Our new big adventure

The last weeks have been… interesting... emotional… stressful… rewarding… really just kind of all the emotions at once. But let me start from the beginning.

The Initial Thought

It was about 4 years into teaching, so 2022, when Josh and I started talking about potentially moving to the US for a period. As usual when Josh shares a crazy, new, life changing idea I started crying. Even though some of the ideas challenge me immensely, I also have a spirit of adventure and so we decided to make the plan happen, after 6 years of teaching. (In most of Switzerland you keep the same students for 3 years and I really wanted to finish the amazing class I had)

The Choosing of our Future Home City

Josh has been really excited to continue to develop his stand-up comedy in the US so there were three main hubs for that: Los Angeles, Austin and New York. Last summer we decided to check out Austin, to see if the city would be a great fit for us. We both strongly felt like it wasn’t our place to be, so Austin was ruled out. Between LA and NYC, I preferred New York since it offers a public transport system, and you don’t constantly get stuck in traffic. So, in the last year we started planning our move:

The Confusion

Joshua started and finished a programming bootcamp for better job prospects. I quit my job as a teacher in March. (Yes, crazy early but in Switzerland you have a 3-month notice and teachers can only leave their Job by the end of the school year!) I was very emotional about it. It meant giving up financial security but most of all a job that I loved. About a month later Joshua got a job offer from our Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym (BJJ Lab Zurich) to work as an admin and customer support. We were so excited about it because it was a job so well-tailored to Josh, but we were also so confused! Were we not supposed to leave? Why did Josh get a great job offer at this moment after 6 years?! We prayed a lot during that time, not sure what to do. It was an awkward time; I wasn’t sure if I had to apply to a new job as a teacher in Switzerland and generally not knowing where we’d be living in 4 months was stressful.

The Decision

In June, things at Josh’s work started to get a bit confusing. Some major unexpected turmoil ended up with him being let go. It was a shock – we were sad because what started so exciting and hopeful, ended so quickly. Aside from that it also was a very clear answer to our moving question. Now we both didn’t have a job in Switzerland and were free to go. It was now very real, definite and scary.

The Preparation

From now on things went quick. We decided to leave by the end of October. That gave us enough time to find a subletter for our apartment. My goal was to find lots of substituting jobs in the meantime to help out financially. Finding work as a substitute ended up a bit trickier then expected, it almost seemed like I had to get the word out to all the school principals that I was now a substitute and that I could be asked. In the end though I was able to work quite a bit which we are very grateful for.

The Sublet Miracle

Finding a subletter was confusing. We first had a Ukrainian family from church who would have moved in. After a month they found out they weren’t allowed to move to another town. Now with only two months left until our departure we (mostly I) got a bit nervous. We again did lots of praying. One night Josh was heading out of the door, when he stepped back in and announced there was someone to look at our apartment. As he was speaking more and more people arrived. It was confusing, since we didn’t have a visitor’s appointment! Eventually we found out the neighbor upstairs was leaving his apartment as well and everyone came to see his place. The neighbor quickly assured us it would be okay to write a sign at our door to advertise our place and that’s how we found our subletter! It was an answer to our all our prayers!

The Last 3 Weeks

The last weeks were so full of organizing, meeting friends and family, packing, and cleaning that I don’t remember the last normal day we had. Packing was overwhelming – I mean how do you decide what to bring for a two year “trip” if you can only bring two suitcases?! Eventually we decided somehow and the rest of our stuff we stored in a storage unit near Lucerne. We got a lot of help with cleaning from my amazing family and church friends! But the best (and also bittersweet) part was seeing all our friends. We always felt appreciated by them but seeing how much thought our friends put into all our goodbye visits and parties made our hearts so full! From amazing goodbye parties at work to delicious meals, balloons and prosecco, to a comedy roast with pretty much the entire Swiss English comedy scene – we had it all! We feel so loved and we are very, very grateful to call them our friends!

The Future Plans

I am currently using the 12h flight to San Francisco to write this blog post and I can share the rough outline with you. We are spending a month (including Thanksgiving) with Josh’s Family and friends in California. During that time, I will apply for the appropriate visas and Josh will search for jobs in New York. We pray that he will find something starting in December so we can fly over and look for an apartment! Josh is very excited to get to work on his comedy career and I? For now, I am very happy to escape the foggy Zurich November in exchange for some California sun. Then I am excited for Christmas Time in New York!!! I will probably have to wait quite a while for my work visa/green card. Once I am able to work, I would love to work at a flower show and learn a new skill, but teaching is also not out of the question. I am excited to see where those two years will lead us and, in the meantime, you’ll probably get to read quite a few blog posts on here! I feel like I have already been able to learn and grow so much during this adventure. I thought I could never leave Switzerland for that long and say goodbye to my family. The thought of substituting in a different place every day was horrifying for me and yet I did it! I learned so much about sublet contracts and all the admin tied to leaving a country. Let’s see where else I will be able to grow in the next two years and let’s hope it’s not my body diameter. Fries and Burgers – here I come!

Why We Decided to Move to NYC