Episode Description:
In this episode, Aimee and Rebecca explore the challenges and opportunities of living abroad, from navigating bureaucratic hurdles to cultural adjustments. They chat about everything from the intricacies of shutting down a business and navigating visa uncertainties to grocery shopping experiences and adapting to metric measurements. Aimee struggles with the discrepancies in serving sizes between Spain and the United States looking at the differences in portion sizes, protein focus, and the prevalence of pork in Spain, offering insights into the culinary landscape of her new home. But that's not all! They also dive into each woman's expectations about how she will make adjustments in her new homeland while still being attached to the former - it's a wide-ranging candid convo about the practicalities of expatriate life.
Where to find Aimee:
Where to find Rebecca:
Episode Description:
In this episode, Aimee and Rebecca explore the challenges and opportunities of living abroad, from navigating bureaucratic hurdles to cultural adjustments. They chat about everything from the intricacies of shutting down a business and navigating visa uncertainties to grocery shopping experiences and adapting to metric measurements. Aimee struggles with the discrepancies in serving sizes between Spain and the United States looking at the differences in portion sizes, protein focus, and the prevalence of pork in Spain, offering insights into the culinary landscape of her new home. But that's not all! They also dive into each woman's expectations about how she will make adjustments in her new homeland while still being attached to the former - it's a wide-ranging candid convo about the practicalities of expatriate life.
Where to find Aimee:
Where to find Rebecca:
Hi! Anjoula! Bon dia! So, um, I, I don't have a lot to share, but I can share the randomness in my head. Please share the randomness in your head. I'm also really curious about the, the business visa stuff that you've learned Oh, I haven't learned a ton, but as you know, I was disappointed to figure out that I wouldn't be hiring that one gal because she never sent me a proposal. Right. She never got back to you? No. And it's, it's really interesting because of course, part of this is I'm trying to develop my future business plans. And some of the times when I'm teaching my, my coaching clients, we're talking about client follow up and how do you follow through and everything. Yeah. Cause for all I know, she did send me something and there was a tech glitch, like, I don't know. But the thing I know about this particular service that I'm hiring for is I can't be chasing the service provider. Like the whole point is that I'm asking for help on something I can't do myself. Yes. So if the very first thing is I'm chasing you down, I can't, doesn't make me feel good. And if I have sent something to a potential client and I am the one. Like, I'm the one who has the most to, you know, in relatively speaking the most to gain from, you know, completing this deal. Right. I would be inquiring and I sent this to you last week. I just wanted to make sure you got it. And that was always our way of doing it. It's seriously happy homes. Like as soon as you send it, cause we don't like phone calls. We don't like meetings. So we relied on email, meaning you had to trust the email system. So we would send it. And then about a week later, we would say, Hey, just making sure you got this. We'll give you a call in two or three days. If we don't hear back, not because we wanted to call people, because we didn't either, but because that was our way of saying, If you've seen this, you need to let us know. Right. So anyway, I'm obviously not hiring this gal, but I did just get the name of a lawyer that I feel really good about because having posted on like 18 expat forum groups, I'm getting a hundred different answers, but it seems like, well, let me say it this way. There's the gal from who's. I don't know. Everybody's so international. She's Estonian, but she worked in Finland as a designer for 10 years. And now she's trying to move to Paris. She was giving me some business advice. Um, and she was saying, it sounds like you don't need to start a business in France. Cause my, my whole thing has been, do I need to have French clients or can I just have my American clients? Right. She's like, it doesn't sound like you're trying to set up a business in France that you'll then just have to dismantle in two years. She said, could you be a, a branch of your American company? And there's been a couple of different ways that has been described. So what I need is somebody who knows what they're talking about, but I can hand my money to in exchange for some answers. And I'm hoping that this lawyer that I was recently referred to will be that person. Nice. It's just so many. It's so many unknowns. Yeah. And nobody has straightforward answers and I wasn't nobody on Facebook does nobody on Facebook does hopefully where you go to find humans. How did you find your lawyer when you were going through your process? I found my lawyer. My lawyer was a referral from someone who is, um, we YouTube videos. But he, he posts a lot