Tell me about your first week/month in a brand new country

[feckityfeck]

We were looking over DH's draft contract for a two year secondment overseas last night and it includes the provision for two days leave for DH to 'settle in' to our new country. I've spent a lot of time imagining life out there, including culture shock kicking in, but reading that suddenly made me think about the first week - we arrive, in temp accommodation, most of our stuff on a ship somewhere, DH has two days off then is expected at work while I try to make life good and happy for two jet lagged children.

I'm generally feeling upbeat and positive about the adventure and new places and people, but feeling a bit worried about making those first few days a good experience for the dcs when I'll probably be freaking out a bit myself.

What did you do in the early days? How did you go about exploring all the newness?

Those two schools are a good start if you want to stick with the UK curriculum and your DH is based in the West. If you are willing to look at an IB school, consider Nexus, which is in the vicinity.

I do hear a lot of people talking about waiting lists, but I think over the past couple of years they have reduced considerably. Particularly with the opening of GEMS and Marlborough College. Although Tanglin likes to set itself apart as a not-for-profit school, they are quite happy to take a wad of cash and let you skip the waiting list in return, which makes me a bit

Holland Village is a good start. Have a look at propertyguru.com.sg to get an idea of prices. Bear in mind the market is soft and most people are managing to negotiate rents down.

Other areas you might consider are Bukit Timah, around the Botanic Gardens MRT and Farrer Road. There are also condos around One North itself and Buona Vista. You could look along the Green Line - up towards Clementi and down towards Tiong Bahru. Personally, if our rental budget was a bit higher, I would look around Tiong Bahru.

Generally older condos will give you more space and better value for money. A nicely renovated older unit would be my preference over a small but shiny new place.

Frustratingly, we have no idea of budget yet. We've seen a draft contract, but all numbers were xxx'd out! The whole process is taking a painfully long time. It's not actually going to happen til next summer, so you can understand why it might not be a priority for them, and there are other things that need to be lined up alongside DH's move, but I just want to know everything now, so we can make a final decision, and think seriously about schools/where to live etc.

Good luck with the condo caramelgirl, I hope you go for it :)

As an aside - what are the pros/cons of cluster houses? I've seen them mentioned, but not read much about what they're like to live in, compared to condo living.

Pros - much more space, indoor and outdoor. Feels more private.
Cons - many, many more insects/animals! Either don't have a pool or have to deal with pool maintenance. Typically are more expensive.

If you pick your condo well, your kids could have ready-made playmates. The way that rental prices are at the moment, you can get a lot of condo for your money. If he is based at One North, I would look at Holland Village, Botanic Gardens and Pasir Panjang.

We lived at Tiong Bahru and absolutely loved it, although we have no kids and are in our mid-late twenties. Loads of restaurants and bars in stumbling distance.

It depends on the cluster house. I have friends who live in one and it doesn't feel private at all. You walk around the complex and can look straight into everyone's living spaces. I would feel constantly on display! The units that face onto the street don't have that issue though, they're more like a terrace house.

But I have been to other cluster houses that are much more private.

Have you found somewhere yet caramel?

It's strange that about the cluster houses - I noticed when I looked at one that one of the pictures showed the pool just a couple of metres away from the house, which was glazed floor to ceiling. I could imagine it being amazing having the pool so close, but it was a communal pool - anyone could swim by and nosy in!

First (month 1) everything is new and exciting, then (month 2) you get tired and feel isolated. Then (month 3) you get your markers, have managed admin etc and feel better. Then either you go home or family visits and you feel homesick again. But keep persisting.

Don't underestimate mental fatigue, especially if very different culture and language. When you are surrounded by strangeness it can feel a bit overwhelming. You are also on high alert which makes you feel tired.

Good luck!

Small one - take lots of photos. Things that are exciting and new in week one get normal very quickly. It's probably the photos from week 1/2 that you'll look back on in 10 years!

In both countries Ive lived in I've failed to follow this advice

Hi Desertor - which city are you moving too? Riyadh? Jeddah? Damman? Al Khobar? Also, which company does your dh work for? PM is you like :)

Cheers Jo your a step ahead of me since you've been to KSA! DH is loving it tho.

Beautiful Dhahran/Damman/Al Khobar area

Ah, I don't know those areas - I lived I jeddah for two years and I'm now in riyadh. But I do know that accomodation is expensive there - make sure your dh is not fobbed off with some crappy allowance.
Schools - don't neccesarily look at the British school. Look at what curriculums are being offered at other international school too. A lot of them do IB in English /igcse regardless of nationality of school.
Transport - make sure you're not stuck in the middle of nowhere. Good compounds will supply school buses but for things like supermarket shopping either your dh will have to take you every time or you can take your life into your own hands in a street taxi..

