This is the first ever episode where Chandra answers your questions! Everything from "What do you miss in the USA?" to "Have your political views changed?", Chandra answers each question that was submitted in this ground breaking, okay maybe that's pushing it, episode of "Burning Questions"!
Plus, stay tuned to this episode's "Chan Select", where you will hear about something that helped to inspire her to start Expatriotical. This is a great and super fun episode, so listen in!
Like what you hear? Text and tell me!
"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!
This is the first ever episode where Chandra answers your questions! Everything from "What do you miss in the USA?" to "Have your political views changed?", Chandra answers each question that was submitted in this ground breaking, okay maybe that's pushing it, episode of "Burning Questions"!
Plus, stay tuned to this episode's "Chan Select", where you will hear about something that helped to inspire her to start Expatriotical. This is a great and super fun episode, so listen in!
Like what you hear? Text and tell me!
"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!
Expatriotical- Episode 11: Chandra Answers Your Burning Questions
Bienvenue, Benvenuti, and Welcome to Expatriotical, the podcast for expats, travelers, and other adventurous souls. I’m Chandra Alley and after living as an expat with my husband and 4 children in two different countries for almost 6 years, I’ve learned the arts of pivoting during pitfalls, travelling tastefully for less, and soaking in amazing new cultures without loosing your own.
Join me, as we dive into the joys and challenges of travel and the expat life in every episode!
You guys!!! I am SO excited about this episode! I have been wanting to do this and dreaming of how fun it would be to hear from you all and that day has arrived.
For those of you that don’t know, I recently reached out in a post on Instagram, with I later shared to my personal Facebook account, to get some more traction, asking all of you to send any burning questions that you have about living abroad, travel, or more personal questions about me and my family’s expat adventure.
Quite a few of you responded and so this episode will be dedicated to answering your quote unquote “burning questions”. Also, I just want to say that nobody had messaged me privately or asked to be kept anonymous, so I will simply include your first name and last initial as a reference of who asked the question.
Okay, let’s get started! The first question that came in was from Valerie L., she asks, “Where is the worst DMV you have had to visit?” And she includes a laughing emoji, which I love because this is a fun and funny question! Thanks for keeping things light hearted Valerie!
To be honest, so far I have not been to a DMV while abroad. In France, with the help of the immigration company that my husband’s employer hired, we simply traded our driver’s licenses. I mailed in my Texas license, and they mailed me back a French license. Of course, there was paperwork that the immigration company did and I had to submit a photo, but it was all pretty simple and stream-lined on my side.
And in Italy, none of that happen, trying to get a drivers license there was a mess/nightmare. And I won’t even going to all of it but, I will say that the closest thing to getting going to a DMV, was when we would have to get our Permesso di sogiorno. which is pretty much your residency card that allows you to live in Italy.
We would go there, with all four kids in tow and having a representative/translator there with us. She and Chris would have all the documentation that the officials had asked for by email. And then we would get there and they would ask us for something that wasn’t on the list, and she would commence in arguing with them, politely, that they hadn’t said we needed to bring such and such a document. Thankfully, she always won the argument. But being in this small police station with four children ages 5 to a few weeks old (the first time), for several hours changing diapers, breastfeeding, and running out of snacks for the older kids, was a nightmare!
Another equivalent of the DMV for me, in Italy was going to the post office. You have to take a number and wait for your turn to pop up on the screen. And there was a particular gentleman at my local post office that apparently could not stand me, and when it was my turn to be next, and his desk was free, he would disappear, trying to avoid helping me. And I’d be sitting there with one or two or three children, depending on which year it was, while said children were being loud and squirmy. And a bunch of people were looking at me like I was a pariah.
And all I wanted to do was get out of there and stop bothering all the people around me, but this man on many occasions made it very difficult for me to do that.
Thankfully, there was a lovely lady there named, Loretta, who was always so patient and kind to me, and I always hoped that I got her what was my turn to be helped.
Ok, our next question comes from Marlene G., she says, “ What’s most difficult or most enjoyable for the kids living abroad? They don’t really know the American life. I’m curious.”
Marlene, that is an excellent question, thank you! So I’m going to give you my answer, but I actually plan to do an episode where I interview my kids, if they want, and I will ask them this question. But in my opinion, I think one of the hardest things is saying goodbye to friends. Especially when we are the ones that are moving. In the expat life, people are always coming in going in their schools because they go to international schools. But it’s more difficult when we are the ones leaving.
But my husband, Chris, and I have tried really hard to teach our children that goodbye is not always a forever thing. We have very close friends whom we met in Italy, who moved away a year before we did. And thankfully they moved to London, so we have been able to see them 2 to 3 times every year since 2021, when they moved away (either by us visiting them, or them coming to visit us.) Granted, when we left Italy, we actually moved closer to them by moving to Paris, so that was a huge blessing, but we also encourage our kids to FaceTime them, and I literally will be taking letters to the post office probably later today that they have written these friends.