of, it's James Blick, Spain Revealed, and he posts a lot of YouTube videos on different things to do in Spain, you know, tapas crawls in Madrid or Barcelona, and, you know, different regions, essentially for tourists. And then that molded that, he's, he's a Kiwi, uh, married to a Spaniard. But his YouTube channel became very popular. Um, I think during the pandemic is when it really took off because people were daydreaming at home on their couch, right? Yes. and that then morphed into, we want to move to Spain, James, how do we do it? So he's created this whole move to Spain masterclass, which I ended up taking because just The couple of questions that I had him were so helpful, um, and he was so responsive and, and just really, really helpful. so I was like, okay, I'm going to take his master class because there's probably things, you know, that even though, you know, the master class was two months before we left. And this move to Spain master class that he does a couple of times a year is essentially. start to finish, how to determine what visa you need, different regions in Spain, pros and cons of this, that, and the other, legal requirement, like what are your rights as a renter? What do you want to do if you buy property? Um, but it's, yeah, it's fantastic. It's taxes, Etc. Like lots and lots of stuff. And so he has this network of people that he's, you know, gotten to know over the last 12 years as he's been a foreigner living in Spain, who started a business, right? And, most of, you know, by the time I took the master class, most of what I needed to know had already been uncovered, as far as the immigration process. But in terms of, knowing my rights as a renter, knowing, what to look for, um, it just, it gave me a lot more confidence in that area. And it, it's been indispensable, you know, it's just been so, so helpful. To structure. Was it like one of those pre recorded self studies? Was it group classes? Um, pre recorded classes dripped out every week. And then once a week, a meetup, a Google meetup to, discuss, any questions that you had about the week's lesson. And then if there were occasionally expert interviews as well. Yeah. With like relocation agents. you know, tax accountants. Yeah. My, our lawyer actually was, was on one time as well. I think going back to speaking about being business owners though, because the gal that I'm not hiring has also done such a great job. She has this whole Facebook group that she, you know, it's very, a flourishing Facebook group and she has a book. We read the book cover to cover and it's frustrating because she is a wealth of information and instead of have somebody. Drop the ball from a business perspective when you feel like, okay, I found my person and they have so much knowledge. And it's so funny because. You know, I'm usually on the side of people going, I can't get clients. How do I find clients? And it's like, well, you need to post on social consistently or whatever your marketing plan is. Be consistent, show up, show people that you're an expert. So usually people are having trouble showing up and showing their expertise. And here I'm in a situation where somebody took the ball all the way right there to the touchdown line, but didn't quite cross over. Yeah, there's something, there's something going on there. Cause it's like you did all, you did the hard part. Right. I'm standing here with a fist full of money wanting to hand it to you. Is she French or is she? American. She is American. Okay. So no excuse about a different culture or anything. Right, right. So I don't know, there must be something going on with her life or she's having a change in what she wants to do in her career and isn't. And sometimes transparent enough with herself and we over stretch ourselves higher in time. There's all kinds of things that could be going on. None of which I have my responsibility as the client. Yes, yes, exactly. But thank goodness she didn't follow through and then drop the ball after you paid her. If that's what she's like, I'd rather know up front. Yeah. Absolutely. And it sounds like you were getting hints of that from other people. Not until, really not until afterwards and when I was doing the research. Yeah. To say, you know, is this just me or is this person flaky? And then I found some other reviews that were similar. I was like, okay, so she's hot or cold. It's inconsistent, inconsistent for a immigration. But speaking of where you're living, I hear you had a rain shower. It was amazing. So amazing. Yes. It was so great. It was the best thing ever. Well, compare it to Pacific Northwest rain. How did it smell? What was the, um, power of the downpour? How long did it last? Tell me everything. The, yeah, so even when it drizzles here, the drops are heavier and more powerful, right? So you don't, you know, there's no misting. If, if it's a drizzle, it's like intermittent little splats of, you know. Like turning on and off the shower. It's just like big. Um, no, no, not like that. Not like that is that each each raindrop seems to hold a lot of rain. It's just it's it's fatter. It's heavier. Okay, you feel it land on you in a different way than a Pacific Northwest rain. It makes