Human, animal and civil rights don't exist. Harden your heart or have it break daily and spend 1000s of riyals on feeding, rescuing and neutering stray cats like I have. And seriously watch which kids your kids mix with. A lot of expat kids are completely disrespectful little shits with no manners whatsoever. Good luck!

Cheers, beautiful.
Allowance fine. 3 bed on decent compound. Shopping busses and school busses provided. Supermarket on compound for top up shopping (tho DH tells me its bigger than the local supermarket where we do all our shopping! School search has been widened. Looking for Primary places.

Cats could be problematic. We've made the tough decision to rehome our oap moggy rather than take him over
Kids very social, so will get potential friends.

Thanks for the words of wisdom.

I'm not sure if I am supposed to post things like this but I wrote a book on this exactly having had some pretty desperate experiences on overseas postings - it's called the Expat Partner's Survival Guide (and there is a blog of the same name) :) I think some of the people featured in it are Mumsnetters....

Bookmarked and bought the kindle version. Cheers stranded.

Your book looks great stranded. I think you're allowed a plug when it's so relevant!

Desert, I worked for Aramco for two years back in 2000. As a single femail I lived on the family compound. I loved it and used to house sit all the time for families when they went away for a month. There are huge swimming pools, bowling allies, cinemas and restaurants. The compound was massive and we all drove on there.
Not sure who your employer will be but Aramco is one of the biggest and best compounds.
I second the cat thing, I did it..........twice!!

We've been in Germany for 2 weeks now. So here's out list of what we've done:

• I've been working full time from day 1
• DD's started school and Kindergarten on day 3
• Wasted a lot of time calling the airline to find the bags that went missing
• Set up bank account
• Explored local area, found supermarkets, butcher, bakers, etc
• Worked out how to get to work and school
• Bought all the school stuff we needed
• Visited IKEA and built the stuff we bought (we needed an additional bed, cause the DD's sharing a bed is not a good plan)
• Worked out how all the appliances in the apartment work (oven, hob, extractor, dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, water heater, etc.)
• Found a really nice ice cream parlour and a good bookshop
• Spent a day at the swimming pool

Sounds like a busy/productive couple of weeks mrsmortis, not even counting straight to work on day 1. Has it been calm-busy or headless-chicken-busy? I guess the missing bags can't have helped.

Thanks LondonZoo, good to hear about Tanglin and waiting lists. Good tip on the sim card at the airport too.

How did you go about sorting accommodation before you got out there? How close to your move did you do the pre-visit? What about furniture? We are expecting to take beds etc with us, so going into temp accommodation makes sense while we wait for our stuff to arrive, although I do like the idea of it all being sorted before we get there.

Mostly calm-busy but there were definitely a few headless-chicken-busy moments.

The evening before school started was one of those. We had to go shopping for all the things that the DD's needed for school that we hadn't brought with us. Find the rest in the missing cases when they were finally returned to us. And then pack the school bags ready for the first day. Oh and find some dinner because we were in a hotel for the first week.

This weekend is going to be a bit crazy too, my DH is going to Ireland for a wedding. But after that hopefully things will calm down.

DH took a week off and as we missed our home leave due to the transfer we treated it like a mini holiday. Took the kids to the zoo, eating out, museums, different ares of the city so we could see where we might want to live.

DS1 ended up starting school about 3-4wks after official start as I had to work out how registration worked and was trying to get him in a school where we may live, but had to do it based on the temp apartment location. Complex had a pool and play area which helped, but only 1 car so had to drive DH to and from work every day 40mins-1hr depending on traffic each way, esp when school started and I needed the car.

Our first week. We had a "local" give us a tour of the area, driving past schools, parks, stores, etc. Except that she wasn't really local and she got lost and then I had to read the map for her and get us out of trouble.

I knew we would need cash so I took $2000 of travelers checks in the local currency in case of need. And we did need it as it took a little time for the bank account to get set up and then of course, for the first month's salary to drop into it. If you can get help with this prior to moving, as others have said, do this.

I think we were a bit befuddled for the first 6 months to be honest, despite having lived in the country previously, and not having any language problems. But I did have two under 2 and that would have been befuddling for me wherever I was.

The most important thing is to remember you can't anticipate everything, you can indeed cover a lot of the bases. But you have to be open and flexible to the idea things might not be quite how you imagined, and go with the flow. Very important to retain a sense of humor!

And get the numbers in the contract screwed down tight long in advance. Also make sure you get a relocation package home should the posting not work out for any reason (worst case scenario etc).

Sorry 2000 pounds sterling. I have a dollar sign keyboard...