James Doran (00:06.254)

So hello and welcome to the Expat Pod. My name is James, your host, and today I'm joined by Gal. And Gal, we've spoke a couple of times now, did a podcast with her as well. That's kind how we know each other really, I guess, through the work you're involved with. If you'd like to give us a kind of a high level overview of where you've lived and what you do.

First of all, James, thank you so much for having me today. It means a lot to me. I know you've recorded another episode with my aunt and it's nice to share different stories because we're together in this business as we're probably going to talk about it a second. But we have two different stories, although we are sisters. So both born in Israel and I grew up half of my life in Israel, half of my life in France, did a couple of back and forth over the years.

And then once I was an adult, decided that, that's not enough. actually want to do more. So I've done a couple of months in Dublin and then I went for three and a half years in London, went back to Israel, came back to France about four years ago, did a bit of a US adventure at some point. And here I am. Amazing. So that's quite, quite the journey back and forth and quite the upbringing between two countries. It's for sure we'll dig into. Yes.

It's been a long, like I think I counted at some point, I have about eight relocations, eight or nine by now, and I'm only 35. And who knows, keep on counting. You can try and tick them off every time.

James Doran (01:50.89)

Welcome to one of the podcasts about getting there. So Gal, this is essentially everything you needed to do before, you know, arriving in your new country home, wherever it is. So you mentioned in the intro that you've lived in many places and your upbringing was kind of between two countries. So maybe you didn't have much of a say on moving to France when you were young, but did you have anything you needed to do before moving? What was it like changing schools?

I didn't have much say when I moved. The first couple of times, the first time I was, I think, two years old, as you can imagine, I don't remember this move. And then the second time when moving back to Israel, I was six years old. I don't remember this move quite a lot as well. I do remember bits of it, but not as crazy. But the third move was the one that I do remember. I was already like 10 years old and I didn't want to move.

And I remember my parents telling me, hey, we're moving to Paris. And I was like, no, we're not. I'm not happy about this idea of moving to Paris. I was actually pretty upset about it. I just got accepted to a dance team that I wanted to for about a year to audition for. And I just got accepted on the same day that they told me that we're leaving. And I was really upset.

But as you can imagine, I was 10 years old. I didn't have much say in this. So literally our parents told us, where are you In about a couple of weeks, I didn't have much time to get ready for it. I do remember doing like a farewell party with my friends back then. And here we were, we were in Paris. Gladly I knew Paris back then because we would come here for visits.

So it wasn't too strange, but it was a big difference. I came from a town in Israel that was not that small, but that didn't have any, I want to say any fun stuff of a city. Let's say it like this. was like houses and parks. And I landed in the center of Paris. Suddenly this was my home. And yeah, it was a big change where...

James Doran (04:16.274)

early teenage I want to say. That sounds really quite abruting I suppose in that sense because you mentioned you've got your life where you were before as a child and maybe a lot of parents who are listening potentially have got that dilemma on their hands of we've got a young family, we've got opportunities to move, is it the right thing to do for our kids? Like actually it all depends on the circumstance of your family dynamic but

I want to say, looking back, I'm so happy that we went. I'm so happy that I got the opportunity to discover a completely different lifestyle and a completely different family dynamic because my parents, despite it to move, because they wanted a better family bond and better family opportunities and quality time, and we had it.

And suddenly from growing up, not seeing out my parents that much, because they used to work really, really long hours, I suddenly had a family again, full on family again. And this is just as a child, like discovering things and discovering things that I've never thought I would discover before, because I didn't have the opportunities and being more open-minded. Those are things I can speak on.

Today, I wouldn't be able to speak when I was 10 or 11. But if you're a parent listening to us right now, I do want to tell you that moving abroad and giving your kid the opportunity to discover places they've never had the chance to experience before as a local, not as a traveler. Because it's not the same when you go around and you move from one restaurant to another and check museums and check only the fun adventures.

actually living, a different lifestyle, seeing different cultures, different values was mind blowing to me. And I'm so lucky that I had this opportunity. And I guess that's why I kept on going the same route as I started and my parents started. But yeah, it's a great adventure. I'm building on from that kind of keep it ongoing.

