Hello dear friends! I told you I would write more starting this year and one month(almost 2 at this point! I swear time is flying!) in and I haven’t posted anything. Awesome start Mackenzie! Anyways lately I have been getting a lot of messages from people I know and some I have never met before but are friends of friends of friends (you know what I mean), that ask me about moving abroad. I know when I wanted to move abroad I wanted all and any information about how to move abroad, so I honestly don’t mind all the questions, but I think it’s time to actually put my experience on my blog. I know I have talked about if you wanted to move and what you should do and why I moved here but I don’t think I have ever explained exactly how I did it. Warning. It was not freaking easy. Still isn’t easy, but if me telling you what I did helps you make a decision on what to then I’m happy to help in some way. Also I do not recommend doing exactly what I did but I’m all about learning from experiences and others ya know. SO here it goes, how I moved abroad.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane to the beginning. I decided to move abroad after college because I didn’t want to settle into life right away and to be honest life didn’t have too many great options that didn’t involve moving back with my parents (love you guys though!). While I was studying abroad I remembered a girl in my program who did half of the year studying and the rest of the year as an au pair. An au pair for those of you who don’t know is a live in nanny who is there, usually, to help improve language skills while babysitting. Since I remembered she was an au pair, I immediately got on my computer and researched the heck out of au pairing and even signed up for a website called Au Pair world which is like Facebook but for people looking for families and families looking for au pairs. I had about 3 or 4 different interviews with families before I found the “one”. It sounds silly but it’s true I felt like they were the right family for me and turns out I was right, could not have asked for a better experience. So within a couple of months I found a temporary job that would allow me to move abroad for a bit. Although I knew it was a temporary job I kind of always knew I wanted to stay and within a few months of being an au pair I was determined to stay. But before I get ahead of myself I should explain the process of also becoming an au pair because like everything in Italy, its COMPLICATED. Once I knew I was au pairing and had decided to go for 6 months I had to figure out the visa situation. If you are American and want to live in Europe, you cannot do so for more than 3 months without a visa. Me being me just had to go for 6 months (but like really no regrets), so I had to figure out how to get a visa. Au pairing is not a job recognized by the government in Italy (it differs in every country so do your research friends!) so I had to be a student all over again. Thank goodness I had to do this for my semester abroad because it saved my butt when I had to fill out the paperwork because guess what, I had done most of it before. Unfortunately due to recent events and large amounts of people immigrating, the process is always changing so some things had changed and are continuing to change. My advice: Keep up to date friends! I say this like I am an expert but I can’t tell you how many times I had to refill out the paperwork or forgot to put something in, but having some prior knowledge was helpful. In the end I had to apply to go to a language school, pay for everything up front (and I mean everything, flights, courses, etc), get all necessary documents(there are a lot of them!), then I could actually apply for the visa. Luckily, I was able to send the documents to the consulate by mail but be careful many places do not allow that so look for the consulate in your area or region. However, because I sent the documents by mail I had to wait for the mail to return and that is so unpredictable, so if you can, make an appointment and go to the damn consulate (I warned you before do not do what I did!). I received my visa 3 or 4 days before I was supposed to be leaving so really don’t leave it to the last minute. Now let’s fast forward to my current situation.
Now that you know about how I got over here in the beginning lets get back to the part where I knew I didn't want to leave. Sooo...while I was au pairing I knew I wanted to stay longer in Italy so I started the job hunt. Guess what? It was complicated (shocker there). Job hunting in Italy is the ultimate catch-22. Places don’t want to hire you unless you are an EU citizen or have a work visa and you can’t get a work visa without a job. That didn’t stop me though I sent my CV everywhere. In my mind I figured if I impressed them with my CV maybe they would be willing to help me get a work visa. Side note: many places don’t want to do the paperwork for work visas which is why they won’t hire you before and I don’t blame them I don’t want to do the paperwork either. I, however, got extremely lucky. My friend who was also au pairing at the same time as me, who also wanted to stay and was job hunting with me, had an interview with a company and told me to send my CV right away. I did and had an interview within a few days. During the interview they told me as long as I had the student visa they would help me change it to a work visa since they had done it in the past. However, of course, this was at the end (like within weeks of expiring) of my student visa as an au pair and the process of changing visas takes monthhhhhsssssssss. I had to return to the US and do it all over again. I applied for yet another student visa, paid for more fees, and waited until the last minute again to mail everything to the consulate. This time it came late and I had to change my flight so let me just say it again, DO NOT DO WHAT I DID! While in the US I decided to make the most of my time and get TEFL certified. I was hired without it but they recommended I do it to get an idea of the job. Honestly, now, I am very happy I did because teaching a second language is veryyyyyyyy different than teaching. If possible, make sure to get the extra grammar practice too. It will come in handy while teaching!!!!!!! Side note many places ask for TEFL or CELTA. If you want more options in your job search get certified! TEFL is a basic certificate and many places except it but CELTA is recognized all over the world and can help you get jobs in state schools. However, CELTA is much more expensive and time consuming so if you just need the certificate I highly recommend TEFL.
Once I was back in Italy I was able to start working but because I was also a student I had to attend courses. This is very difficult when you are trying to make a living. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy going to my Italian courses, I actually really enjoyed it but at the same time it was a requirement for me. So instead of being able to work and make more money I had to attend this course for my visa. Also talk about a freaking long day. At the moment I am finished with the course and am able to work more but I am still on a student visa (remember the monthssssss to change thing) which limits how many hours I can work per week. However, with that I still work a lot. There are options like private lessons or nannying that help to recover those hours so if you’re willing to put in a little extra work it’s possible to make a decent living. At the moment I have started the process of changing my visa so my life is back to paperwork and trying to navigate bureaucracy.I'll let you know how it goes.
So that’s how I moved abroad, but it’s just one option of many. I know many people do dual-citizenship, free-lance, and there’s always marriage (wink wink). I hope this is helpful to anyone out there trying to make a decision or just researching about moving abroad. If you have any specific questions or I didn’t mention something you would like to know, email me. Seriously. I am always happy to help. I wish you the best of luck on your adventure! If you ever find yourself in Milan, let’s get coffee.