me wonder so much about the science of that, like, are there tiny particles in the air? Like, I don't know. Or maybe it's just that because there's been no. rain that I've experienced in over two months. My perception is skewed. So, so even when it's, when it's, I hesitate to even call it a drizzle because a drizzle, a drizzle suggests a lightness that doesn't, doesn't feel like it, it doesn't feel right, like the right word because the drops are heavy. They're just not many of them, so it'll be a light rain or just kind of a, Smattering of rain here and there. Um, but then, you know, at the, at the end of my run, because I went out in the morning, I was like, oh, my gosh, it's, it's under 70 degrees. I, it's almost almost in the 50s. I got to go out and try this. That sounds amazing. And it was. And the rain became more, you know, became heavier towards the end of my run and it was, it's a solid rain, you know, I wouldn't call it like an East Coast, New York City downpour. It wasn't like that, but those do absolutely happen here. but it was a good, it was a rain that meant business. And I think, I think the forecast that day was an inch, an inch of rain over the course of the day. Yeah. It was quite a bit. And it was, you know, it would come and go, come and go, come and go throughout the day. So between showers, does it really dry out, um, or does it stay kind of damp and humid? I mean, if I don't know how yesterday is compared to anything else, right, but yeah, yeah, there was only, there was not enough time for it to dry out before it started raining again. And it never became warm enough either because the cloud cover stayed. So, so the clouds weren't like intermittent, there weren't sunbreaks or anything like that. It was overcast and cool the whole day, which was fantastic. It didn't get above 72 degrees. I think it was. It's like a good 20 degrees colder than it had been, so I would say it's probably been about 35 to 37 degrees Celsius. And then, I mean, last week it got up to 40, it was hot. It was hot. It's about 104, 103, 104 degrees. Yeah. So my guess is that it was probably yesterday. It was probably maybe somewhere between 18 and 20 degrees Celsius. Yeah, speaking of the metric system, and you are a nutritionist and you measure things for food. Yes, yes, I do. How has it been converting to metric or what's your experience. That's been really easy for me Because I started, because grams are used in nutrition as well, so, so that's been relatively easy on the nutrition end of things. The thing that is the, the most challenging adjustment for me to adapt to is how small the portions are. Um, the protein portions specifically, although the vegetable portions are pretty, pretty paltry as well. But, but when you, you know, when you go to a grocery store and you buy a cabbage, a cabbage is a cabbage, right? But here, when you go and you buy a package of meat, you know, in the States, it's generally like three quarters of a pound to a pound and a half per package, A package of meat might be a quarter to a fourth of a kilogram, which is around half to three quarters of a pound per package. So for the first, you know, You know, a few weeks, we'd be like, all right, let's get a package of steak, let's get a package of pork chops, and we come home and it's like, this isn't, this isn't anything. This is not, this is not enough. And packages of deli slices, in the States, they're, they run about six ounces. And six ounces is roughly 170 grams. Here, they're sold in 80 to 100 gram packages. So even a package of lunch meat is half the quantity of what I'm accustomed to in the States. And because of, because of my athletic needs and we're, you know, just because of my personal needs, my protein intake is a little bit higher. And so I'm perpetually shortchanged because. the pork chops here are so skinny that I need to eat three pork chops and I'm not used to that. And there's only five in the container. Um, you know, I have so many questions. So first one is like, is it because the animals are grown smaller and like without all the antibiotics and growth hormones? Question number two is, are you finding that it's sold in smaller quantities But at the same price, like are your grocery bills higher? And third is how is it packaged? Cause I'm super curious about how everything is just as encased in plastic as it is here in the United States or not. Like what's the shopping actual experience. So go. Okay. All right. regarding packaging depends on where you go. If you go to a supermarket, it's going to be very similar to the States. There will be more plastic. Things aren't as fresh, right? Um, on my way home today, I stopped at a butcher and I asked them if they had any livers and they had some chicken livers. And I wanted, I wanted about a pound of livers. I asked for 500 grams of liver and they were like, Oh, we don't, we don't have that much. Maybe not till tomorrow. And I was like, okay, well how about 300 grams? And she's like, okay, we can do that. And they go in the back, they pull out five whole chickens, slice them and cut the liver and give me 300. I'm like, yeah. It was, and I was like, that's some fresh shit. And they put it in a little baggie for me and boom, um, it's like I've never, that's a, I'm so excited. I do not. Yes, they have been de feathered, they have been de feathered, and they have been killed prior to being gutted. Didn't occur to me to ask that question, dark human. So, you know, I don't like liver, it took me five years to teach myself to tolerate liver. And, uh, my plans for this chicken liver was to, puree it, basically, and then mix it in with, with ground pork and, and ground beef to disguise it. But knowing that it's this fresh, like those chickens were probably killed yesterday, right? Um, I might pan fry it and see if I can actually eat it. Fresh food tastes completely different. