Why I traded this for that

Before- Last year, my commute to work was 10 minutes and looked like this

This year, my commute is 40 minutes and looks like this

9 months ago, I moved from Vancouver, Canada (we like to call it a world class city since we hosted the Olympics even though we riot the city when we lose big hockey games) to Nurnberg, Germany (famous for cookies and WWII trials). My commute went from a 10 minute drive involving a bridge and ocean inlet and views of mountains. Now, my commute is a full half an hour longer (to be fair it is usually 30 minutes, but because of never ending German road work is 40 minutes) and involves driving thru garlicland (the literal translation) and being stuck behind tractors.


While I was stuck behind a tractor this morning (I had time to kill since he was only going 10 km/h) I got to thinking… “how was it again that I traded in that for this?” add to the mix a tough settling in phase and I was going to start to look crazy by arguing with myself. In my car. On the way to work. Behind a tractor. But then it hit me. No not the tractor! The reason I moved here. I WANTED A CHALLENGE. Sure, I came from a world class city that was beautiful and had a decent job with a great company but after 7 years of feeling “comfortable” I decided I needed to shake it up. There was nothing WRONG with my life nor was I running from the law anything and to be fair a lot of people thought I was crazy for leaving it. But I was stagnant. And I wanted to be stagnant no more.


If I did the math, it seemed like a perfectly logical move. Stagnant at work, stagnant in my personal life, no financial or relationship ties and a big world class company comes calling for my skills and moves me (and my dog Lucy) across the world.


So yeah, some things are and have been 100 times more difficult than I could have ever imagined, but at the end of the day, I got what I wanted. A challenge. So who am I to complain… right? Then again, I do live in Germany which is essentially the birth of complaining so if I didn’t have something to complain about, there’d be something wrong with me!