James Doran (06:40.95)

Your next move then. So my next move was Dublin. Actually, it's funny enough when I graduated high school quite early, I finished when I was 17 years old and I had a different opportunities ahead of me. But you know, I was 17. Who knows what you want to do, right? It's way too early to figure it out. The one thing I knew is that I want to

travel. I want to be able to see different places. I had this bug already within me of like, I want to meet new people. I want to speak different languages. I want to see what's out there. So I found this greatest opportunity to start my bachelor degree in Paris, but it was an international program. So I've done the first year of my bachelor's in Paris in French. And then my second year was six months in France, but in English.

and six months in Dublin. So this was my first move as an adult living by myself. It was like a mad show to be totally transparent with you. were a bunch of 19 year olds having parties all day long and all night long probably. And I was a really good student. So it was a great mix. And then my third year of my bachelor degree, I had the opportunity to choose between

a variety of universities. and I picked up London. So I found myself yet another move, when I was 20 years old, moving to London for the first time and discovering a totally new lifestyle, new area, new me knew everything. was insane. those moves then to Dublin and London, being in parts of university, they, were they quite well?

supported in that sense. Did the universities you were working with, with your one back in France, but also the ones you were going to be hosted by, did they help with accommodation, putting on social events to meet people, with all the kind of things beforehand, any visa requirements? guess it was when London was part of the EU, so it was much easier. Or the UK it was for sure.

James Doran (09:05.198)

So Dublin was well organized, I want to say, because it was only a six months program. So we had accommodations from the university. And because it was an international accommodation, we had students living there, French, English, German, Americans, lot of American, Dutch, Polish. We had everything in the accommodation. So that's how I met most of the friends that I made there.

But I had to deal for the first time in my life with a budget and just being like a young adult, I came with like a certain budget for that I saved before and some of the money that my parents gave me. And I just had to find ways to actually make it work. And I think the funniest thing there. And again, it's a mix of different cultures and

growing up, it comes together. But it's funny, we always say in our business is that we have the same layers of challenges that we would have had anywhere in the world. But then you add on to this, this expert layer, because you just don't know how things work in a certain place, right? So you have the same challenges before, they just raise the bar. And one of the craziest, funniest stories that I had in Dublin was that

Electricity was paid differently. Until then I didn't pay electricity because I used to live with my parents, but I knew that they get a bill once a month. We talked about it. It was something part of their education. They told me how things are working, right? And then I arrived to Dublin and in our student accommodation, we had to recharge like those cards that we had to put inside a place to have electricity.

And I cannot tell you the amount of times that we ran out of electricity because we were students and we were like, we didn't realize that leaving the light on for so long consumes all of our electricity or charging your computer all night long sounds logical. We all do this, but not when you ate by the meter. So, yeah, I had a lot of growing up doing.

James Doran (11:31.286)

over those six months. That's quite scary because what if you were like, you know, finishing your final assignment and the power cuts out and your laptop is not charged and you lose all your work. That would be a nightmare, wouldn't it? It was and it happened. Going on to London and so you stayed in London longer than Dublin, right? And you stayed a few years from my understanding. So London was a completely different

experience, another one, let's say it like this. Less organized by the university. This was something that we had to organize on ourselves. Like through the university arranged the fact that we became student in another university. It was part of their agreement, but all the rest was mine to discover. And I decided to go on the first year kind of as an adventure instead of going to a student accommodation.

