"You Can't Get Vibes From a YouTube Video" How to Get the Most Out of a Scouting Trip

0:00English speakers are still a novelty here. And of course, I had two cats who basically destroyed their carriers on days one and three. There was a lot of discussion to make sure that we were aligned and that we were doing it for for similar reasons. What are the? Visa paths. Are you running towards something or are you running away from something?

0:24And then what? I can't believe we're finally here this. Is Americans Abroad. Welcome to this week's episode of Americans Abroad. This week we don't have a guest. It's Jen and I, and we're going to be talking all about scouting trips. Jen, can you Share your story about you and Brett and doing your scouting trips to figure out where you wanted to move to?

0:48Yes. Absolutely. So we are started planning that trip in 20, 16. You know, when we were talking about moving abroad and I was looking at Vancouver and Seattle, and, you know, I know that Seattle is in the US, but it's like a different country when you live in Birmingham, AL. And we had never lived outside the South really. You know, we both lived in Ohio for a tiny amount, which, you know, is the South of the Midwest, but we really had never lived anywhere else.

1:26And so we decided to visit Seattle and Vancouver. We were on a really tight budget, by the way. So for folks who have that experience, I'll tell you how I did it. And that is that for every holiday, we would give each other gift cards to either Airbnb or Southwest Airlines. And so that way it just gave us more and more money over time that we could put towards our trip. I planned our trip for five days in Seattle, basically in five days in Vancouver.

2:01And we were taking the train up from Seattle to Vancouver because that's just fun, right? That's everybody loves to take a train with a big open view. So normally I book Airbnbs where you have the whole place to yourself, you know, like a lot of people do. But in Seattle, they were, you know, insanely expensive, especially if you wanted to be in any kind of neighborhoods that were centrally located.

2:28And the truth is, I really didn't at that point understand how to pick a neighborhood. It was the whole concept was so new to me. And so the neighborhoods that I looked up that looked popular, they were all very expensive. And so we found this one Airbnb that was in a couple's home and they just look so cool. Their names were Chris and Amanda and didn't show their pictures, but it showed their place. And they had this huge library and they had three cats and you could hang out with the cats and they had a room with a separate entrance.

3:02And I thought, you know, that's perfect. So anyway, so we planned the trip around staying in neighborhoods and doing meetups with with hobby groups so that we could get to know people there and what they might be like. And then also participating in our hobbies. Brett loves to go to the movies. He is a huge film buff. So we were going to check out the theaters in both places because that's really important to him. And then I love to cook.

3:33So we wanted to do grocery shopping to see, you know, what the selection was like in markets. I mean, you know, we, I knew it was going to be great, but but it was still fun to check it out. So we also were we booked it alongside. This is so long ago, but if you've ever heard of the podcast Pod Save America, they were it was a brand new podcast that we loved and they were doing their very first ever live event.

4:00And so I got us VIP tickets to go see them and it was going to, we had to be there to check in literally like 45 minutes after we got to the home in Seattle. And sorry, I'm going off on a tangent, but then you know that. You'll pay off, yeah. OK, Yeah, yeah. And so the thing about flying from places like Birmingham, if anyone who is listening is from not New York, Chicago, LA, whatever.

4:34Atlanta, you understand, but you don't get anywhere. It's correct. So we flew to Chicago, we had a layover, I think we had another layover maybe somewhere in Texas. And then we finally landed in Seattle. From there we took the train to a bus and finally like an Uber, the last whatever distance and we got to this home and we had literally 15 minutes to get in, change clothes, freshen up and head out the door to this VIP event after this, you know, nine day, 9 hour travel day.

5:14And so we walk in, Chris, the owner shows us to our place, super nice, whatever. And Brett, we're downstairs changing clothes and Brett goes, do you remember Amanda Knox from Abu Ghraib? And I was like, I said, do you mean Lindy England from Abu Ghraib or do you mean Amanda Knox from Italy? And why the you asking me this when we have 10 minutes to turn around and get all the way downtown in the city we've never been in before?