As far is the most enjoyable thing, I think all the times we’ve gotten to go to the beach. Living here in France, and having lived in Italy, we have had the opportunity to go to the sea or to the ocean multiple times. And I think my kids are like their mama, and they really love the ocean! And if we were still living in America, we were in Dallas before moving to Italy, our trips to the ocean would be less frequent for sure. But right now, I can get to the beach in about an hour and a half. I’m not saying not to brag, and I hope it doesn’t sound like I am, it’s just simply a fact. That that’s how close we are to the Atlantic Ocean.
Next up we have Natasha M. with this question, “What do you miss most about living in the USA? (Is it the breakfast?) And what do you miss the least about living in the USA?”
So, this question comes from one of my dearest and best friends, thus she asked about breakfast, because she knows how much I love breakfast! I’m happy to say that I have gotten accustomed to having a different type of breakfast, so I don’t miss that as much anymore.
And it would be really easy for me to say all of the different fast food establishments that we don’t have here in Europe. In particular IN-N-Out and Chick-fil-A for me, and Whataburger for Chris.
But I think something that stands out to me whenever I am back is how easy it is to drive there. Obviously America is a much younger country than France and the cities and towns here and in Italy and most of Europe, so a lot of the infrastructure was built, was built after cars were invented in America . And the lanes for streets and highways are wider and so are the parking spaces, obviously to be able to accommodate the sizes of our vehicles, but even when you’re just driving a four-door sedan, it makes getting in and out of parking lot and stuff like that. And I feel like I can relax a bit more when I’m driving in the US. So that, other than family and friends, of course, is what I miss the most.
The thing that I miss the least is dealing with all of the politics. This kind of also answers one of Katherine S.’s questions, which was “Have your political views changed since moving abroad?” (Another great question!) And my answer to that would be “no”. I’m not a very political person. I’m not affiliated with a political party. And I just try to vote based off of my values. And the overwhelming ads that are on television when you’re in America and it’s an election year, really bother me.
Obviously, they have elections here, but we don’t really watch regular television here in France, nor did we in Italy. And if I’m honest, my French is bad enough that I wouldn’t understand anything if I tried to watch it here in Paris. And in Italy I wouldn’t have understood anything until the last year or two as well.
So it’s really refreshing to be totally removed and separated from all of the strife, arguing, and volatile political climate in the US. And of course, there are plenty of geopolitics that we deal with here in Paris. There are things that even affect how my kids go to school, but I’m not hearing everybody shouting their opinions all the time, and I really like that.
Now to answer Katherine S.’s other questions, which are, “Do you plan to move back to the States in the future?” and “How are schools different?”
Thank you for these diverse questions Kat! Again, Katherine is someone I’ve known for years, so I’m not just giving her a random nickname by the way. In fact, everyone that wrote in, is somebody that I know, but I really appreciate this, as it will hopefully encourage people have not met me, to write in with their questions so that we can do this type of episode again in the future!
In answer to your question about us moving back, we do plan to retire in America. But that is many years away, so us moving back to the United States anytime soon would depend on Chris’s job. There is always a possibility that the next time they move us it would be to a city in the US, but there is just as great of a possibility if not greater, that we would us move to another city abroad.
We honestly just don’t know. We do get a little bit of a say, but ultimately we can’t just pick a city and say we want to move there. Which, I find, is very normal among the ex-pat community. A lot of times you get a small amount of say, and for some companies you don’t really get much say at all actually. So I’m very glad that with Chris’s company, we do.
And for the questions about the schools… for us we have always chosen an international school, because of the fact that we move every 3 to 5 years and when we move we could always go back to the states. So we choose schools that have an American curriculum, or something very similar to that. So many times, the schools are similar to the schools in the US, except for the fact that the students and families are from all over the world, which makes it a very beautiful and diverse experience.
But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t made observations of the schools in Italy and France. For example, when we lived in Italy, it seemed like the high schoolers always got out of school around 1:30 in the afternoon, for the day. And it also seemed as though they didn’t start until about nine o’clock in the morning. This was only my observation, but it really did seem to be the case.
And here in France, literally from town to town in the Il-de-France Region which is where Paris it is located, some schools have no classes on Wednesdays and some schools only have instruction on Wednesday until lunchtime. In most schools throughout the week, the lunch hour lasts about an hour and a half long, and for younger students you’ll see moms are nannies coming to pick the child up to feed him/her at home and then take them back to school. Some schools give the option of paying extra at lunchtime, not for the meal itself, yes, I’m sure you have to pay for that, but for a person to monitor the children during the lunch hour, and this has to do with unions and the teachers not being the ones to watch the students during lunch. And there are more intricacies like that. It’s very interesting, and also kind of confusing if I’m honest.
For me, thankfully, when I drop my kids off at school, they stay there until I pick them up.
And now for our final question of the day. It comes from Tammy A. and she simply asks, “Can I come live with you?” And the answer is “yes”, because Tammy is my aunt and is of course welcome anytime if she can handle four very energetic children!
