In one of my previous posts, I have told you pretty frankly why we decided to leave Singapore earlier than initially planned. And although I believe that all reasons given were crucial enough on their own, I have actually kept the major cause for leaving that abruptly for myself – until now. Mainly because I could not talk about it earlier, but also because I wanted to keep this precious happening for us for a little longer…

Finally, I can reveal the main reason for leaving Singapore: We will move to another country! We won’t go back to Germany, but in fact, will be living almost the same distance from Germany as we did Singapore… just that this time, it’s gonna be on the other side of the world. Need more hints?

We are moving to the U S A !

Yes, it looks that my dream has come true, and I still can’t believe it! I have been keeping this secret for a long while since I didn’t know when we would finally be able to head off to the states. But with Singapore going into another lockdown, the tide had turned. It all of a sudden became not only unbearable but also unreasonable for us to wait it out. Not again anyway. The second lockdown and its restrictions were not only a mental burden; they would also affect the operations at the US embassy, which we needed to visit at least once at some point. So overall, all signs pointed towards leaving asap, and we embraced them!

It was, however, not only super spontaneous but also extremely costly and risky since we knew that the outbound was pretty much permanent until Singapore would open up for tourists again. So better not leave anything behind. And then there was an apartment – actually a whole life to be wrapped up within a very short period (I am talking about days here!). Yet, it felt incredibly free to dismantle the last two years, take our most valuable belongings and get the ## out of prison island. I remember how Daniel referred to our air ticket as “Get Out of Jail Free Card”, ha! While it was definitely not free, I have to admit that it felt incredibly liberating to have the exit-permission on hand.

We are currently back in Germany to catch up with our parents, families, and friends and make up some precious time. There are many things to organize on our end, mainly because we have to prepare a whole new international move from Singapore to the US while we are in Europe. Quite unusual, if you think of it. And to make things more complicated, there is a current travel ban towards Europe and Schengen countries in place, which hampers our planning further. However, there hasn’t been one day so far that we regret our decision to leave Singapore and not sit it out in the country that increasingly felt like a prison.

Europe has just opened up, coming from a very long lockdown on its own. Everyone seems to be in pure joy, and it’s so good to see smiling faces and breathe all the fresh, crisp air. We are in awe of all the freedom and liberality that we had grown up with and – having learned the hard way that this is not standard in every part of the world– appreciate every part of it more than ever.

We plan to travel a lot and explore beautiful Europe as much as possible before heading off to where dreams are made.

See you soon! – Verena

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PS: I am aware that those living in Singapore do enjoy the city-state and their lives there. In honor and appreciation of everyone in the little red dot, I want to emphasize that my texts are not intended to malign the culture, life, and folkways, or anyone or anything in Singapore, nor do they want to disrespect living in Singapore in general. My expat diary merely reflects my own personal feelings, founded on various very individual events that I was facing personally.