we decided to rent a place with a couple of friends, thinking it was a good idea, discovering later on that it was not such a good idea, but that's how we learned. And this included quite a lot of organizations and preparations for it, not knowing where you're gonna live. I remember the first time that I, Google Street View just,

started back then it wasn't as amazing as it is today but I remember like trying to figure out where the university is and where do I want to live if like how far it is and is how their street will look like if I will have to walk the street and where the supermarket will be and I looked for all those information when I was in France looking for London not knowing London I've been there when I was a kid a couple times

again as a traveler. So when people actually asked me, where did you went? I was like, Madame Tussauds, of course. But I was like, I don't even know where it is situated in the city. So I had a lot of discovering to do. then lending, not lending, because I took the train from Paris, it's quite easy. But arriving to London, I was like, okay, I need a phone.

James Doran (13:50.764)

So I went to a phone operator and they were like, do you have a bank account? Like, nope, I don't. So I need a bank account. How do you get a bank account in the UK? And then, and then it starts. And then you realize quite quickly that there's a lot you need to take care of. and it was a roller coaster. Yeah. Well, it sounds quite, quite the journey as well. London is massive. Even me, I'm from a different part of the UK, but.

when I first went to London. was like, so it's not just a town, like a city, like everywhere else. It's lots of like small spaces which have just become this behemoth of our country. So I completely empathize with your confusion book because...

surprise at London and yeah, not knowing, well, naivety perhaps when we're all young, we're all naive or like, yeah, it'll work out. fine. Yeah, I completely get that. Having travelled there when I was younger and thinking everything was a stone's throw away, but actually, you know, going from East to West London takes an hour, which is quite a long time considering it's the same city. But yeah, that's really, really

When you moved and I guess there was no visa requirements because it was still European Union, which is a shame we have to keep saying that. You mentioned about housing, which was quite interesting I'm sure to try and find. Did you use any websites to help you like spare rooms or things to help find accommodate? Yeah, we did use something. What was its name? Gumtree?

something like this. I don't know, it was a couple of years ago, but we looked at a couple of websites, we really quickly figured out that not every website will allow a couple of friends to do a flat share. Like it was a complicated contract. It was the first time I discovered that we pay by week and not by month, a rent that's...

James Doran (16:14.626)

That was the deal that he asked, at least the landlord asked. And as I said, we went into a very complicated situation because we're a couple of young people not really talking before expectations and how things are going to be. We just went for the adventure and it was a mess because it didn't work out after I think. Yeah, I'm sorry to embed this. Yeah.

Four and a half months after I arrived to London, I was like, I need to get out of this place. And there I think was my, one of my biggest challenge because on one side I was a student in London. didn't, I couldn't quit university and go back to Paris because I was in the middle of my third year. You don't quit like that. And I didn't have anyone.

I could rely on because no one else was living in London beside me and some of the friends I made there and friends I had before, but it wasn't, it's not the same. You don't have your real support system. And funny enough, I'll remember this December right in my head because I went to Israel to visit my aunt that was living there back then. And she literally had to push me back.

in the airport, like you gotta go back. Because I was really willing to quit. I had a really, really tough time. The first four months in Zillendale were really challenging. Exactly because, as I said before, I had real life challenges, the normal ones, love life, friends, students. I got bad grades suddenly and I was a really, really good student before and I didn't realize.

that education system is different in the UK. So I had to, and then in addition to this, I needed to adapt to working in the UK and speaking English suddenly all day long. And supermarkets were different and the apartment was a nightmare. And I fought with my boyfriend all the time and everything was complicated. So yeah, Myanna had to push me back.

James Doran (18:37.112)

to actually go back to London. And it was, I'm glad she did, because I was that close to give up. But this was the moment where things started to shift for me in London, because I remember coming back to London and be like, okay, this is the current situation. It is a nightmare. I gotta change it. Like, it's up to me. It's no one else. So I called the student accommodation.

And I was like, I need an apartment. And they were like, we don't have any. I need one. So we will find one. So I kept calling every single day for I think two and a half weeks or something until something crying on the phone telling the lady that she needs to help me to find an accommodation. And it worked. I found an accommodation. I moved out of this messy apartment and I started again.

