is moving from one country to another an exciting experience

Yes, ofcourse, it takes quite a while to get adjusted to the new environment, the language handicaps, culture, climatic conditions, food, and work-place desciplines too ! I had gone through that, and it took me two years to become a bit comfortable ! Definitely very challenging. But now, I am quite happy, and I am helping people who are going through that challenging period having got the experience with it !

I have never emigrated, though expect to one day. I travel for fun, but have also done charity work and have stayed for long periods. Then I had a work permit, which was a bummer to get. The Namibian government pretty much had to be bribed to get back to you about visas etc. especially if you expected to get it before your previous one runs out lol!

I live in the UK but have lived overseas at different times in my life. When I was 18 I worked as a children's nanny in Finland. The weather was quite cool and in the summer I enjoyed long hours of daylight. I didn't like the food all that much. I liked the landscape of forests and lakes. Then I got a working holiday visa for Australia, later marrying an Australian, but now we are divorced. I liked the weather, the honesty of Australian people, the unique wildlife and the beautiful landscapes. I found the distances huge and I missed my family that lived so far away. People should get accustomed by making friends with the local people, learn the language if it is not their mother tongue and write a list of things they like about the country that they have immigrated to.

it is exciting to seeing a new country for the first time and thinkning that you will be living there. at first you have all this hopes and dreams. but after 2 to 3 months you will realize that its not the same as where you grew up from. different culture, different people, etc...then you will have to adjust yourself and try to adapt thier culture.

I'm a recent immigrant, having moved from Malaysia to Switzerland to join my husband who is employed with a Swiss company. We live in the French part, specifically a tiny town near Lausanne. It has been about three months since I arrived and sure, there have been challenges along the way. - The climate here is different from Malaysia - I come from a tropical country where there are no seasons like in temperate countries - it's just monsoon or non monsoon season. Even the rain here in Switzerland is different from back home - rain back home is actually classified as a storm here. @_@ - The people. Swiss people generally keep to themselves unless it is necessary to speak to strangers. While they are polite, they aren't exactly friendly compared to Malaysians. I know who my neighbours are - their names and how big their household is but that's it. I don't know what they work as or etc because people here just don't make small talk. - Food. Chinese in Switzerland is not Malaysian Chinese. So no curries and definitely no Nyonya cuisine (my fave foods!). I have to cook them all on my own and even then, looking for the ingredients is tough. Believe it or not, I buy most of my Asian spices from an Asian hypermarket store in Lyon (where hubby is from). - Society. Swiss society is pretty homogenous and there aren't many Asians around. Before I moved closer to town, I was staying in a village where I was the only Asian. Needless to say, I felt like a total zoo exhibit. - Language. Here in the French part, they speak, well, French. I learnt French back at home but because I stopped for 1.5 years and went all rusty, I find it hard to converse fluently in French. To make matters worse, I'm shy and well, people here are not very patient. I can manage by with basic stuff like buying groceries and all but when it comes to a conversation beyond how much, "I want this or that", hello, thank you...I just get stuck. So how am I overcoming all this? By effort...and patience. It'll take me a while. Sometimes I get depressed because well, I'm not used to feeling so "useless" - I had a job, friends, family and I was considered to be quite okay academically because of my education background and my fluency in English. Over here, it's a different story... Anyway, I'm beginning to recover some of my French by using some workbooks and practising with my hubby (listening/watching French shows help). As for other stuff, well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.