The Expat Cast

Season 2, Episode 1. It's 2019! Is one of your goals for the new year to learn German? Super, then buckle up and brace yourself for some German-learning resources, tips, & venting. Of course, to learn German, or any language, a course is a great idea. But if you can't take a class due to money, access, or whatever, no fear. Our discussion focuses on free methods that are available to everyone. We...

We're BAAAAACK. Almost. Starting in one week, on January 25, The Expat Cast will be back in your feeds every Thursday. We'll be bringing you new interviews with expats all over the globe, with a special focus on expats in or from Germany and the German-speaking world. You can look forward to more laughs, more resources, more commiseration, and more verbal eye rolling at whatever cultural differenc...

Season 1, Episode 25. "The things that I'm worried about now are more future tense." Floridian Kris enrolled in the US Army in part because he was eager to travel, and he was happy to find himself stationed in Germany between missions. After two years of getting to know the German culture, Kris decided to learn the language, too, and shortly after his time in the military ended, Kris decided to ca...

Season 1, Episode 24. Some people move abroad for a big, fancy job with an incredible relocation package. But many of us move abroad on our own, for love or in pursuit of a better life or whatever it may be. And for the DIY expats, there's no relocation package. There's sometimes even no job lined up and only limited savings. Jenny and Nicole both moved abroad for love, on tight, tight budgets. Th...

Season 1, Episode 23. When host Nicole was preparing to move to Germany, one of the websites she frequented was Live Work Germany. It seems like they've got a resource guide for every bump in the road of moving to Germany, from registering your address to navigating a foreign qualification recognition process - all up-to-date, all in English. As a librarian who loves a good resource, Nicole has lo...

Season 1, Episode 22. What is it like to be an Asian woman in Germany? This week, we hear one woman's perspective. April is from China, and she's lived in Canada, Austria, the United States, and now Germany. Through her time in North America, Europe, and Asia, April has been able to compare people's reactions to her across cultures.  We discuss if/when it's acceptable to ask someone about their ho...

Season 1, Episode 21. What do you call someone who moves to a new country because the person they're in a relationship with got a job offer abroad? A trailing spouse? Bitte nicht! They're an expat partner. This nuance is vitally important, says our guest, Katharina, of the Share the Love blog. When Katharina agreed to move from Munich to Chicago for her husband's job, she was excited to continue h...

Season 1, Episode 20. It should be no surprise that our conversation with Friederike Schulte, the director of a German-American cultural institution, had us ping-ponging across the Atlantic. Pennsylvania Quakers! Stuttgart! Silicon Valley! Berlin in the '40s! The Midwest Goodbye! The trans-Atlantic dialogue doesn't hold back on geography. We chat over-assimilation, American heroism, and "that whol...

Season 1, Episode 19. Have you ever felt completely fatigued, your energy fully spent, not because of anything in your personal life but rather because of the world at large? Welcome to the feeling of Weltschmerz, one of those wonderfully untranslatable German words, which combines the words Welt, or world, with schmerz, or pain, to create: worldpain. Many of us, expat or not, have felt this over...

Season 1, Episode 18. Christin decided to take a break from her life in Germany to do a study abroad year in Charleston, South Carolina, in the hopes of improving her English. Little did she know, she'd meet the love of her life on her first day of classes, launching a whirlwind couple of years, including an engagement, a long-distance relationship, a wedding, and a permanent move to America. Now,...

Season 1, Episode 17. It's hard enough to find a job in Germany, but the process of getting all the paperwork needed to finalize a job offer can be an unexpected headache and financial strain. Nicole shares her experience with what paperwork she needed to get a full-time job in her field in Germany. For a full list of resources, check out the blog post here .   CONNECT theexpatcast.com Instagram ...

Season 1, Episode 16. Finding an apartment or house in Germany can feel impossible, and it can be incredibly confusing. Some homes are listed without kitchens. What Germany calls a 3-room house is called a 2-bedroom house in America. You might need a resume to apply for an apartment. What?! No fear! Shanon and Nicole break it all down. You can get a full list of resources they recommend here . Plu...

