Blog — Expat Vibes

Soft girl era? The aesthetic is adorable. Online it looks like beige loungewear, iced coffees, morning affirmations, and people who apparently have time to nap on purpose.Stunning for the nervous system — in theory.Except… it’s giving Gen-Z fantasy, not Gen-X reality. Because our starter pack wasn’t matcha and meditation.It was: latchkey independence, silent resilience, dial-up trauma, and “you’re fine, walk it off.”Our version of softness? Crying quietly in your room with t

My 3 AM brain is the most dramatic thing in Europe: it has no health insurance but insists on running a full psychological thriller marathon every night.It wants to rethink life choices, replay conversations from 2011, and panic about emails I haven’t even received yet — like a one-woman HR department on Red Bull. Add Gen-X trauma seasoning — latchkey childhood, dial-up internet, “just walk it off” emotional support — and now you’ve got Netflix-level content with a R0 produc

Starting over in a new country looks adorable on TikTok — fairy lights, flat whites, and “new chapter” captions.In real life, your GPS cries more than you do, and the supermarket feels like an exam you didn’t study for. Nobody warns you how lonely it gets before it gets better.How the silence after a video call hits harder than homesickness.How you can feel completely invisible while standing in the middle of a packed train. Your confidence takes shots you didn’t see comin

ou know you’re becoming Dutch when you start arguing with yourself about whether cycling in the rain is actually that bad… or if you’re just being a dramatic South African with unresolved weather trauma.Spoiler: it’s both, and also, no one told your eyelashes they signed up for icicles. I still remember my first winter here: sprinting to the bus stop with frozen eyebrows, clutching my scarf like a portable duvet, thinking, “Nee man, this is not weather, this is an extreme spo