5:52And he goes, because this is her house. He said, I mean Amanda Knox and this is her house. And I was like, what do you mean this is her house? And he goes, well, the owners names are Chris and Amanda. And there are 50 copies of her books upstairs, and there's her picture on the wall. And I looked and I just I like I don't have time to process. Yeah, because they don't even we'll process it in the Uber. I was like, Oh my God, so.

6:22And The thing is, I just watched the documentary and not that long ago, and honest to God, I could not remember if she'd done it. I could not remember. So we get to the VIP event and I'm just buzzing, right? Something right is going on. And so we get to the front and they're like, hi, it's so nice to meet you.

6:41And I'm like, we flew all the way here from Alabama and we're staking Amanda Knox's basement. And then that just set all the Pod Save America guys on fire. And they were like, Oh my God, she did it. She didn't do it. And I was like, I don't know, I can't remember. So I spent like the whole podcast looking up the story.

6:57And the truth is, listen, and this is important. She did not do it. She was very victimized. She is an absolute doll. I love her, but at the moment I could not remember and she had. Anyway, she has a cat named Mr. Screams. The whole basement was full of bleach. I was like and and I will say she is very sweet. He is so nice.

7:27Would you ever after you had been through all of them? No, I would be like. Yeah, I would if, if I was her, I'd be like my, my name is Shirley, not Amanda or, or. I would just put it in Chris's name and like, we're going to take all this. Never rent out rooms in your house like the risk of just phenomenal.

7:47But so anyway, I I just anyway, the next morning I wake up and I can hear them all talking upstairs and I go upstairs and. And here's Amanda Knox and she is made Brett avocado toast and a pour over coffee and they're just having the best time. I, it was the strangest experience and eventually they stopped doing it because I think somebody outed that they were, that they were doing it and of course they were doing it secretly, but I just the wildest experience and being there, I thought, I can see how this happened to you because just no situational awareness. Exactly, exactly.

8:31Bread's like this too. It's just like nothing bad. I believe in the good in people. But listen, an Italian prison would take that out of me, I think. And she was about like she was on the phone with her mom and they were bickering over who's taking care of the dog. And I thought my mom didn't speak to me for a year and a half because I went out of town with my boyfriend at 29.

8:50I cannot even imagine all they've been through. And they're just little. It was like nothing had happened. It was really inspirational. Yeah, but she was. She was so. And to name your Mr. Fat, Mr. Fads and Mr. Screams. I, it was, it was crazy. And then one of the nights we were really tired and we ordered food, Italian, and they delivered it to the front door instead of to the side door.

9:16And she brought it down and she said I can't even 1 appetito or whatever. However you say Italian and I just I will never forget Amanda Knox speaking Italian to me in her own basement and and me spaghetti. It was the craziest thing. But anyway, I admire her very much. She it is so interesting. So is Chris. They went on to get engaged, get married. She's doing a ton of stuff for victims rights and whatever. But if you want to hear this is the ultimate expat cautionary tale is the Amanda Knox story.

9:56So I feel like I had a brush with greatness early on there. There you go. So, moving right along to normal scouting trip discussion, what about yours? Yeah, so I did the very first Expatsi scouting trip. This would a bit March of 2024. Does that sound right? Yes, yeah. So 2 1/2 years. 2 1/2 years, Oh my goodness, that went by fast. We, you know, I think folks, if you've listened to to the pod before, you know that we started exploring moving to Portugal, Spain in late 2023 or mid 2023.

10:37And I found you on TikTok and would come to your lives and you had announced we're doing this scouting trip to Portugal and Spain. And this was US also coming off of a year where I was top of my career game, but physically unwell. Marriage was stressed out. It was that, you know, outward success, the, you know, success has made a failure of our home sort of situation.

