Now that we have been living in Vienna, Austria for a little
over four months, some friends have expressed to me their own desire to break
out of their routine and venture abroad.
Here, I offer a little advice about one might consider if you are making
such a decision:
First realize there is a difference between living abroad
and traveling abroad.
Travel is mostly perceived through the adrenaline-pumped
thrill of taking a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, or during the ecstasy of a
much-deserved holiday away from work and everyday responsibilities. When we travel, we hop on an airplane anticipating
minor inconveniences, but we know that our comfortable, well-worn home and
loved ones are waiting for us to return in a week or two. We arrive at our destination, usually with a jam-packed
itinerary. Let's take Vienna: if you're a visitor to Vienna, you'd probably
stay in a center city hotel (right in the heart of all the action and old-world
ambiance), you'd go out to eat several times a day, and you'd do all kinds of touristy
things. For instance, I'd expect someone
just visiting to go to the Prater (famous Ferris wheel from "The Third
Man" movie), visit St. Stephens Cathedral in the heart of the city, go to
the palaces, and patronize the museums.
As a short term traveler, there is a seemingly never-ending list of
things to do and only a short time span within which to do them. I have rarely finished a vacation feeling
like I saw and did everything I wanted to.
This relationship between too many sights and not enough time often
translates into a hectic schedule as some try to "see it all." Although this might mean, as a traveler, we
are in need of a vacation after our vacation, the exhaustion is exhilarating.
Travel is seen through rose-colored lenses because it is for
pleasure. We spend our hard-earned
savings to go see and experience a place previously only imagined in our
dreams.
Travel is a worthy and worthwhile experience. I always
counsel one should expand their borders.
However, the main point of this blog entry is that travel is
not the same as living abroad.
When we travel, it doesn't matter if we know the locals’
mother tongue or not. Basically, as
itinerant visitors, we revel in our ignorance.
We take our little Phrasebook along.
Maybe if we're very diligent (or overachievers), we take a language
course before visiting a country. I cannot
deny that learning to communicate with the locals can make travel a much richer
experience. However, living abroad is a completely
different beast. No longer can we revel
in our ignorance of the local language because we need that language in order
to navigate the bureaucracy.
Four months into this
living abroad experience, here is what it took to achieve a minimal degree of
settlement.
The first necessary interaction with bureaucracy started
before we even left the US. We had to
complete our residence permit application in the States (not an insignificant
task, requiring us not only to collect long-ago filed originals but to obtain
in addition, new state-certified certificates of authenticity along with
translations for each), and visit Washington, DC on a few occasions to file the
paperwork with the Austrian embassy there.
In reality, as the embassy admitted to us, they were only acting as a glorified
post office, securely mailing our documentation in their diplomatic satchels to
their counterparts in Vienna. Once in Austria,
the actual processing of our residence permit required us visiting a building
referred to as MA35. On at least three separate
occasions, we had to venture into the Austrian bureaucracy. A visit meant repeatedly standing in line
with other immigrants to receive a number (sort of like the number you take at
the deli in your local supermarket, but with less satisfying returns) and stumbling
through broken Germ-glish to communicate with ornery bureaucrats at various
counters. Then, after heading upstairs and searching over various office doors
inscribed in a foreign language, you find your place, ending up in a holding
room for hours awaiting your number to appear on an electronic board on the
wall (think: DMV in the U.S.). Much of
our time there was spent trying to figure out the algorithms involved in
determining which number came next as, unlike the DMV, the numbers seemed to
jump around in random "dis"order, #211 being followed by #16, being
followed by #723.
Once our number was displayed, we went into a room in which
sat our caseworker, who according to her, did not speak English. At this point, we had been in the country
only several weeks and did not have the necessary German vocabulary (note that
we had actually taken 4 months of bi-weekly private lessons back in the U.S.,
but even this was sadly inadequate).
However, after our caseworker spoke machine gun rapid fire instructions
in German, Rachel looked over at me asking, "What did she say?"...my
response was I have no idea. At that
point, our caseworker tersely told us in very intelligible English to please
wait outside again.