Thank you to everyone who wrote in today! If one of their questions has sparked a curiosity in you, feel free to Direct message me on Instagram at @Expatriotical with your question, and I can save it and answer it for our next question and answer episode!
I am super excited for today’s “Chan Select” you guys! This is very accessible to all of you that are listening to Expatriotical. In fact, this is what inspired me, in part, to start this podcast and it has been so helpful for me just in general in my life for almost 3 years now.
And that something, is The Lazy Genius Podcast by Kendra Adachi. Kendra’s motto is “Be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don’t”. On The Lazy Genius podcast she shares “helpful strategies and practical wisdom” that help you “feel like yourself and get things done.” And because the Apple podcast transcript feature probably won’t put the appropriate quotations around things, I wanted you to know that the genius verbiage right there all came directly from Kendra’s website.
Kendra is the New York Times best-selling author of The Lazy Genius Way, which is her first book. It describes the 13 principles that make up her genius philosophy. I hope she doesn’t mind that I call it a philosophy. It is a wonderful book and I absolutely devoured it via audible. Her second book is called The Lazy Genius Kitchen, and I’m so excited that she has a third book coming out in October of this year, 2024, called The Plan, where she will teach us how to manage our time like a Lazy Genius!
I’m super excited about this new book, not because I’m terrible with time management, but because I want to improve and learn more, and Kendra’s philosophy and style of teaching doesn’t just give us “how to’s” or have us follow things exactly how she does them, she gives us principles that are laced with grace and also gives us “permission” to let things go when you need to.
But since the new book is not out yet, I would recommend getting started by listening to her podcast. Since I’ve been listening, applying the principles has really helped me to relax in some areas and to rethink how I’m doing things and why and really to be more kind to myself, which is one the 13 Lazy Genius Principles.
You can find The Lazy Genius Podcast wherever you are listening to this podcast and when you do, if you don’t know where to start a recent episode that she did that I loved was episode #360- A Pep Talk for the Perpetually Tired OR I always love her quarterly What’s Saving My Life Right Now episodes. The most recent of which is Episode #356.
Okay, I know I just gushed a lot, you should hear me talk about Costco or Trader Joe’s, but I really do love all that Kendra is doing for people. I’m not an affiliate of Kendra, I don’t even know her, though if she ever wants to meet me that would be amazing, I just really want to share something that has been super helpful for me, especially during some pretty hard times in Italy and just really practical for me in general.
There will be links to the episodes that I mentioned from The Lazy Genius Podcast in the show notes, as well as to her website thelazygeniuscollective.com. And you can also follow Kendra on Instagram. Her handle is @thelazygenius.
Ok, now for our quote of the day! Today the quote is not going to come from an expat, but from a book that has been translated into, according to Wikipedia, 736 languages. And if you’ve listened long enough you will probably have already guessed that. It’s the Bible.
I stumbled across this verse while I was reading during my morning devotional and this time it stuck out to me. It’s Psalm 146:9, and this is coming from the NIV or New International Version. It says, “The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but He frustrates the ways of the wicked.”
After reading that I just really meditated on how God looks out for people that are living in countries that are not their country of origin. So much so that He mentions foreigners in the same space as widows and orphans. Now I certainly don’t consider my life to be as hard as a child that has no parents or a woman who has lost her husband, but I will admit that things can be exceedingly hard at times as an expat. And reading this verse makes me feel like God is putting it out there in writing, saying, “I know. I see it. And I care.”
Now I’m certainly not speaking for God, but that’s just how that verse makes me feel. “The Lord watches over the foreigner…” That’s good stuff right there!
Okay guys, and that’s it for today! Thank you so much to everyone who wrote in with their questions and help make this episode possible. I really and truly am so grateful! Before I go I want to remind you that if you haven’t already to please follow Expatriotical on whatever platform you listen to, and if your listing on Apple podcasts, which is the biggest podcast platform or directory if you want the official term, in the world would you please rate and review Expatriotical??
The more people that follow and the more people that leave ratings and reviews, the more other people are going to be able to search for podcasts about travel or being expat and actually find Expatriotical! And I want to clarify, because I have had several of you who are faithful listeners say that you’re not sure if you’re following. If you are listening on Apple podcast- well here’s how you know. When you open up Expatiotical, if you see a checkmark in the top right-hand portion of your screen, that means you’re following. And for Spotify, when you open up Expatriotical, it will simply say “following” right under the logo. But I just learned right now, that you can also turn on auto-downloads. Yes, I am following myself, and I realized that I am not automatically downloading the episodes. Which is a huge deal for me for statistics and again getting the podcast out there to other people.
Hope this little impromptu tutorial made sense. Thank you all again so much for listening, I had a blast this episode and hope you did too! I will catch you back here next week, but until then this is Chandra Ally reminding you to “Live and Travel in the Know” with Expatriotical!