11:04And I remember going to my partner and letting him know about this and he's like, you should totally do it because we knew that I would be going by myself. So paid the, the deposit for the trip or paid the the fee for the trip. Did both Portugal and Spain, really not knowing just a little bit about some of the places that I thought would be my vibe. Braga I was very, very excited for. And so that that was, I think November of 23 is when you announce the trip and we're starting to take reservations. Back in the day, the trips were

11:44very different than they are now. I ended up grouping up with three other women and we were like the travel buddies. And so we stayed in Airbnb's together. One of them is Rachel Mims, who is our resilience coach at at Expatsi. But we decided to bop around together and we booked our Airbnb's and I got on my plane in San Antonio, TX and landed in had a connection in Madrid, which I will tell folks is the most cockamamie airport I think I've ever been to in my whole entire life. The plane was late and also it

12:22was in a different terminal that had the same name as the terminal that I needed to go to, but it was a different terminal. So I was just I was tired and confused and I had a little mental breakdown on WhatsApp. To all of y'all going, I'm missing my flight to Porto because I was going to be the first stop and the next morning we were going to go to Braga and I was like Braga. I know.

12:45And you were so excited about. I was so excited. I was like, I can't miss that city. Well, Long story short, I was able to get a flight that got me there pretty late that night. I flew into Porto, went to Braga that next day and immediately I was like, Oh yeah, this is I, I am on the right track and spent a couple days in Porto before we were going to Lisbon. Ended up getting food poisoning on the last day there here in, in Porto before we were all riding the train together to Lisbon.

13:21So I ended up having an extra day at a hotel puking my, my brains out. That was part of my scouting trip was just me by myself. But I think it was also a great opportunity to go, look, I'm in a foreign land where I don't speak the language. I am unwell and I am capable of taking care of myself and it's OK I missed a flight.

13:39I'm capable of taking care of myself. Things will just happen how they need it to happen. I ended up joining everybody in Lisbon the next day and immediately Lisbon was not for me. I could see it being a very fun, interesting. Yeah, it was. It was too much for where I'm at in my life now. A few years before, we had thought about going back to New York City and we had done a trip there not, not so much to see if we could live there, but to visit some friends. And I remember telling Dave, oh,

14:13I, I could see why we were able to do this when we were in our early 20s, late 30s, early 40s US or not early 20s US. I can't struggle like like with the way that we did before and Lisbon felt like it was going to be similar where cost of living was so high, we'd be working to be able to pay the bills.

14:34Just so crowded and it was like Lisbon's not for me. So I got a tattoo and that was my time in Lisbon. Went down to Faro, beautiful, great place to relax. Not for me, I'm not a sun and sand sort of person, but it was it was nice being able to take N Portugal. I loved the rest was just a chance to take in this information that I that I received and there's no harm in like crossing things off of your list.

15:00I think if anything, that the trip showed me, you know, we have this this small, but you know, this wide country, this long country and we could choose to move anywhere in this country, but where do we not want to move? So that way we can narrow down what that focus looked like. Went to Spain, fell in love with Bilbao, which was the last.

15:22So my first stop and my last stop where this lovely little bookends of where we could see ourselves going. Did you get sick and Bilbao? No, no, I was the I was the only one in our group who did not get whatever respiratory thing that everybody else. I ended up going to eat a Michelin star restaurant. It was supposed to be 8 of us going to that Michelin restaurant together in and I was like, cool, I'm going to go collect me a Michelin star by myself. I was like, this is my my reward. But yeah, yeah, I was the I got

15:52my sickness out at the beginning. I took for the for the team at the early, early on, but yeah. You're lucky. Yeah, it was, I, I think the scouting trip that I did, it was, it was a lot. It was drinking from a fire hose. It was 7 cities in 20-3 days. And that 7 main 7 cities that we slept in, There were plenty of other cities that we saw.

16:17And you didn't pay Trip? Yeah. Yes, we didn't sleep in Málaga, but we saw Málaga, we saw Murcia, which we did. Was the agenda we saw Be a Hoyosa? Like when you count it down, it was really more like 20 cities? Yeah, it felt like a rock. City going on tour, trying going for busted trade club. Club. Another club.

16:38Another club, another club that's. What it felt like and this the thing that I also appreciated about just the vibe of everybody there. You know, no surprise. I'm, you know, well on the spectrum and my social battery drains very, very fast. And there was a few times where I was like, y'all go do that day trip. I'm going to stay right where I'm at or it's been great hanging out.

17:02It was fine. 2:30 this afternoon, I'm done for the day. I will see y'all tomorrow. And nobody was like, oh, but don't be a party. It was very much the ability to monitor myself. And I think that's one of the things that I, you know, want to let folks know is whether you're going on an organized trip with Expatsi or you're doing this on your own, you know, know your limits and know when you need to recharge that that battery a little bit.

