27 Lessons from a 5 Year Expat

Five years an expat! A milestone, perhaps. The sapphire anniversary. A longer commitment than any job, city, or relationship has ever gotten out of me. And yet it feels….

Normal.

Perhaps that’s what I should have expected, especially after a year of living back where I started my expat life — while technically I left the US on a one-way flight to Singapore via Tokyo on October 6, the following five months were nomadic. Kyiv was my first real expat home. I was supposed to flit around Kyiv for two months. I ended up stretching it nearly two years before I left at the end of 2017. It was the first place where I got a full-time job abroad. Where I found a dependable group of friends. Where I tried to become a known regular at my ‘locals.’ Where I decided to stay for a while — and eventually leave. 

And honestly, ‘normal’ is what I should expect to feel, considering the fork in the road I encountered last year. That was the turning point, when I decided to stay abroad instead of come home. Since then, I’ve just been settling into ‘normal life.’

I mean, whatever normal means these days.

When I look at the lessons I’ve learned this past year, there’s no real great theme to them. Yes, there’s some stuff about settling down or working hard or getting what you want, but so many of them are what I would call ‘fine-tuning’ lessons (well, do you know the best way to get yellow jackets out of your beer?). There were no great, heaven-glorified revelations. There were just simple, quiet, often joyful discoveries. 

They are no less valuable. 

Sometimes you have to know more about why an answer is wrong than why an answer is right. I was teaching a Cambridge Advanced class when a student asked me why one answer in a multiple choice question didn’t work and I had to hesitate. Teachers (and students) sometimes focus so much on what’s ‘right’ that sometimes we forget about the wrong answers. And then we get caught out and we get gifted with some humility. It made me consider — how do you know when is something wrong, even when you feel like it must be right? And why haven’t I been so perceptive my whole adult life?

Don’t ever get too comfortable. As someone who’s been living abroad for five years, I’ve managed to avoid most worst case scenarios. Part of that comes from being a bit street savvy and avoiding compromising situations to start with, but unfortunately, in November, I let my guard down a bit too much. On evening out with friends, at a quiet bar we had been to before, my boyfriend and I stopped paying so much attention to our surroundings — and ended the night without our phones or my wallet. Horrible enough (I still haven’t replaced my driver’s license), the thieves drained my Ukrainian bank account and hacked into my boyfriend’s banking app to drain his. Our Ukrainian bank refused to help us in any way because we hadn’t called them about the theft (even though… our phones had also been stolen…).  The thieves also tried to charge several hundred dollars to my US credit cards, but luckily those were flagged and didn’t go through — the only time I’ve been grateful for the numerous roadblocks my US cards put between me and my money. 

There were a lot of things that we could have done better that night, but one of them would have been just to be more aware. I felt very comfortable, surrounded by my friends, in a courtyard bar which only had three other people in it. But you never really know who’s around you and what might happen unexpectedly, no matter where you are. 

You never stop changing. If moving back to Kyiv has taught me anything, it’s probably this. When I left the first time at the tail end of 2017, I thought I was done with this city. It (and several things that had happened here) had made me miserable, anxious, and panicky. I knew that I had to leave then to ever enjoy coming back, but in my mind that ‘coming back’ would be the short-term visit type of coming back. Never did I imagine I would be living here again, living — dare I say it — my best life? Everything has changed. How I feel has changed, the way I manage myself has changed, what I want has changed. And even though I had noticed the minuscule adjustments along the way, it’s marvelous to look back three years and see how those shifts became a 180 degree turn. 

It’s nice to have things. Last week I bought a salad bowl. A bowl — for just one thing! I can’t mix in it or use it as a double broiler. It’s got one single purpose, to hold healthy food and look pretty (two purposes?). And if you thought that was the epitome of bougieness, I also got the matching tongs! I’m leaning hard into this ‘settling down’ thing, and there’s definitely a part of it I like. It’s the stuff.

