Last night, I was watching House Hunters International and I found myself yelling at the woman on the tv. See, this woman was American and she was married to a Norwegian. He worked in Norway and she lived near her parents in Missouri. They finally decided to move to Norway as a family (without her parents...as she said over and over and over again while crying...please, grow up!) and were looking for a house. She wanted an "American house" in Norway. ???? I think if I ever got to live in another country, I'd want to immerse myself in that culture, but what do I know?
So, they are looking and she keeps asking the poor real estate agent if the house has a garbage disposal, because evidently, she can't live without one. (I wonder how I've made it all over these years without one?) She whines the entire time and is even rubbing off on her poor children. They show them sitting at a sidewalk cafe drinking yummy looking hot cocoa. The husband asks the children in his sweet Norwegian accent how it tastes and the boy says, "Um, not as good as American hot cocoa!" WHAT? That's how we wins friends and influence people, kiddo. Keep it up! I'm sure you'll make a ton of friends in school over there in Norway.
So, their budget is $500,000 and each house they look at is climbing higher and higher over budget until finally they look at a piece of rocky land for a cool $100k and find out they can build a house that will suit the wife for an additional $500k. She reminds her husband that if things don't go perfectly, it will be all his fault. Poor man.
They show the house after it's built. They spent $700k on that house! And she had the audacity to say that it really wasn't as big as she would like, but after all, they are in Norway. Ay yi yi.
1 comment:
I was an expat for a time in Scotland, and will be moving back this summer ‘for good’ to spend the rest of my life as an expat. My husband was British and when we married we settled in America.
Both of us had extremely positive times in our foreign homes because we lived as the locals lived, not as we did in our home countries.
Because of my years as an expat/repat, I’ve gotten to know several other Americans living overseas. And you know what? The people with this woman’s attitude are the ones who were miserable the entire time. They were always homesick and always wishing things were the same in their new home as they’d been in America.
The people who lived as the locals did got along just fine! They loved their time overseas.
Now, this isn’t to say you can’t bring some of your home with you. When I lived in Scotland before, I sought out certain American goods that I couldn’t live without (root beer, saltines, ranch dressing) just like we got in British goods when living in America (HP sauce, bisto, paxo).
I know that some people ham it up a bit for the camera, and maybe that’s what this is? Because otherwise, she’s going to have a hard time adjusting to life overseas, and the locals won’t want anything to do with her because they’ll perceive her as being a bit elitist!
(Can’t WAIT to be an expat again! And I don’t want to live in an American style house when I get back there—I’m happy to live in a little Scottish cottage!)
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