17:31Yeah, I was so afraid, you know, planning that trip, it was the first time I ever took people, and I had imposter syndrome. Beyond Beyond, it was the best trip and the best group and half the people who are on it like work with us. Now. Rachel, Michelle, Steve and Kathy. And so it was, it was just, it was a really special, it was a really special thing, but it, but I over planned it because I didn't, I was like, oh, I have to give them their $500 worth because you know, I was obviously a lot less expensive because it was our first time

18:11and whatever else. And so I was like, oh, if I don't have it planned every single second they're going to, you know, they're going to come to me and be disappointed. Now I have much more realistic expectations, right? But we saw so many places, Brett still, he's constantly like, where were we when we did such and. Have we been to insert little town or village area?

18:32Exactly. And I don't. Yeah. Do you not remember? Yeah, That was Queen Marish. How can you not remember that? And of course, yeah. Yeah. What one of the things about doing a group trip again, I am, I'm an only child. My social battery drained. You would think that I would be the worst person on a, on a group trip like this, but it also helped to #1 make me feel like I wasn't alone. That like, hey, there's here are all these other wackadoo people who are thinking about doing a big braid wackadoo thing. And we're, we're going to figure

19:02it out together. And then being able to maintain those connections as we were planning our move abroad. Or the folks who are like, oh, we just started the visa process or so, and so got got approved and you know, they're getting on a plane in two months to start their new life, you know, wherever they were moving to. And I think that that I, I valued more than I. Expected to.

19:26You know, again, I, I'm, I'm a loner, Dottie, I'm a ref. Well, I, you know, I want to do things on my own. And so, you know, having a little bit of that, of that balance to be able to do that. But the the connections were were more than I expected more value. Important. Yeah. And that's true of everything Expatsi does, right?

19:45Like, we can't talk to you every day, but your person who went on the trip with you can talk to you every day and you can work through challenges together. So how did you end up choosing Portugal over Spain? For me it really it came down to two things. Number one was with our situation and where we were at at the time when we decided to go both feet forward on the visa process.

20:14The, the kind of the rules and regulations in the process were just going to be more streamlined with Portugal than they were with Spain. Basically like how I earned my income and, and how my business was set up. It was going to be much easier for Portugal than it was Spain. And then the second thing was, you know, traveling through Portugal and then traveling through Spain, there were more places in Portugal that I could see us going to.

20:44So Porto was still on, on the Braga was still very much in contention. We also started to look into Coimbra being a university town. And I was like, well, if we don't like Porto, we can go to Coimbra. And if we're tired of Coimbra and, and we become the Beachy little old couple, cool, we can go down to Faro.

21:04And for me, for Spain, it was Bilbao or nothing or somewhere in I was like, well, if we get tired of it or we want to just do something a little bit different, you know, different strokes for different folks. But like Seville did not. It was like this would be a great place to spend a weekend, but I just, I didn't feel it. Barcelona, very much like Lisbon. This would be a great place to come for a week and see all the things and do all the things and then go back home where it's just a little bit more chill.

21:36So someplace where I could see myself walking to the market and walking the dogs and having a cafe. Just I'm very much a vibes, I'm very much a gut instinct sort of person and the guts felt better I think. That's important. Yeah, more places. The vibes, you can't, you can't get vibes from a YouTube video, you know, So ultimately, you know, when I'm telling my funny story. But the reason why I wanted to see Seattle and Vancouver is so dumb.

22:03But Brett and I lived in, you know, an apartment complex. I had a gym. And every day I would go down to the gym and I would walk on the treadmill. And on the treadmill they had a thing where you could walk through different cities. And I loved it. Like it was a little bit of escapism. It got me out of Birmingham, whatever.

22:24And my two favorite cities to walk through were Seattle and Vancouver. And that is what inspired me to consider moving to those places because I felt like I knew them like the back of my aunt, you know, the the stretches that I was walking. And when we got to those cities, it was completely different. And you know, not for nothing, but one thing about CIA and you know, it's super expensive.