I have since been told by Austrians that it is common for
these government agency workers to speak German with immigrants because, you
know, it IS our job to learn the language.
Of course, everyone starts his or her language learning experience in
ADVANCED GERMAN FOR UNINTELLIGABLE BUREAUCRACTIC BUSINESS 101.
Therefore, my first point to travel abroad versus living
abroad is: although it's cute to revel
in one's linguistic ignorance during travel, I don't recommend moving to a
country for which you don't at least have a rudimentary understanding of the
language. Furthermore, when you travel,
you spend most of your time interacting in the tourist world... a world inhabited
by English-speaking natives who learned your language because it is their job
to make you feel as comfortable as possible to encourage you to spend your
money, thus enriching them and the local tourist board. However, this fairy tale tourist world of
eager English-speaking natives quickly disappears as a resident. Now, it is your job to maneuver the intricate
bureaucracies in a foreign language to accomplish things requisite to a life
abroad.
Luckily, as Rachel already had a job offer, we had the
support of her employer in giving the workers at MA35 a little push. Thus, about 80 days after starting the
process, and after only a few visits to that Bureaucratic purgatory, we were
able to get our residence permits giving us the right to live and work
here.
So, if I were to boil my advice into a set of commandments,
we have our first two:
Commandment 1: in
living abroad, you need to learn the language.
Commandment 2: have a
job before you move abroad, as your employer will provide invaluable support
with procuring the necessary paperwork to keep you in the country. An addendum would be, "or enroll in
school"; meaning as a student enrolled in a program abroad, oftentimes the
university will help you maintain the appropriate status to prevent
deportation.
At this point in the story, we have our residence permits
but do not yet have an apartment (we were living in a temporary apartment for
our first month here, a very costly predicament – see earlier blog entry).
Again let's evaluate residence through the perspective of
travel versus living.
When we travel, we go online, book the best hotel deal,
arrive in our country, and take whatever form of transportation to get us to
our hotel. At the hotel, we arrive to a
king's welcome. Food in the form of
scheduled meals is no problem. In addition,
our hotel staff wants to make our stay as comfortable and easy as
possible. Maps are in the offing,
scheduled activities await us. This is
in stark contrast to an immigrant's life.
Had we done a better job researching apartments in Vienna
before we left the States, we would have realized the following:
A. The majority of listed apartments in Vienna are offered
through local real estate agents (“Maklers” in German).
B. For arranging a
visit and basically getting together the paperwork (often less than an hour's
work), these Maklers and their agencies charge a fee of from 2 to 3 times the monthly
rent. This fee is called Provision.
C. In addition to
this fee, most owners require deposits called “Kaution” (to be later refunded- but
often after a year’s delay) of 2 to 3 times the monthly rent.
After including the first month's rent in advance, this totaled,
in some circumstances, into the need to have 6 months’ worth of rent available
to move into a one-bedroom apartment.
Believe me, I'm not talking some luxury apartment. To move into an unfurnished, modest-sized,
not-centrally-located apartment meant having the ability to present the Makler
with 4800 Euros (in *cash*, mind you, even if we’d had a bank account at this
point) within two days of signing the apartment contract. (This figure assumes a monthly rent of 800
Euros.)
What lesson did we learn?
Merely traveling abroad means having the funds necessary to
pay for the fixed costs of hotels, dinners, excursions, etc. Living abroad is usually much more costly (especially
higher start-up costs) when one realizes the real estate market for Vienna is
more similar to New York City than, e.g., Baltimore.
In living abroad, finding an apartment is the first
step. Actually, the first step is
getting your residence permits squared (since signing a rental agreement means
promising to pay at least 13 months’ rent and obviously, you first want some
assurance that you may indeed remain in the country for that long); the second
step is finding an "affordable" apartment. The third step requires more bureaucracy and
documentation. Once we had an apartment,
in order to get bank accounts we had to get a document from our local
magistrate (think county or local governments in the U.S.). This document is called a Meldezettel or Meldebestatigung. This document, signed by your landlord and
filed at the local magistrate office, basically states that you are living
where you claim to be living. It also provides a way for the State to track you
down, God forbid.