Season 1, Episode 15. Did you know that American citizens, no matter where they are in the world, are eligible to vote? With the upcoming November 6 election in the United States in mind, The Expat Cast sits down with Duncan, an American voting rights enthusiast in Freiburg, Germany. We learn how register to vote and how to vote from abroad . Starting at  22:20, Duncan talks about the non-profit W...

Season 1, Episode 14. Five years ago, Rebecca decided to cut alcohol out of her life. Just weeks after embarking on a sober life, she and her husband moved to Germany, a country famous for their beer and drinking culture. Rebecca shares her experience as one of pleasant surprise, what with Germany's lesser-known strong love for non-alcoholic drinks and with the European cafe culture. The harder pa...

Season 1, Episode 13. In the second half of our interview with Reggie, we dig deeper into how his background in rap and hip hop influenced his expectations for Germany. Why are there kids mindlessly dancing, backs to each other, to Usher in a Freiburg club, when Reggie knew from working with Usher that the whole point of his music was to bring people together? What's the point of going to a club i...

Season 1, Episode 12. Reggie was enjoying an exciting career in the music industry when Napster came along. Quickly, the industry as he knew it fell apart. So Reggie moved abroad. With minimal research or planning, he flew into Frankfurt, Germany and let the adventure begin. Reggie shares his story with listeners, including how American foreign policy influenced his decision, and what hanging out...

Season 1, Episode 11. Anne Thompsen Lord, a mother of four, and her oldest son, Thompsen, sit down with The Expat Cast to share their experience with their family's year abroad. Anne and her husband Errol wanted to spend a year abroad so that their kids could have the gift of a second language, so when Errol's job as a professor of philosophy brought them the opportunity to live in Freiburg, Germa...

Season 1, Episode 10. Ashley, from Teaching English Abroad , is back on the show, this time with a special guest: her baby boy! Ashley is eight months pregnant when she sits down to tell The Expat Cast all about what it's like to be pregnant as an expat in Germany. Maternity leave, midwives, and Mutterpass - we touch on it all. We also learn that it's fruitless to search for a baby shower card in...

Season 1, Episode 9. Bahar got a taste for the relaxed German lifestyle on a short visit to a village that left her hungry for more. She'd studied English language and literature in Istanbul, so when she heard of an English-language Masters in British and North American Studies in Freiburg, it was a no-brainer to apply. Bahar talks us through her experience getting a student visa in Germany as a T...

Season 1, Episode 8. Part of the adventure of moving abroad is assimilating into the culture. But how do you assimilate without giving up too much of your own self identity? How much of who you are is tied to where you're from or where you live now? We sit down with friend of the show Jenny to talk about our own personal journeys to adapt to life in Germany while maintaining our sense of self. We...

Season 1, Episode 7. Instead of heading to college straight after high school, 19-year-old Izzy decided to take a gap year and head to Germany with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange ( CBYX ), specifically the Vocational Youth Exchange. CBYX is a nearly fully-funded year-long program that brings American teens to Germany for a year of immersion into German culture and language. While staying wi...

Season 1, Episode 6. In part 2 of a 2-part series, The Expat Cast sits down with wife-and-husband duo, Danielle Tirado Green and Alex Green Tirado. The couple moved to Germany just months after marrying. For Danielle , the move was inspired by her love for post-war French cinema. Her desire to complement her close relationship with French language and culture with knowledge of German language and...

Season 1, Episode 5. In part 1 of a 2-part series, The Expat Cast sits down with wife-and-husband duo, Danielle Tirado Green and Alex Green Tirado. The couple moved to Germany just months after marrying. For Alex, Germany was country of residence number 5. When Danielle said she wanted to move to Europe after graduating, it was an easy thing for Alex's nomadic heart to say yes to. Their adventure...

Season 1, Episode 4. Fulbright Scholar Dane tells us all about his experience in the English Teaching Assistant program. Dane originally heard of Freiburg through friends in college who studied abroad via Academic Year Freiburg, and then again when he was living in Madison, Wisconsin, Freiburg's US sister city. When he applied to Fulbright, he hoped to be placed in the state of Baden-Württemburg,...

Season 1, Episode 3. We sit down with Ashley Matthäus, who moved to Germany without knowing German and without teaching experience. She was able to start her career as an English as a Foreign Language teacher at language schools that don't require previous experience, then work her way up to the higher paying language schools before becoming the head of the adult language courses at one of the sch...