22:52You know, my joke is we have RedState money. We don't have blue state money. And so, you know, we would really have to turn on our incredibly competitive job seeking ambition at a late age. That was scary to think about, more scary to me than starting my own company. I know everyone's different but like in Seattle and there were every place seemed so bougie and money driven or it was hip and it was just like the weed smoke was so thick everywhere.

23:30I am all for people. I don't care what you do. I do not care what drugs you do. I do not care but I just don't like what's wrong with edibles? Why we got to smell it like everywhere and and so it and it also I just I like, I just don't like it. I don't I wouldn't want to smell smell cigarette smoke everywhere either.

23:51You know, I was a smoker. Don't get me wrong. I was part of the problem, but I but I just didn't want to be around it all the time. And it would I mean it truly was everywhere. It truly was everywhere and it reminded me of like being in Redneck Bill, like being in Gatlinburg or something, because that's the kind of experience you have in Gatlinburg where it's smoke shops and tattoo shops and whatever. And again, I like tattoos.

24:18I don't care what drugs you do but I still want also like art and culture and stuff. What's going to work for you at the end of the day? Yeah, yeah. And that's how it felt and it just felt I, I just don't know. I just, there's, I have something about big cities where they like rural places can be really shallow and big cities can be really shallow and there's some Goldilocks in between for me, for me that I prefer.

24:47And then Vancouver, it just felt very cold and distant and I like it just did not feel like home in any way. And then also it would be very hard for us to move there. And so when we we went back to the drawing board, you know, in 2020, 2020-2021, it was New Year's Eve to New Year's Day and we started outlining the visa paths that actually made sense for us. And then after we solidified that, looking at what we were looking for and then finally visiting Mexico. I mean night and day for us.

25:27I I don't want to poo poo on any place. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, I really don't because everyone is different, Everyone's experiences are different, everyone's needs are different. But whatever my personality plus my nerve divergent and whatever else. But we get to Mexico and it's, you know, even Mérida is incredibly modern. It's pretty wealthy. This will rough around the edges, you know, and I find that I like that.

25:56I like that that I don't feel like I have to mask. That means a lot to me. And we went out that first night. We first of all, we got lost trying to get to our Airbnb. I mean, we could not figure out at all. And we realized we needed help. We had no, you know, the Airbnb person wasn't responding.

26:26And so we saw a house that had Christmas lights. It was January 6th or whatever. And I said, OK, if someone has Christmas lights, they can't be Maine, right? You can't be Maine and have Christmas lights. Let's go. And we're in this huge neighborhood with like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of homes. So we go to this home with the Christmas lights and I knock on the door.

26:49And again for don't forget, I speak no Spanish at this point, none knock on the door. And I've got my Google Translate and I tell them, you know, we're lost. Can you help us? And to show them the address. And now we know more, way more about how dresses work. But it's time. I mean, just clueless. And they were like momento and they were having a party and they went and found the cousin who speaks English and brought him out. And I was like, I'm so sorry.

27:18And he was like, it's OK. And like just immediately wanted to help us find this place where we were staying. Then we go and find our place and it's like, OK, let's go to this pizza place. So we go to the pizza place. It's at someone's house, which of course we just had. No, no, yeah, yeah. And it is 2022.

27:42They're all incredibly still very COVID conscious. So they give us hand sanitizer. You have to wear masks. They bring us in. And they had a full huge wood fired oven in their front yard. And we sat and ate gourmet pizzas in this yard. And I just felt so taken care of because they were concerned about her health and the fact that they, you know, and I know the one thing was I knew all the food words, you know, even if they were like French foods because they had gourmet. And so I felt in my element

28:22because I was like, I can, I can make, I can figure out pizza and it, and it just, it just was so heartwarming and I felt so welcomed. You know, in Seattle, we loved staying with Chris and Amanda and they were dolls, but we weren't going to be living all the time. And the Seattle Freeze is a real thing, you know, where that they, you meet somebody and they say they're going to be your friend and then they never become your friend.

28:47Whereas in Mexico, I mean, you have to work to not meet people. And I think we needed them. I think the, you know, the thing that I'm hearing from you is I felt, I felt, I felt, and it was very much for me too, as I, I felt, I, you know, you can create every spreadsheet in the world.