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if I could eat, like if I could eat straight liver, it would be so much easier to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish with liver. So what about the size of the animals? Do you see a difference in that regard? And then what I haven't, I haven't seen the farms that I run by. I don't see animals out on them. They are vegetable farms. I can smell cattle. Um, And I don't know if that's manure that they're using as fertilizer on the vegetable farms or if there are cattle that are just out of sight that I'm catching on the wind. So I haven't seen what the animals here look like. But like when you look at like the pork chops you're being sold. Yeah, the pork chops. Normal size, just not sold as basically a quantity. I think, I think what it, what it comes down to is that the nutrition recommendations here are, are even less protein focused than in the States. So a pork chop here is, I mean, I'm a five foot two female, right? I'm not a particularly, big person. Um, but the pork chops here are about the size of my palm. And in the States, we're taught a serving of meat is about the size of your palm. and that is, that is, if you take width into account in the States, it's going to be about three ounces or close to 90 grams. But here, when I measure a pork chop, a pork chop is like 50 grams. So they're, they are not, I don't, I don't know, you know, I haven't studied the, the, the history of nutrition here and where their ideas, where their ideas about proper nutrition come from, but I do have a different sense of how incredibly outlandish it must be for someone in Europe, um, or in the Mediterranean to go to someplace like the U S. and see a steak as big as your face. When these like puny little pork cutlets is what they're accustomed to. Um, so yeah, I just, I, and I, I don't know. You know, when I think about the history of Spain and, and the poverty that was prevalent here not too long ago and waves of it, you know, waves of struggle over the last 100, 150 years, it may simply be the lack of, um, history of abundance. And we haven't had a lack of abundance really, you know, in terms of material things in the States since the depression. That's true. It does surprise me though, because when I think of Spain and, and, okay, so obviously Spain is a relatively big country. You're on the far West side, East, you're the sea near France. Right. Um, so obviously there's, I'm sure a lot of regional differences, but when I think of Spain and Portugal, so obviously I am biased towards the East side. I think of meat as a dominant part of the diet. I'm really surprised to hear you say this. Do you think that this is a Spanish thing or a regional to the Barcelona, Girona kind of neck area where you are? I'm too ignorant to tell you, I, yeah, things I have to find out cause we haven't done a lot of travel yet within the country. We're still, you know, orienting ourselves. Um, and it's just too bloody hot to go down to Sevilla or, or Andalusia or anything like that. Like, I'm just like, that's not happening. not until winter. Yeah, why go now when it's so hot? You can wait. Right, when it's hot and full of tourists, why would I do that to myself? So, so I definitely like, I definitely want to check the, the seafood heavy regions in the south in the winter. Um, it's, it's very starch heavy here as well. And, I almost wonder if the focus or the, this idea of Spain being meat heavy comes from how prevalent pork is. And the prevalence of pork is high. Pork is it's everywhere, it's consumed often, um, but not in great quantity. And if I'm dining out and I want to have sufficient protein, the really, if the only choice I have on the menu that's going to get me close is in what's called an intercut or, or essentially a steak dinner. Yeah. And I'll get a cut of steak that'll be, you know, 180 to 200 grams. And I'm like, okay, that's, now I don't have to worry about my protein for this meal. So then, are you, like, you go out for a steak dinner in the United States versus where you are, price point wise, is it about the same amount of money, relatively speaking? No, it's far cheaper. It is. It's far cheaper. Yeah. So, would you say that for the same amount of protein, you're paying less money, it's just you're having trouble getting your hands on enough protein? Exactly. Yeah. So what else is there to report in the land of Spain? We are, you know, we're still dealing with the insecurities about how to, how do you live