Just because the store had something once doesn’t mean they’ll have it again. Curse the day when I saw that my local supermarket had tortilla chips. What a glorious discovery! What joy I felt and what tasty opportunities I envisioned. Until I went in a week later to buy fixings for guacamole and couldn’t find them anywhere. I didn’t see them again for three months. Unfortunately, this has happened repeatedly, with everything from chickpeas to English cheddar. You learn to stock up on non perishables. 

Don’t drink a beer right before a movie. I knew it was a bad idea. Nothing like the shame of having to duck out of the front row during a packed art house screening of Parasite just because you got lured into the sneaky pleasure of having a brew while watching the trailers.

Online teaching is ok. But not my preference. No teacher emerged from lockdown without the bittersweet taste of online teaching. Was I grateful to have kept working during quarantine? Absolutely. Was I also gleeful to wave goodbye to a dozen little black squares on Zoom at the end of the semester? Oh honey. In all honesty, online teaching was fine. Some classes even got better online, and I did learn about some cool tools and tricks. But I am, at the end of the day, a people person. Not a Brady Bunch grid person.

It’s difficult to be outside your country for pivotal moments. Maybe I’ll write more about this some time. Maybe…

Go to the place where history happened (or, mercifully, didn’t happen). Over the summer I traveled to so many amazing places in Ukraine. But the one I will always talk about first is the Strategic Missile Forces Museum — a real, decommissioned nuclear missile launch site. I sat in the seat where Soviet soldiers sat every day, hours on end, waiting for the command to launch nuclear missiles at the United States. A few keystrokes separated two countries from mutually-assured destruction. Nothing makes you appreciate peace like seeing how it could have played out — from an insider’s point of view. 

Afterwards we drank vodka with one of the officers who served on the final shift before decommissioning, which also makes this story one of the best from the summer. 

Check for plagiarism before you actually mark all the essays. Hours of my life I’ll never get back.

It’s fun to write a viral blog post. But it’s exhausting. A post I wrote about teaching English and traveling went mini viral, and — while it was nice to have the page view boost — the reason why it went viral is that it was slightly controversial. It showed up in a few Facebook groups, got some attention on Twitter, and in general took more of my time and energy than I might have wanted. While I’d love to go pseudo-viral again, I’d like for it to be for a different reason. 

Small practice makes a difference. No surprise here, but it felt like an ‘ah ha!’ moment when, after a month of stretching, I could finally touch the floor. 

Yes, I’m incredibly inflexible. 

Sushi is actually kind of nice. “Never have I ever eaten sushi” used to be my trump card, whether I was playing that game in the classroom or at a bar. Alas, I’ll have to think of something new. 

Financial security is bliss. I will not lie when I say that part of my move back to Kyiv was motivated by finances. I knew that I would be able to live a comfortable life and still put some cash away. Plus when you’re not moving from country to country on a yearly basis, you can plan and save better. Being financially secure has alleviated so much stress, not only because I don’t have to worry about day-to-day things, but because I can also tackle the bigger financial goals that I have. 

You can always do a little more than you think you can. To be honest, I don’t remember why I wrote this note. I think it also had to do with stretching. But really it’s applicable everywhere. Sometimes things can seem big, especially if they are long-term projects or goals, but if you think about just going a little bit further today, not about the finish line weeks or months down the line, you can achieve something manageable — and that adds up over time. 

Keeping the memories is important. A few years ago, a friend gave me a sentence-a-day Happiness Journal. Up until this year, I was primarily using it to refocus myself every day, to think about and record something good that happened. But it actually spans five years, and in 2020 I started year three. Now that there’s history in it, I’ve really enjoyed looking back and seeing ‘what happened on this day’ for the last few years. It helps me remember beautiful small moments as well as see how much I’ve grown. 

Ask and you (might) receive. When I was offered a promotion last year, I used the opportunity of being moved to a new office to ask to move to a new apartment. After my boss agreed, he told me to put together a list of things that were important to me. It’s a bit awkward to present a list of demands, but with some careful phrasing I sent over what I thought was a fairly polite description of a reasonable dream apartment. 

And I got it. 