29:05You can create every. Which we have. Yeah, I think, yeah, we both have give me a spreadsheet. I'm in my happy place. But I think for people who are navigating their move abroad and they're thinking about, OK, well where, where do I want to go? I think that this is part partly why we encourage figure out where you can go first.

29:23So that way you're not that can be your pro con list and then narrowing that down and taking those places and letting that be the vibe versus leaning on vibes 1st and recognizing that you can't go or leaning. On 1st and. Recognizing that this is going to be the steepest uphill climb for us to get there. And then you leave disappointed and you, you know, it's like the one that got away.

29:50So, you know, yes, the feelings will come. Lean on the feelings once, you know, it's an option. And I think that's a great way to approach it. Jen, do you know what time it is? I love this time, my favorite time of every podcast episode, when we get to answer listener questions. And as it turns out, I had a sneak peek at the listener question today. So I thought, what if I wrote a song that was keeping with the theme of the question?

30:33Would you like to hear it? Yes. Give us yourself. OK, OK. I was feeling, you know, kind of British and thinking about what we're going to talk about. So it goes like this. This is the chorus. If you want to be my lover, you have to move abroad with me. Make it last forever. Let's expatriate. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. What do you think?

31:01Love it. I absolutely love it. So let's let's get to today's listener question. I wonder how many folks heard the heard the song and are trying to figure out what we're going to be talking about. So today's question is my spouse is excited about moving abroad, but I'm the one who's nervous. How do couples get on the same page without turning every dinner into a debate?

31:27And I want to shout out the person who gave us this question because a lot of times we get the other side, I'm sure really excited about like, how do I get my partner on board? And so I, I just want to just give some credit to this person because I, I think they're trying to get on board.

31:42They recognize that they're nervous. They recognize that they're the one maybe slowing the process. But talk to me a little bit about how to get on the same page with your partner or with the rest of your family as you try to navigate this move abroad. It's a great question. And the the first thing I would do is to say nervous about what, you know, I think that verbalizing what you're nervous about and do it privately.

32:08Sometimes it can be, you know, embarrassing to say, you know what, I'm nervous that I'll give you one. I'm nervous that I'll be too fat because let's say I want to move to France and I weigh more than everybody in France. And I'm nervous that people might make fun of me or I might not be able to buy clothes or I might not be able to fit in whatever situation. So let's say that's a fear that I had. Well, that's something we can address, and we can address it by saying, OK, let's see if that's really true. First of all, that there are no

32:47fat people in France. We could go to a different country if that is the case, because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. Or we could work on your internal self esteem so that it doesn't matter to you what French people think because they can't help whatever. So let's say that that's the first thing is to really identify what's making you nervous.

33:14Also, if it is, it's everything. Well, it's not everything. So, so sitting down and writing out in a journal and even if it's it takes you weeks to think of every single thing that could be making you nervous. Maybe it's that, you know, my partner will leave me. My partner, I'm going to move to Mexico and my partner's going to fall in love with a beautiful Latina and leave me. There are a million things that you could be nervous about. And the truth is even your partners who who's excited may have things they're nervous about. Now what you don't do is go to

33:51them and say this XYZ thing is going to happen. You know, we can't go because this thing is going to happen. You have to to use your I statements and your partner has to be open to accepting your I feel statements so that you can talk about them together. But debating has no merit. You know, I use this example. It's not related to this, but you know, when I tried to run away to France and, you know, found out I couldn't move there. I had my my plane ticket to France. It was, you know, in the early 90s. And I remember my mom said what

34:35if this, what if you get kidnapped? What if this was that? What if the plane crashes? And I finally just said then I'll die because I could not debate. Yeah, the plane could crash. It could happen. But your tendency is to want to say Qantas never crash. You know, come out and pull all these airline statistics and say, did you know that it's your chance of dying in a plane crash or less than dying in a car or getting by a shark or whatever else?

35:03But that's not the point. The point is that person is having a fear. Their fear is whatever it is. And I'm not there to convince them otherwise. And it's their responsibility to deal with their, with their fear. So it really is sitting down and talking about it and also figuring out what you want in the US and what maybe what they don't want.

