I’ve told the story of how I moved from the USA to Germany what feels like a thousand times. It’s a little weird I haven’t written about it online. I guess I think everybody knows the story already, but of course, they don’t. So here’s how I became an expat in Germany.
Moving to Germany from the USA
The year was 1999. A confluence of factors lead to me setting off for Munich, Germany.
When I was in design school in San Francisco, a guy from Munich moved into our WG (there’s no term for it in English!; An apartment one lives in with roommates).
Suddenly there were all these Germans sleeping on our sofa backpacking across America or California and wanting to check out San Francisco. Some became lifelong friends.
One of my buddies in design school, Axel, was from the area around Vienna.
He and his girlfriend were also our neighbours in SF. For various reasons, he ended up in Munich when he finished school.
So I knew a handful of people in Munich.
After design school I freelanced at the internet start-ups that had sprung up in San Francisco overnight and traveled. I’d make a little pile of money and then take off.
I was bitten by the travel bug and wanted to see the world. I went to India and Cuba and wanted to experience a foreign culture more deeply.
But I had just graduated from art school.
I needed to go somewhere where I could start building a career. Being a ‘digital nomad’ was not quite a thing in the late 90s.
A good time to be a web designer
On my first trip to Europe, I was sitting in a biergarten in Munich (The Augustiner Keller to be exact) with Axel.
I was explaining how amazing and easy this new ‘web design’ thing was.
Jobs and money were everywhere and it was pretty easy to learn if you had an education in graphic design.
When I explained how web design worked he asked:
‘You mean you do it all in Photoshop and some nerd makes it work?’
‘Yeah!’ I answered, ‘It’s awesome!’.
He suggested I move to Munich and that we start a web design agency together.
‘Ok’ I said.
What did I have to lose?
I was in the tail end of a going-nowhere relationship, had a month-to-month lease on my apartment and was in my late 20s. If I was going to ever do anything like this, it was now or never.
I moved some stuff into my parents garage, made another pile of money and returned to Germany a few months later on a 90 day tourist visa.
In other words, I arrived in Munich with zero plan.
The American Advantage
Axel and my scheme to start a web design agency was ridiculous.
Axel had no contacts in Munich and I could barely speak German. We set up an office, would surf the internet for a couple of hours and then get coffee.
We had precisely zero clients.
For several months I lived in the office (on Tumblingerstrasse if anyone wants to know). It was impossible to get an apartment with no job, no residence permit, nichts.
It was fine for me though. I’d go to the gym every morning to shower (the office didn’t have a shower) and I was in great shape!
I would go to the KVR (immigration office) when my 90 days would run out and explain that I wanted to stay a little longer and travel.
The lady at the immigration office was beyond nice – I’ve heard horror stories, but I guess I just got lucky.
‘Okay,’ she’d say, ‘But you need to get married or get a job, here’s three more months’ and stamp my passport.
This went on for a year.
In retrospect I see that I had a lot of advantages that I didn’t quite fully grasp at the time.
For starters, I’m American. I didn’t need a visa to come to Germany. All I needed was a passport and plane ticket.
I also had web design skills. In 1999 web design was NOT something that was being taught in schools. There were no web builders, designing for the web was not yet something that just anyone could do, and I had experience with it.
My theory is that I had an easy time, not only because of my nationality, but because of my age and skill set.
Germany has an aging population and continually dwindling high-skilled work force. I arrived from San Francisco, the epicenter of the web 1.0 bubble, with a secondary education, the credentials to prove it, and a ‘cutting edge’ skill.
Overall, even though I was stressed out about it, migrating here was pretty easy.
I’m not sure if that’s still the case or if my theory about why I had an easy time is even accurate, but that’s how it all went down.
After awhile, the scrappy charm of living in an office and hustling to get another 90 day stamp in my passport started to wear off. My pile of money was also dwindling away pretty quickly.
It was clear that I did indeed need to get a job, as marrying for a residence permit was not part of my plan!
I don’t remember how, but I managed to get a job at a small design agency in Munich’s Schwabing district.
I had a skill set that they really needed; book and web design. I was desperate for an Arbeitsgenehmigung – a work permit. I knew that sooner or later my luck at the immigration office was going to run out.
The owner of the agency was confident that getting me a work permit would be no problem. Apparently he underestimated how big ein Problem it actually would be.
At the end of the month he sheepishly handed me an envelope full of Deutsch Marks (this is how long ago that was!) for my monthly salary.
He explained getting the Arbeitsgenehmigung wasn’t as easy as he thought.
This went on for awhile. I was uncomfortable with it. I also didn’t like the chaotic way the agency was being run.
I started looking around for something better and more stable.
The corporate job that changed everything
The year 2000 was the peak of the web 1.0 bubble. There was an explosion of IT firms that were bolting on creative services, many of them American and many expanding into Europe.
One of them was Sapient (now owned by Publicis), a hot agency at the time that was headquartering their EU operations in Munich.
I got an interview.
‘How’s your German?’ asked the Boston-based recruiter
‘Not great’ I answered truthfully
‘Ah, doesn’t matter’ he waved a hand dismissively
I got the job a couple of weeks later.