It's a new apartment. It's a new air atmosphere. You sadly not living with five people you knew before. You sadly live with 500 people you don't know. Accommodation and everything. So when we say a lot of times on our podcast, on the stuff we do, it doesn't get easier. It never gets easier. We just get stronger.

and more suitable to deal with the different challenges. Cause then we're like, we've dealt with similar things before. We will be able to deal with this one as well. It's not easier, different. Yeah, you, you, you go, you grow strong. You, you become more experienced at that particular problem. Still takes a lot of effort. then there's another problem that you've never stopped coming and you're like, okay.

But I will make it work somehow. I don't have a choice at some point. Or I actually know, let me re-say it. You always have a choice, but you decide what you want to do with it. And eventually over time, I always decided that this is what I wanted. So I kept on going. No, that's great. It's so easy just to try and give up. I think every expat goes through that experience of wanting to go home or hitting that

James Doran (21:06.04)

point where it gets very hard, especially if were by yourself. It became an in winter by yourself in winter in the Northern Europe is not the best place to be. Thankfully, Christmas made it a little bit better. Completely. London's great Christmas. Going forward to your next move before we can fully dive into your life in these places. So you from the UK back to France. So I moved back to France for a couple of months and then I moved to Israel. So I I finished my master's degree.

and I had this idea of living in Israel. I did rush it a bit for personal reasons. but I landed in Israel just a couple of months after I graduated my, from my masters. And it's funny, I had in the back of my head then my entire life that at some point I will want to go back to Israel to live there as an adult and to decide for myself.

if this is a place for me or not, because I left when I was so young. So I went and I thought that knowing the language and being a citizen will make it easier. Boy, I was wrong. Moving back, and I'm sure we'll unpack as to why in the next section, but going back to Israel, did you move back with family? Did you have friends who could put you up for accommodation? Did you have to find that all whilst living in France or?

What was that situation like for you? So gladly, my aunt was there, my sister. She was the only one there. I do have a larger family, like grandparents and uncles and cousins and stuff like this. But close ones that I was really in touch with, it was my sister. Funny enough, when I landed, she was on her honeymoon. So I actually landed and no one was there. And I had to figure out things on my own. So I stayed at hers.

for a month and a half, the time to find a job. And then because I was like, I need to find a job in order to figure out where I wanna live. It will depend on where I'm working. So this is how I started. The moment I found a job, I looked for an apartment, found an apartment and things started rolling from there. But no, I didn't have any friends.

James Doran (23:31.854)

And it was a challenge because suddenly you don't have the same openings, I want to say, opportunities as you had at CUNY because you don't meet plenty of new people every single day. Massively. Making friends as an adult is extremely difficult, especially if you have got to work a full-time job. Yes, you can make friends in work, but they've got the same stress as you do of having to make money and survive and

It's not a university where you've got six hours a day of work to do and you've got a few more hours free. You're working at least eight hours a day in a normal job and you're tired and you've got, you know, bills to pay and a house to look after. It becomes difficult to find the time to, to, you know, put to the activity of making friends. It's not a byproduct of where you are anymore. Where does, know, university.

usually is because you have these periods of exam season and you've got people to study with or you've got coursework to do or you've got, know, freshers week, which is a thing in the UK, which I'm sure you might have experienced, to, you know, go out and find places to drink. Yeah. I did enjoy my freshers week in London. three years in a row, I enjoyed it. but, but, I have to say that in addition to, to everything you just mentioned,

I have my experience at uni, we were a lot of international students. So it was a bunch of people that came and had no one else. So of course we made friends because we had no one else around. When I moved back to Israel, it was the first time of my life as an adult again, not practicing this skill of making friends because

