Living in Luxembourg

Living in Luxembourg is surprisingly easy. Things work. People are friendly and will go out of their way to speak your language if they can. The whole country has a small town feel to it. I feel comfortable here. The drawback then is that it is fairly easy to get by without learning language or really trying to integrate. There are so many expats you could go days without speaking to a local. That isn't what I want my experience here to be like. Yes, comfortable is nice, but I want to push myself.

There are parts of life that aren't so easy. The kids' schools are closed behind locked doors, so getting to know how they are doing and what school is like for them is difficult. I used to volunteer in the classrooms and libraries and really get to know their teachers and staff. Here I feel like I'm intruding when I go in to the school to try to find abandoned clothing. Kids run into the courtyard without their parents and then go inside when the bell rings, the doors locked behind them. Parents don't really have a place to gather and mingle outside, so I haven't met a parent yet. It is a strange feeling to watch my kid run off into a building I couldn't find my way around.

Buying and importing a car was quite difficult - mostly because of language, import, and money issues. The dealers in Luxembourg weren't really helpful, so we bought a car in Germany. It took us over a month from when we picked out the car until we got to drive it home. Thankfully, I found out that our insurer would expedite the import and spend the 7 hours in import processing. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had a car until after the new year!

I'm still not sure how to recycle my glass. I'm not sure if I've completed our dog registration with the commune. We haven't gotten our european driver's licenses. But really, given all the things that could have been so hard, I feel pretty lucky. Having a relocation agency was really helpful too, of course. But Luxembourg has such a population of ex-pats that there are at least two published books in English on how to do everything when you first arrive. This is on top of all the English language ex-pat websites:

• Living in Luxembourg
• AngloInfo
• InterNations
• American Women's Club of Luxembourg
• British Ladies Club of Luxembourg 

Not to mention all the ex-pat blogs. Again - easy to get along in, easy to miss the country and the locals for the attractions. I feel like we could blink and this experience might be behind us and we wouldn't have really figured Luxembourg out yet! Kind of like blinking when you drive through this tiny country and find out you've already left it.

However, it is a lovely country, and I'm finding the outdoor spaces to be wonderful. There are so many lovely hikes (more to come on that) and fantastic playgrounds for the kids. Sometimes there are even hikes with playgrounds at the ends. So handy when trying to motivate kids to walk. I am really looking forward to getting to know it better.

Writing

I've really been struggling with writing. It is almost like when I was trying to write my dissertation. I am very, very good at taking care of lots of other things before writing, and then not having time to write. So, I'm going to attempt the same solution that allowed me to finish my dissertation - write every day. There will be some really crappy blog posts, but hopefully, there will be some good ones in here too!

One of my distractions lately has been taking online classes. I've just finished one called "Learning How to Learn" which is excellent. I am excited to use this information to help students when I teach again. One of the main ideas is how to avoid procrastination, make a habit, and do a little each day. It is really easy to read this and to think about how to present it to students, but can I take it to heart?

Language mixups

The other day I went through the self scan line because I only had one thing, it was early in the morning, and I didn't want to try to speak other languages. But I accidentally scanned my potiron (pumpkin) twice, so I had to ask for help anyway. When the lady came over I heard my internal voice say:"il y a zwei ici, aber tengo solo uno". (French, German, French, German, then Spanish for those who don't recognize the languages). So I just spoke to the nice lady in English. What a mashup! I am definitely having trouble with language compartments in my head being extremely porous (nonexistent?)