I can not emphasize enough how much having a corporate job radically altered my experience of living in Germany as a foreigner.
I gave my passport to HR and within a week or two got it back with a shiny new Arbeitsgehnemingung that was valid for a year
I suddenly had a network of people and found an apartment; it had a full bathroom with a shower and everything!
I now had all the right paperwork, like pay stubs and a work contract, so I could easily set up my landline (!), a bank account and all the fixtures of a regular life.
I also suddenly had friends! A big and growing community of other expats coming to work in the Germany office. Americans, Irish, Brits and more.
At the time, the office had a start-up atmosphere and we are all exploring Munich, Germany and Europe together. It was a heady time.
The party ends
The first year at Sapient was probably my best.
I met a lot of talented an amazing people, and was flown back to San Francisco for my orientation (woohoo a free trip home for Christmas!). I was feeling pretty triumphant.
I had left for Germany on a wing and prayer and somehow nailed down a good job that I loved.
After awhile though, the euphoria started wearing off.
The web 1.0 bubble crashed and crashed hard.
The Germany office almost got shut down. I managed to hold onto my job by getting on projects in the London office so I was ‘billable’. Non-management level staff was put on Kurzarbeit – reduced working hours (which was awesome, by the way).
The exciting work I thought I would be doing didn’t materialize. Firms just started taking whatever projects they could get.
Sometimes I would spend months building out detail screens that needed to adhere to existing brand guidelines. I called it bustin’ digital rocks. It was neither fun nor interesting work.
The thing was, if I stayed at the company 5 years I would get my Unbefristet Aufenthaltstitel; my permanent residence permit. The equivalent of a German Green Card.
I wasn’t yet sure if I was going to stay in Germany, but I wanted the option. I also wanted the ability to freelance in Germany which I could do as soon as I got permanent residency.
So I stuck it out, for several more years in fact.
Even though I was often frustrated, I learned a LOT at Sapient. I learned about creative project workflows, agile methodology project management, presenting to big clients, running workshops and just becoming a professional person.
After about ten years though, I had enough. I finally gathered up the courage and the cash to quit. You can read all about my journey to quit my day job here.
Mr. Right
It’s funny how things happen when you finally make a decision. After years of being ambivalent, endlessly weighing pros and cons, I made the decision to stay in Germany.
I even took the plunge and invested in a small rental property.
I was still planning to quit my job, and I knew I would have a hard time securing a mortgage loan as a freelancer so I bought it while I still had a corporate job and salary.
Right around this time, I met my husband at work. Like many Munich relationships, things took a romantic turn at the company Oktoberfest event and the rest, as they say, is history.
People often assume I met a German guy in America and came to Germany to be with him. That’s not the case at all. I came here on my own and decided to stay on my own.
I’m grateful for this. I think deciding which country to put down roots in can be an ongoing tension in many dual-national families.
Freelancing in Germany
When I finally quit my job I had been running an e-commerce side-hustle that I took full time. You can read more about my e-commerce platform mistakes as well as general business mistakes I made in that business here.
I also freelanced. I had a good network from my time at Sapient and could pick up work pretty easily just via my connections.
Again, none of this would have been possible without that first corporate job at Sapient.
I couldn’t imagine arriving in Germany as an expat and trying to get on the path I’m on now without that social and business infrastructure.
Starting a family and a second business in Germany
On New Year’s morning of 2017 my husband and I welcomed our daughter into the world.
While on Elternzeit, we visited my family in the states. In the back of my mind I was rethinking what I wanted to do professionally.
I was still picking up freelance contracts here and there, but I didn’t like it and my printable business was dying a slow quiet death.
I had always had the idea in the back of my head to start a website design business, but I was hesitant.
One day, while in a class to brush up my German I was chatting with a French classmate and she asked if I would do her website. ‘I don’t do that’ I answered, a little too reflexively.
‘Why not’ she asked?
I didn’t have a good answer, but I think I was concerned about having a client based business. Funnily enough, it sounded like a fun project and I actually wanted to do it. I actually like designing websites!
Over time, I got over my resistance (helped by a big tax bill due to my irregular post-baby working!) and hung out my shingle for my Squarespace web design business.
I’m staying in Germany
Now I can’t imagine not living in Germany, and Munich specifically.
Like many expats, I really hate being so far away from family. California is not close by. However the quality of life here is so good, when I think about all the things we’d have to give up if we moved to the states, it’s a non-starter.
Things like quality affordable health care, not needing to work two corporate jobs to have the same nice standard of living we have in Munich (which is NOT a cheap city, but still cheaper day-to-day than a big city in California), not needing to drive everywhere, no guns, no (or at least less) political insanity, no wildfires, very little homelessness.
I’m sorry about those last few things, they sadden me.
But I don’t want to live with those things in America. These factors also make me feel that raising a child in Germany is much more preferable than in the U.S.
When I landed here over 20 years ago, I had NO idea I’d stay this long. But I’m sure glad I did! It’s strange to write it all down and think about all the ‘what if’s’.
I think every long-time or committed expat must think about that.
What if I stayed in my home country? What if this or that hadn’t happened? How would my life have turned out?
Being an expat has is complications and conflicts, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Are you also an expat business owner in Germany? Let’s stay in touch!