here, What do we do about Amazon? How do Amazon shipments arrive? What happens if we're not here? Have you gotten any answers? Um, you know, I've seen mixed things, Some, some people, like you can leave it with a neighbor if you're not around and you can leave instructions. Um, But that requires having a neighbor who's going to be around. Yes, I think we have the solution to that. Amazon Prime does not transfer between nations. At least it doesn't transfer from the Americas to Europe. So, we're Meaning that an Amazon Prime account is useless living there? No, they do have Amazon Prime here. However, My Amazon Prime account in the States, I just can't Use that here. Hmm. I have different different goods that you have access to I have to transfer my Amazon Prime to Spain which will cause me to lose the Kindle Unlimited and the other some of the other things and The money that I have from returns that I made stays in the US. I can't take that with me Oh, how interesting. Yes. And so, I don't want to do that because we'll be going back to the States to visit, and I plan on using Amazon to purchase some things, and I'd really like to use the money that is sitting there, so that I don't have to pay for it. Um, So I'm not inclined to do that, but then if you open up another Amazon account, then you're paying double and prime fees and that's dumb. I have been thinking a lot about the double cost of being an expat, you know, like my phone. I have no idea what I'm gonna do about my U. S. number versus having a French number because I know having a French number is going to be very important for Do you have two SIM slots in your phone? I Oh, I haven't, this is, I haven't even started the research on this yet. Okay, this is, this is, yeah, this is pretty easy to solve. But the, but my, the main thing is like, you know, there's, it's almost like security blankets, like how many US things do I hold on to simply because they're familiar, comfortable or easier, but therefore I'm paying a secondary price. Like what's the value of my, my bankies, my comfy bankies. My emotional bankies, I guess that's what these are. So what do you think you're going to do? No idea yet, I'm assuming. With the Amazon? Yeah, I don't, I don't, I'm not sure yet. I'm not sure yet. Yeah, we might just pony up and do a second account. But it's, it makes me angry because Amazon already has too much money. I feel like the first year of being an expat just costs extra money because you don't have all the answers. And so you don't want to be throwing extra resources at it. And I imagine most of us don't have a clean, hard break from where we've come from, right? And so there are things like, you know, storage unit fees and mail forwarding fees and, you know, things that you don't probably, you probably won't have forever. Yeah. But when do you cut the cord for each? Right, right. And I suspect that varies from, you know, a case by case. It's also really interesting. One of the things I've been discovering is the state that you live in can have an effect on how easy it is to emigrate. Oh, because of the consulate? Well, consulate being one of it. The thing I was thinking about is there are. Certain states where you can transfer your driver's license. So apparently being a Washington state residence, my driver's license will not transfer in France. If I was on a student visa, my driver's license would continue to work, but being on a work visa, it'll work for one year. And then after that, I'll have to go through the French system, just like a teenager would to get my driver's license. Assuming I want one, because we're going to be living in Paris, so I'm not that worried about it. Yeah. But apparently, I guess, maybe Florida, there are certain states that if you're from, they do have a transfer agreement. So I know, right? So on top of everything else, it's not just my country, USA versus France questions. It's also which state within my country am I coming from? And that will also affect some of the answers. I wonder what Florida does differently that makes it okay there, or if it's simply just a handshake behind a closed door. Exactly. Was it some political moment at some point? Fascinating. I mean, the French have a long history on the east coast. Of course. Yeah, of course. No idea. Wild. I know. I didn't, I didn't realize how complicated doing this was going to be from a, there are no straightforward answers perspective. It didn't. Yeah. Yeah. I received enough warning about Spain and Spanish bureaucracy to know that it was going to be. Well, I had a sense that the bureaucracy would be frustrating, but I didn't think that the answers would be so mushy. Like, because I'm an excellent rule follower. You give me rules. I don't care how complicated they are. I'll follow them, but that's just not how this works. And you're, I feel like, I feel like this is going to be so good for you, Rebecca. Yeah. Big eye roll. But yes, I was saying just last night. Well, first of all, today's a fun day because I've loaded up a big carload of goodwill. I'm taking my Yay. Big loads away. But, um, oh, shoot. What was I about to say? Oh, yeah. I know you can't, like, run away from yourself, right? We can't