Because at uni it was, as you said, Freshers Week, you just go and you grab a beer and suddenly you have three friends. It was that easy. It didn't click with everyone. We didn't become besties over time, but you have surroundings, a lot of them. And then when I was an adult going to work for the, like proper, I want to say after graduating work, because I've done a lot of jobs before that, all the people I met,

James Doran (25:53.516)

they had their lives in addition to like taking care of the bills and being stressed from work and everything. People finished their work day and they wanted to go back to their friends, their families, their partners, their life. And I would go back alone because I didn't have this. a lot of people, it's funny, over the years, it took me time to realize that. People said to me like, but

this culture is so open and it's so easy to make friends and this culture is so hard. And I was like, it's not about the culture. It does impact, it does influence, but it's a lot about what are you willing to make efforts about and also accepting that it's normal for them not to open up that easily because they have everything they want. They don't need more friends at this point of their lives. And you're coming and you're

You're the plus one thingy. And it's a thing you need to figure out. It's not them against you. It's just that their life is, I want to say full. And you need a really good reason for them to make room for one more person or more persons in this case. You know, completely. You're going into an already existing ecosystem, which is functioning. You are.

trying to, you know.

jostle your way into it and fighting for someone else's time essentially. You've got to pitch yourself as a good investment in their time because they don't need to spend that resource on something. So unless they're very generous and notice people who have moved somewhere new, which I've already looked at when I moved, had colleagues who were aware that it's difficult to move and therefore...

James Doran (27:55.118)

helped me a lot. I guess your last move back to France, what was that like? You have family there, so a bit easier perhaps, but still full of difficulties. Did you find your own place? that stuff? I feel like the last move to France was the move that I actually prepared. This was the first time that I actually

prepared myself for a move, both emotionally and technically and mentally and all things that made a big difference in how I lived it and how I experienced this move. So I moved in the middle of COVID. So it was a crazy time all around the world. And I didn't know that I wanna go back to France. I just knew that my time in Israel is done.

It's enough. Like I've been there for almost a decade and I was like, I'm done. And I didn't know I want to move to France. The one thing I knew is that I need to move and then I'll figure it out. And because COVID happened, everything was closed anyway. So was like, know what, France is an easy move. I'll go, I'll just do this. I'll stay with my parents for a couple of months.

And it sounds like an easy decision, but I was a very independent woman. I still am. I left home when I was 18 years old and suddenly being 32, going back to my parents place was a big decision to make, not an easy one. But I was like, I'll go a couple of months and I'll figure it out. I just need to start the process.

I re-fell in love with Paris despite all the challenges and there were plenty of them. They're still hot. Like it's been four years. I still sometimes be like, my God, why are you complicating this so much? But as I said, I think I was so prepared for this and I knew better and I knew it's not gonna be easy.

James Doran (30:19.182)

But I knew I can do this and I did. And I'm so happy that I did because eventually I found the place that I really feel like I fit in today with my values and it's aligned and it's everything I wanted. So it's pretty good experience. That's amazing. And I'm glad you fell back in love with your new home.

I or your old home or your, I guess, somewhat step home if you're Israeli, it's your first home. I don't know. of an interesting system you have. Well, that's great. I guess we can dig into your kind of being a bit more in section two.

James Doran (31:14.392)

So welcome back to the podcast and welcome to section two or about being a gal you've been very generous with us and give us a quite a few kind of sneak peeks into life in the places you've lived as you kind of told the story of how you got there. But going back as a kid, going from guess, as well in France and back and forth a few times, before you moved to either or what was the...

expectation versus reality kind of situation of, know, what, what you thought of each country before you may have moved and then how it ended up being, what kind of fears might you have had? And then when you arrived, they were gone because maybe you were overthinking something. Maybe it was, incorrect information because you will get misinformation, especially in today's world. But did that exist when you were younger or was it, did that happen more as you got older?