Successfully filing this paperwork required no less than 3 separate
visits to the magistrate's office. In
reality, anytime the government required paperwork, a minimum of three trips
was necessary to successfully complete the documentation. Even with the support of our employers (at
this point in the process, I had also acquired a job), details arise during the
first visit pointing to some additional paperwork, or something that wasn’t
correctly completed, or something needs to be notarized or translations need to
be procured. The second visit fools you
because there is nothing else you can imagine needing to be done, yet somehow
the bureaucrat always finds some little flaw needing correction or claims that a
signature finalizing the process is required.
The third trip, when we would pick up the completed official
documentation, was usually the shortest.
Without fail, paperwork would never be completed in one
visit, therefore Commandment 3 is:
Commandment 3: when
living abroad, expect multiple trips (usually 3) to accomplish any required
bureaucratic task.
Contrast this process with the simple life of a traveler
whose every need is met (usually before your realization of that need) by the
hotel staff, sightseeing groups, and tourist agencies committed to ensuring that
your visit is pleasant and enjoyable.
Once we had our employment contracts, Residence Permits, and
our apartment registration document, we were able to relatively easily open a
bank account. However, it took no less
than two months to acquire that documentation and establish basic norms of
living.
Commandment 4: expect
greater commitments in terms of time and money early on in the relocation to a
new country.
Here are the commandments we have thus far; to wit:
- Commandment 1: in
living abroad, you need to learn the language.
- Commandment 2: have a
job before you move abroad, as your employer will provide invaluable support
with procuring the necessary paperwork to keep you in the country. An addendum would be, "or enroll in
school"; meaning as a student enrolled in a program abroad, oftentimes the
university will help you maintain the appropriate status to prevent
deportation.
- Commandment 3: when
living abroad, expect multiple trips (usually 3) to accomplish any required
bureaucratic documentation.
- Commandment 4: expect
greater commitments in terms of time and money early on in the relocation to a
new country.
In addition to these, I would advise that you DO YOUR
HOMEWORK. This means do as much research
and legwork in your own country before even thinking about moving abroad.
...and finally, Be Realistic!
If you traveled to some country and were ensnared by it's
romantic embrace, that's probably not reason enough to move there. Recognize you were the victim of an excellent
tourism campaign. It is the job of the
tourist industry to market the magic of travel.
Please do not misunderstand me; I am not saying travel is not a magic
and worthy experience in and of itself. But
I AM saying that travelers and immigrants live in parallel versions of a
destination, one in a blissful ether, the latter in a cold, flat reality.
There are many different Viennas (or Londons, or New Yorks,
or anywheres for that matter). There is
the traveler Vienna complete with five-star luxury accommodations in the city
center, closely situated to all the main tourist attractions, chic restaurants,
and upscale shopping. This Vienna has
been marketed to illustrate the glamorous, romantic, easy side of the city. Travelers have the time to sip their Grösser
Brauner in the middle of the day while others toil at work.
Then there's the residents' Vienna. You already know this world well. Wherever you are right now, look around and
see what others are doing. This is the
daily routine of Metro-Boulot-Dodo (as the French call it). In American English, this translates as
"Subway- Work- Sleep." The
residents' Vienna is for people going about their daily lives in order to
provide for themselves and their families.
To be honest, the residents' Vienna could further be differentiated
into: an expatriates' Vienna versus the
natives' Vienna. However, this will be
better suited for a later blog post.
To conclude, both traveling and living abroad are worthwhile
experiences; not only to immerse oneself in another culture and language but
also for a truer, stronger sense of self-awareness. Living abroad teaches us how different basic
societal services (health care, subsidized housing) can be provided in
alternate, sometimes more efficient ways.
In addition, anytime one removes themselves from their daily routines,
one learns about how much change and what kinds of unfamiliarity and discomfort
they are willing to accept.
The point of this entry is not to discourage future
expatriates from taking this bold and brave leap. Rather, I hope to encourage the pragmatic, "feet on the ground" mental state necessary to research and prepare oneself for
navigating a place that may quickly seem very different from the romantic
honeymoon destination once visited, briefly.
