Wanderlusting Expats - In Search of a Life Less Ordinary

Two months ago we were at the airport getting ready to start our expat adventure. I knew there would be a lot of change and I knew it wouldn't always be easy.  But the transition was harder than I expected. Before we'd left Canada, I was most concerned with getting the kids settled and worried SO much about how they would cope with all the changes. Once we arrived, I quickly realized that the kids would be fine; they're resilient and really only had to focus on their new school. Brent had also been in Rotterdam for a month before we arrived which made his "landing" a little smoother.  I on the other hand had to juggle the rest of life that goes on; groceries, getting registered with the municipality (a multi-step process), signing up for health care, new cell phone etc. Even though most people in The Hague speak some English, anything written is likely still in Dutch, so I rely on Google Translate a lot! To be honest we've felt quite "settled...

I'd read that the Netherlands, and The Hague especially, was a great place for novice expats to move to because of how many people speak English. Perhaps this set my expectations too high because it's been a more difficult transition that I'd expected. I was prepared for a bit of homesickness and longing for familiar people and places.I wasn't prepared to feel exhausted from trying to understand my surroundings. I knew we wouldn't find all of our usual foods, but I didn't know that every trip to the grocery store would involve google translate. I wasn't prepared to have to use google maps every time we left our apartment. As a tourist, these kinds of things are fun. It's all part of the adventure, and you know that it will come to an end in a few days. But, when your kids ask to go swimming and you spend an hour trying to understand where the local pools are, when they're open and how to get there, it doesn't feel fun. It f...