I think it definitely happened more as I grew older. But as a kid, I think the main thing was I don't understand how life could be in a place if this place was a holiday place. Because for me, friends, again, I don't remember my first moves. I do know from stories that it was way different than what we used to have and the massive differences, but I cannot share it as personal experiences.

But the move that I remember when I was 10 years old, for me, or France in general was a holiday destination. It was a place to go and have fun for one week or two weeks and go back. And it's a place to visit and to go to Disneyland and to, and suddenly you actually live in a certain place.

and your parents don't allow you to go to bed super late because they're school-lite. And you actually have to go and buy, like this I remember very vividly, we had to go buy stuff for school, like notebooks and pens and papers and all those things. And it was so different than in Israel. And I was like, I don't like those things. They're boring and they're...

James Doran (33:34.69)

plain and I want the stuff that I used to have. Why can I not have the stuff I used to have? Bring me back what I loved. Those kind of frustrations I think are for kids. Food is different. People are not speaking the same language in the street. I did went to an Israeli school in Paris. So most of my day I would speak Hebrew, but then

The bus was in French and you go and sit somewhere for dinner and you speak French and you turn on the TV and it's French. And it's so different for a kid. And I think not everyone is understanding how the tiniest of things are different for everyone. It's different for an adult as well, but as kids it's like...

your entire life until now. You don't know anything else. No, it's a very good point. Because you mentioned your schooling, which a lot of people might have, was in a language you know as well as the tongue, right? It's the same for me when I went to work in Sweden. My job was in English still because I don't speak Swedish very well anyway. But the rest of your life is in another language.

which you have to get used to. Did you have like French lessons? you have support with the language? Did you have French in the Hebrew school you went to or was that purely just? We did learn French in school, but I cannot tell you that it was a great level of French. It was a third language level of any school. I think it's the same everywhere. We did speak

some of the time French at home. I think it was part of my parents way of we spoke French with my dad and Hebrew with my mom to try and keep both languages alive at home. And very early, I don't remember exactly when, but I started practicing gymnastics in a French club. So this was another opportunity to speak French. So I spoke

James Doran (36:00.586)

way more than I actually learned to write, for example. So my entire life, my verbal version of French is better than my written one. It is improving over time because practice, but yeah, it has always been my third language. I guess in Israel, English is quite a widely spoken language as well. So I guess that's probably why.

you might have had that as your second language. Did your parents speak French to a high level before you moved, having been back and forth quite a lot? Or was it also for them a learning exercise or a relearning exercise if they'd lost some of the language having moved back? So my father spoke really, really good French since a very young age.

He has the same bug as we do. He was born in Israel and grew up some of his life in France, some of his life in Israel, some of his life in the US. And that's how we got caught in the same restless bug. But my mom didn't speak French. She knew a couple of words. It was definitely back then not a good accent and not a good vocabulary. So she would rather speak Hebrew with us.

She improved over the years today. She speaks fluently and it's amazing to see because again, she had to deal with it as an adult for the first time. I had to deal with it as a kid. She had to deal with it as an adult. Going on to kind of more of the cultural changes then, so maybe going more to your adult time. So moving to Dublin, when you moved, what was your expectation of that like? Obviously Dublin's quite a fun place to be, especially as a student. It's got a great reputation of

being a party place with Temple Bar and all these amazing live music venues. But did that wear off after the first few weeks of living there or was that your entire experience? So honestly, I think I was very much afraid of moving to Dublin, if I have to be totally honest. I did live abroad for a couple of months here and there before to work as like internships and stuff like this.

James Doran (38:20.418)

But this was the first, like, I'm going for a long period of time. And I knew that it's like, I'm going, I have to go for a certain amount of time. And you go alone, you know a couple of classmates, but you don't know, you know that, I knew that, for example, one of my flatmate is someone I don't know, because she was from the States and I never met her before. We just had like the names.

of the people in each flat. couldn't pick who we're gonna live with. And I was very much afraid. I didn't know what to expect. And I don't even think I read that much about Dublin before. I didn't prepare for this move, to be honest. It was like, hey, we're going. And because it was the entire class,

and we went together, it was like, it's gonna be fine. It was fine, but it was very weird because we had everyone had to discover it together. Like I remember going to Tesco for the first time, be like, my God, this is a huge supermarket. Like coming from Paris, you're used to the tiny ones inside the city. It's true that when you go out, you have the huge crazy supermarkets, but inside the city, you don't find those.