run away from our problems or our own personalities. But when we were in France for those three months learning French, our lifestyles changed dramatically simply because it's just It's physically set up different. We weren't driving. So we were walking everywhere, for example, and the food simply is fresher. So therefore we're getting nutrients, like two things that we didn't have to work for in order to have it shift. So what I was saying last night was I really hoping, despite my workaholic American driven personality, that this move. Helps me adapt the lifestyle. I want to adapt. And I, I get nervous because I know we can't run away from our problems. I'm like, well, Rebecca, if you wanted this badly enough, you would set it up in your own home here in Seattle, but it feels impossible to, because we're such a car focused society, always being told to eat junk food and healthy food is hard to access without a lot of work. So like, I know I've got my own problems. But I do feel like this move is going to make it easier to adapt the lifestyle I'm wanting. You know how in different relationships with different people, different aspects of your personality come through, and it doesn't mean that the other aspects change or don't exist because you're with this person or that person, right? I, I see countries and how we relate with countries or cities or places very much like how we relate with people. You know, we left the States because that marriage was not working. We're taking a break. We're dating Spain at the moment. And that's all we can do at first because absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, you know, I'm not a, Actually, I can't say that I'm not a let's get married on a first date kind of person. That's how, that's how my relationship with, uh, with Shane ended up, but, um, you know, so, so it's the point of the analogy being there are aspects of your personality that have been latent because of your location that will have an opportunity to shine because the environment will be different and it will inspire and foster that within you. So, I do not think it will be as hard for you to do those things in France as it is here because one, you're in an environment, physically in an environment that supports doing that over having a car. Two, you will be living in a culture that will look down its long Aryan nose at you for behaving like an overworked, strung out American. And it will, you will not get the kudos, you will not get the girl boss high fives. And I believe I know you well enough to know that you are influenced enough by what people think that you will be less driven to behave in the ways that give you the gold star here. Because they will not give you, they'll give you the black X over there. I love what you're describing though, because it's not necessarily a healthy response because I'm still being triggered by what other people think of me. But the end result is a healthier me. So winning? Yeah, what you're doing, what you're doing is you are taking advantage of an innate characteristic that you have and using it to work in your best interest. Yeah. Rather than not. Well, that's all when I work with people in their homes, I always am talking about like, let's work with the habits you have in your family. Let's not try and wishful think our way into a solution. Precisely survive like shoe cubbies. Are your kids truly going to put all those shoes in those tiny, perfect little cubbies? Like let's not create a nightmare that doesn't have to exist. And like, I will not stop being a person who you put a giant flat screen TV in front of my face and I will binge watch everything on Netflix. Mm hmm. But if the environment points at other options, You know, it's, it's all about habits and then how easy it is, is it to have the habit you want to have versus how hard is it to have the habit? I think that if I were, um, like just the wife of somebody who got a job in France and I'm like, Oh, I guess we're moving. And I hadn't done all of this work thinking about the lifestyle I want to have there. And it was being forced on me. Then I think I'd be more worried because I think I'd be fighting against the new French lifestyle. I really want this experiment. I really want to live differently. And so I think that I hope that that's setting me up for success in a way that I wouldn't have, if I didn't know that the culture was going to be so different. Once I moved, does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I'm not worried about you. I think the only thing that could potentially put you back into a state of overwork would be boredom. And I do worry a little bit about my husband having his school and being so busy with that. Cause we have no idea how much it takes over your life. There's classes, then there's labs and there's homework and then there's your social groups. So I do worry a little bit about that. Um, you know, I stopped down to Spain for a visit if you want, or we can meet somewhere for girls weekend and it's, there's nothing to worry about yet because there's no evidence pointing one way or the other. We have a very good relationship. We're doing this together. It's more, I want to keep, call