35:33So you have to figure out what you're nervous about, what you're moving towards, but also be cognizant of the fact that the math of living in the US may be different for them than it is for you. That could be for a million different reasons. It could be because they are not in a marginalized group and you are.

35:57It could be because they make more money than you do. It could be because they have more social support. It could be that they have more family. So it's a matter of working together. And the truth is the same thing would be true if you decided that one of you want to move to Virginia and one of you didn't, or one of you wanted to retire at 58 and one of you didn't.

36:22One of you wanted to have kids and one of you didn't. It's the exact same conversation. And ultimately it is it is working together. Brett was very nervous, but he kind of, he's real get along games. Yeah, it could be much harder. What about you? Did you and Dave have the same feelings about it? Yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, I was very lucky that we were both down to, you know, Dave is very much the well, what's the worst that could happen? Dave is very much like Brett and like, you know, it's going to be fine.

36:59And I'm I tend to be the, the, the nervous one. But one of the things that we did, even though we were relatively on, on the same page was we would have a weekly appointment with each other and we would go somewhere else. So like a coffee shop or brunch. And so it was neutral territory. Yep. And, and go.

37:19So today we're going to work on the budget for moving abroad and let's go through this together. Today I want to talk about let's, let's research the things like the hobby groups that are going to be important and get you out of the house and what are the things that I'm going to do to make sure that I also don't just hold up in my apartment forever and ever.

37:40Let's let's research maybe a day trip we could take within the first month of of moving. So just having these meetings with each other that aren't debate focused, that aren't here's why I want to move. Here's why I don't want to move. Coming something together that is a little bit more digestible. And again, having it on the calendar, which is very different than we're sitting down at dinner and my partner brings up a thing and it triggers something and now we're we can tell that we're butting head.

38:11So when it's pre planned and the topic is on the agenda, it makes it feel so much more neutral. And so I think both parties can come prepared with either here's what I'm nervous about or here's what we can be excited about together or let's get down to the nuts and bolts. If that's part of the nerves of, well, where are we going to live?

38:33What if, you know, can I get medical care? Can I still take my prescriptions? Cool. Let's not talk about it tonight. Let's go for our Sunday coffee and like, let's research the meds that you're on and where the nearest hospital is going to be and what is the pharmacy like? And then we can come and discuss it together versus being adversaries in the moment. I think that's brilliant.

38:54We used to have Brett and I get along really well, but there have been times where we didn't and we used to have something, I think we called it blue time, I can't remember. But we would have like an hour on Fridays and all of our grievances we would air then so that it wasn't that bickering. Now, if you are in a situation where there's, you know, sort of endless bickering or that's something to address in and of itself. And if you don't want the same things, that's something to address in and of itself.

39:24And, and keep in mind, sometimes people do grow apart and that's OK too. You know, I, I know that's hard and that may not be true in this situation, but in some situations that does happen and it is OK to grow apart. And the nature of your relationship may change over time and and that's OK. But I think that if your partner is has any inkling and it's obvious that you are open to it or you would not just be being nervous, it would be I'm putting my foot down and this is insane. First of all, you never.

39:58Would have written to us, Yeah. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast in the 1st. No, no, you wouldn't care and you'd turn it off. And I've, I've been married to that type myself. But the fact that you're interested is to compartmentalize it like Stephanie was talking about, and then spend some time visiting potential places to enjoy, you know, to just spend an average day demystifying it is, is essentially what I'm saying.

40:25And there's going to be some point. Do your favorite things. Yeah, where you're at dinner and you're having a great time and think, wow, if we lived here, we could do this every week and start to replace your nerves with a vision of what the future could hold. That's Yeah. I saw a meme recently. I shared it in our Facebook group.

40:45That was like, don't forget to overthink the good things that can happen too. That's such good advice. I need to take that one to heart for sure. Well, if you have a question you would like us to answer here on the podcast, you can e-mail your questions at podcast at xpatsy.com. Americans Abroad is an Expatsi production. Please like, share, subscribe and leave a review. Are you thinking about moving abroad? Start with our quiz at expatsi.com. That's expatsi.com.