begin. I like to think I'm passing the baton over to her.
So, I've been thinking what kind of advice I could give her or anyone else who's moving to another country. What is it that I wish someone would have told me? I came up with a few things and thought I'd share right here (hope these help you, M!)
1. Try to find an apartment before you move-- Because of our work schedules (and not really wanting to pay for an extra trip), Christopher and I just hopped on a plane with only a B&B reservation, thinking we'd magically find an apartment within a few days. That's how it works in NYC, at least. But the agents pretty much laughed in our face when we asked for something immediately. Turns out, the market here works a few months before move-in-date. Oops! Needless to say, it was the most stressful week of our lives. By some grace of god, we found a place and moved in seven days after we got to Oxford. If you absolutely can't make it to the place before you move like we did, my advice is to have a temporary housing backup plan for at least a month or two.