it an awareness to make sure that I'm keeping an eye that he and I are building a life together rather than separately, rather than maybe a worry. Yeah. Yeah. Bye. Yeah, I have the thought I have a thought a few weeks ago that this is this is it is an opportunity to reinvent yourself. It's an opportunity to focus on becoming the kind of person that you want to be because there's not going, you know, aside from our family members, there's not anybody in our environment and Who has an expectation for us to be anything, right? And so, and this is something that I'm really struggling to remember because I want to, I want to show up here more extroverted, more, more like instead of assuming, don't, I'm the foreigner. I don't fit in. I don't know the language. They'll look poorly upon me for not knowing Katala. All right. I want to show up as someone who feels like they already belong and engages with people, not in an apologetic, timid way, but in a Open hearted, gregarious, like, Hey, forgive me for being stupid, but you know, like, like more, more engaging rather than like almost retreating. Right. And I catch myself being very timid. and mumbling my words. And that's not how I want to show up here. And that's my default. So, so it's a, it's a, I forget every time I step outside. And currently I remember when I am back in the house after the fact. So it's, it's a practice, but, but yeah, this is an amazing opportunity to decide, you know, we've made the decision of where we're going to live. And We also have an opportunity to make a decision about who we're going to be in this place we're going to live. It reminds me so much of growing up in the military because one of the things I loved about it was every time you move, you get to decide who you are. Um, and. Um, I grew up with two brothers, I have three brothers and one of them changed his name as often as I did. Um, he actually went to his middle name for at least one round of where we were living. And I would, I wouldn't change my name completely. Um, although I had one experience that I told people to call me Marigold, which was adorable, but mostly it was a Becca and now I'm a Becky and now I'm a Rebecca and all of these different ways of trying on different ways of being. Yeah. Yeah. I loved that. And I love that that is going to come back to me because I've lived in Washington now. I can't math because the math numbers can't possibly be right. I'm not that old. Yeah, because 45 minus 15 apparently is 30. And I'm still going, nope, that math can't possibly be right. It's a whole generation, honey. It's a whole generation. Yeah. I'm kind of circling back to the, to my childhood when I got the opportunity to reinvent myself. And I am looking forward to that. I really am. Yeah. Have you spent any time really like fleshing that out and? Getting a clear sense of that persona that you're gonna step into and create not shaped the way you just described it because I really hadn't thought about it until you just brought it up, but I've been noticing that as I've been watching movies and TV shows lately that the female characters that I really resonate with are like, like, um. of a Molly Brown from Titanic. Yes. Yep. These women who are unapologetic. And not just unapologetic, but they offer. Very few explanations. So, and I can't think of any examples off the top of my head. But you have a situation where somebody could be like, Why did you do that to a woman character? And she just goes. You don't need to know. I don't owe you answers, I've spent so much of my life. Like preemptively explaining myself so that everybody is happy. And then preemptively apologizing just to soften things. And it has worked very well for me. I'm very good at this skill, but it's exhausting to constantly be managing the feelings of other people that I have no control over. And so when I, when I think about reinventing myself, I would want to show up in the world as a woman, who's a lot more self assured On the inside, not just on the outside, because people who meet me already see me this way a lot of the time. So self assured, unapologetic, no explanations, that I just allow myself to exist and make decisions without having to defend them. I love it. It's a big ask. I feel, I feel like France could totally support that. I think so. You know, I get this, like, I just, my, my perception of the French based on deeply limited experience would be like, they wouldn't, they wouldn't make the demand of you, right? They wouldn't make the demand of you as a woman to explain yourself the way that we've experienced here in the States. It also helps that you're, when you're speaking in a foreign language, there's no nuance. There's no response, there's no humor, there's no anything. Because you talk like a second grader. Exactly! But it kind of gets you off the hook for a while because you're back to the fundamentals of can I have cookie? Need cookie. Why? Need cookie. I love it. I love it. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts from expats. What are some of your favorites right now? Hmm. I've been returning to one that I was actually a guest on, ages ago as an interior designer we were talking about when you move, how do you set up a home for yourself, and you grow up growing up in the military and then living in Nicaragua with the Peace Corps I definitely had. Not just opinions. I had lived experience, but now that I am expatting myself to Europe, I'm listening with an entirely different year. So this podcast is called the bittersweet life. And it was an old classmate of mine from high school. And her dear friend, they went and lived in Rome. Uh, her dear, her friend had lived there for 10 years when they started the podcast. So we had somebody brand new to living in Rome and somebody who had really transplanted themselves completely and had married. I believe an Italian guy. So it's conversations between the two of them about homesickness and how we use language and what the holidays feel like in Italy versus in the U S. And it's just been a really fun thing for me to visit and go and remember that because the gal that moved there and has lived there for 10 years already, she said her first year there was miserable, like truly miserable, but she stuck it out. So I like listening to these stories. Why do people stay? What do they go through? How do they overcome it? Well, how do they build a support structure that makes Europe home when it's not? It's not home. Yeah. Yeah. The list of podcasts you're listening to needs to go in show notes. It's an excellent idea. Yeah. Because I can't think of the names of the other ones off the top of my head, but I will. Okay. Great. Let's go ahead and wrap this up. Yes. And, um, I want to figure out because, uh, time differences 6 a. m. Monday morning is apparently not working for Rebecca. No, no, we'll have to figure that out. I do. I mean, this is five with five minutes to spare. I, I have an off the record question that's been bothering me for a couple months now, um, that I wanted to ask you. Off the record, the last time I saw you and Damien, you had hinted about, about like there was some strain or stress or something going on with the two of you. And there was, there was a lot of emotion in your voice. So like, are you okay? What's going on? Is everything okay? Right now everything is definitely okay. I had, I had a pretty bumpy patch two to four weeks ago. So aligned with our conversations, I would say that's coming out of it at our last conversation. Um, yeah, that was, that was a rough few weeks and I don't know what set it off, honestly. Um, I think it's, this is, Hmm, I'm trying to come to terms with who I am and I seem to be a roller coaster person. I, you know, my mom and I've talked about it a lot. Like am I bipolar? Both of us think that I'm not, but that if everything's a spectrum that I'm on the non medicated end of that. Mm hmm. Because nothing, truly nothing set me off, but I was in a very dark, very sad place. Um, it's helping like knowing that the company is wrapping up this week is huge. I've just been juggling so many things with so little control and so few answers, which is not a comfortable place for me. And then, you know, Damien's navigating this business relationship with Joe, who's a college friend from me. And I am wife of business partnership. And so we've had to navigate some things around that, like what can be asked of me and what my, where my boundaries are. So just, you know, just a lot, but things are actually really good. And weirdly taking this first load to Goodwill is a really, it's a profound little milestone moment where I'm letting go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for asking. Yeah. It's been like, ever since we had brunch with you guys, I've been like, I need to ask her about that. And I keep forgetting. And then I see the recording button and I'm like, I don't know that I want to bring that up right now. Cause I don't know what the answer is going to be. No, it's, everything's actually been really good, good, good, good. It's all about me. Getting more okay with myself and who I am because Damien's fine with who I am. I'm sometimes that's hard to accept though. Yeah, myself. Like I know it. No hard to accept that your partner is okay with who you are. Yeah, exactly. And I think that that's in fact, what the big challenge is, is trusting his words. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you feel about Shane, but I look at Damien and just shake my head in disbelief. I'm like, how did I? Exactly. Yes, precisely, and therefore frequently I'm like, he's gonna leave me, why would he stay with this hot mess, which is not a healthy thing to keep injecting to your relationship. No, no, no, nothing good comes of that nothing good has ever come from that. Watch all the movies and remember. Continuing to grow up as a human, right? Yep, yep. I do not envy the place that you are in right now with all of the unknowns and trying to figure things out and now going through the purge process. I don't. You remember it well? I'm getting distance from it and so it doesn't feel as like crazy town, but bad dream that sort of must have happened, but yeah, it's hazy. It's hazy. I think I've got a little bit of, uh, repression happening. Well, I have a meeting starting in one minute. I do too. Love and hug, love and hugs. Okay. Bye. Bye for now.