I mean not everything’s perfect. The entertainment center is straight from the 90s, DVD shelf and all, and some of the furniture is a bit beat-up, but that’s nothing compared to the glorious outdoor balcony overlooking the courtyard, the massive living room where I can (eventually) entertain guests, and the sunny second bedroom I’m slowly turning into a motivating home office. Oh, and the distinct lack of over-embellishment, a trend in Ukrainian interior design that has ruined many a decent apartment. No joke, moving into this apartment might have tacked an extra year on to my life expectancy in Kyiv. 

Water delivery is the best expat hack in Kyiv. You can’t drink the tap water in Kyiv, not even the locals do it. I used to buy 5 litre bottles at the grocery store — they were a pain to drag back to my flat, they felt incredibly wasteful, and they didn’t last very long. So I finally figured out how to get 19 litre bottles delivered to my flat. Solves literally all those problems. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this (second to moving to my new place) was perhaps the biggest quality of life upgrade this year.

Don’t buy electronics in Ukraine. Normally I wait until I go home or my parents come to visit to buy any expensive electronics — I’d just rather make investments like that through a system I’m comfortable with. But since my strategy wasn’t going to work this year, I decided to try Ukraine’s version of Amazon. And I bought a drone. 

Predictable, I know, but what could I do (besides… not buy a drone…)? Once I knew I was going to be ‘stuck’ in Ukraine all summer, I had to think of a project to keep myself entertained. I decided to make YouTube videos about all the random places we were going, and a drone became a (perceived) integral part of that project. I didn’t splash out too much. I got a mid-budget drone, one from a manufacturer most people hadn’t heard of but that I had diligently researched. The drone worked fine all summer. The extra battery I bought did not. And when I left a review on the seller’s profile, the response was to go to the manufacturer. Irritating, but something I could potentially deal with. 

Then, about a month ago, my boyfriend decided to buy a new laptop. He went into one of the biggest electronics stores in Ukraine, dealt with a very nice salesperson, and walked out completely happy. Until we got home and realized there was an issue with the HDMI port. Fast forward through several hours of trying to DIY a solution himself, he took it back to the store. They also couldn’t fix it, but promised him they’d exchange his computer. He just had to come back in an hour after they had installed all the necessary software. We came back an hour later and they refused any sort of exchange or refund — because he didn’t have the box the computer came in. A cardboard box. We were mystified as to why not having some packaging would be a problem. I literally asked a salesperson to show me a box, any box, just so I could see what was so important about it. Apparently there is a barcode on it the store needs to return goods to the manufacturer. In the end, we took the computer to a service center which fixed the HDMI port in three days. 

Most of these issues haven’t been a big deal, but it’s such a contrast to the way buying electronics works in the US. I’m pretty sure if we walked into Best Buy with a receipt and a faulty product, there would be far fewer hurdles or questions about boxes. I’m currently having issues with the drone itself now, and I’m happy that I’ve kept the box and the warranty — I’m just not sure I have the receipt. 

It’s weird to think long-term. When I left the US five years ago, everything was on the short side of temporary. I wasn’t really an expat then. I was a nomad. Two months based here, six weeks traveling, three months over there. When I finally did start looking for longer work, I never really considered staying anywhere more than a year (if that). So to move back to Kyiv, commit to staying here for several years, and consider what I need to do to achieve my five-year goals is a bit of a change. However, I’m all about change, so for right now planning long-term seems to be full of potential. 

You can never have enough b roll. Back to that summer-in-Ukraine project. I tried to film everything this summer. I figured I had enough experiences I could probably make a dozen videos. Since restarting work, I haven’t had time to delve into the editing process (also, I’m terrified). I’ve barely reviewed any of the footage. But one thing I’m already sure of — I probably could use more b roll. 

Always carry tissues. It doesn’t matter if you’re going on a day hike, to a barbecue, or to a posh restaurant. There’s always a chance there’s not going to be any TP. 

Yellow jackets are insane in Kyivan summer. These aggressive swarms can ruin many a good picnic or barbecue, so make sure you come prepared with anti-pest candles and sprays.

Carry a pair of chopsticks to get bugs out of your beer. The only time I’ve been thankful for the plethora of chopsticks I’ve collected from all the Chinese delivery this year. While we were at a medieval melee tournament in September, we were besieged by yellow jackets interested in our beer. A pair of unsplit chopsticks turned out to be efficient for fishing them out.

Get your teeth cleaned. I didn’t go to the dentist for a long time. Because (1) no one likes going to the dentist and (2) it’s one of those things that’s extra awkward and uncomfortable when you’re abroad. Well, I’ve been abroad for five years, so you do the math. However, due to an incredible toothache (honestly, I thought people didn’t get those except for in English course books), I had to take the dreaded trip. They did a proper cleaning and then sent me to a normal doctor for some additional check-ups. When you feel healthy, it’s easy to ignore your health. But a terrible toothache reminded me that you don’t know your body half as well as you think, and regular check-ups need to be a thing (especially when you’re in your mid-thirties).

It’s fun to be the DOS. Granted, I haven’t been doing it for very long — and there are some days when I feel positively hopeless in the face of the eighteen different things I’m supposed to be doing at once. But overall I’ve been very happy with the challenges and responsibilities of being a director of studies. And right now I’m just learning the ropes. Once I get some experience under my belt, I think this is something that I might actually be pretty good at. 

I’m finished with grocery store wine. One of the best parts of my new flat? There’s a cute little wine store right under it, one that reminds me of going to the wine stores in Brooklyn to find an excellent bottle of wine for less than $20 that we could spend our saved pennies on (they were lean times in Brooklyn, guys). And every single bottle I’ve gotten there has been super. I hesitate to say this, because I don’t want to jinx it, but it’s like they only stock good wines. Buying wine at the grocery store always feels like a gamble, even if you go for a mid-range or more expensive wine. But at my wine shop I can find an excellent weekday wine for $10. 

…What did I say about being bougie?

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There is one more thing to say about this year, or maybe about this time. Reflecting over the past year has brought waves and waves of nostalgia. Remember when we used to fly home for Christmas? Remember when we could spend our Saturdays in crowded bars, listening to live music, packed into hip restaurants?

Remember when they locked the doors to the schools and plastered ‘closed’ signs over the metro doors? And we didn’t know how to go grocery shopping without touching anything but Ukrainians finally learned about personal space? How the city got very quiet and the space around us changed? How we had to learn how to divert our physical energy and also avoid emotional exhaustion?

Remember when spring finally came, and life began opening up? How businesses figured out how to deliver directly to clients, and we would run around the city picking up flowers and cakes and pre-made cocktails? When the people took the police tape off the park benches — or just sat on it? How we paused during dinner to listen to the first trains rolling out of the station and how we tracked the solitary planes as we sat on our balconies drinking wine?

It’s nostalgia, I know, but it’s also grief. The ‘new normal’ is not done with us. As another wave rolls through Europe, lockdowns are beginning again. It’s a domino effect — one day France and Spain, Germany following suit, the UK falling in line. Soon it will reach Eastern Europe, and Ukraine will copy everyone else like they did before.

Perhaps there was a big lesson to be learned from this past year. Maybe it was just that, occasionally, no matter how normal life gets, unprecedented times do come. Whether it’s a pandemic or a societal crisis or a spontaneous press for freedom.

And it’s what you do, in those times, that will make all the difference. Maybe not for everyone. Maybe you’re not going to overthrow a corrupt post-Soviet government or solve a social justice issue. But maybe something you choose to do will have a small ripple effect on someone else. Regulars still support their locals, relationships are reinvented, students continue to learn. Or perhaps in these tumultuous times the work you choose to do is on yourself alone.

And these ‘small’ things are no less valuable.

Previous expat-iversary posts…

1 Year: 20 Life Lessons

2 Years: 3 Lessons about Love

3 Years: Just 1 Thing

4 Years: 19 Lessons about Life and Work