And yeah, nightlife was something I didn't had before. I discovered nightlife in London, in Dublin, sorry. In France, I did went out here and there, but I wasn't that much of a party girl. And then I arrived and suddenly the Americans were like, beer bong, let's go. And I was like, what is that? I never heard about that before. I was very naive.

back then, very naive. I had to discover so many things. I think what made it easy probably was that Dublin on its own is a very small city. So it has everything that a city has to have, like nightlife and culture and parks and beautiful like architectures and all that and shops and everything. But it's in a walking distance. Like everything is quite close by.

James Doran (40:44.408)

So it made it sound less terrifying, I want to say. Yeah. And then you just go with the flow because I was part of something, right? I was part of uni and I just, I didn't make many, I want to say cautious decisions. I just went with what was happening and saw how it felt and discovered along the way how it works. So yeah.

But I kept on partying the entire six months. Did you get much time to meet many locals as well and kind of build relationships? Was it mainly your fellow students and cohorts who were perhaps international? Many students, our, yeah, people in their student accommodations. It was a very good bond. I was really happy with the student accommodation I was living in. We did meet the local people that go to the pub. I think when

The funny anecdote that I have is that we had a pub, like the corner one, just around the student accommodation. And of course, very quickly we started going there almost every single day. And I think, I don't know if it was three weeks after I arrived or a month after I arrived, my beer waited for me when I came into the bar. And the bar tended to look at me and it was like,

This is your drink. This is your time. Welcome. And I was like, I'm local. That's it. It happened. I'm part of it. This is where we met a couple of local people. Partied with them, enjoyed. Yeah, nightlife. It's easier this way. feel like. Did you get to explore much of the other culture of Ireland as well? Not just the nightlife side of it, but the sporting side, because Ireland's got such a

interesting sporting heritage of like hurling and Gaelic football, which, you know, very proud of my dad's grandparents are Irish and speaking to a lot of people from Ireland, were like, you have to have a team and you have to go to a hurling or Gaelic football club and experience it all. It's quite interesting to see. only thing, so we didn't have that much. Okay. I've been there for six months and we did try.

James Doran (43:11.766)

I was a student, so I had a lot of studies going on. And then in between a lot of parties going on. We did try to go a couple of times outside of Dublin to just visit some of the areas. One of the things I regret is that I never took the trip to Galway and go a little bit more around, like a real estate around Dublin. Uni did organize for us a two days trip to Belfast.

So we had a chance to see some of this and I did see a lot of the culture in Dublin. So I went to a lot of the museums and Trinity College, which is amazing and going to different libraries and trying to see Dublin on its own as much as I could. We did went once for a dog race, which was again, a culture shock. Like what is going on here? What's the thing? why, I was like, I was

mesmerized by it by this adventure. But it's true that back then sports. Yeah, I guess we didn't have the opportunity. We didn't have it at our school. And then it didn't happen differently. There's always a bucket list item in the future you can go and do this. There's always tomorrow. Going forward into London.

how do I compare having been in Ireland before? So you kind of experienced a British Isles culture. Some people say that the, you know, very different. Some people say they're quite similar. what was your opinion on London? Did you feel prepared? think lived in Dublin. Nope. I, I arrived to, again, I think I didn't prepare once again. I thought everything will be fine.

The only thing, as I mentioned earlier, is that when I was looking for apartments, I tried to understand a little bit about neighborhoods and how London is actually built and what's going on, and trying to figure out the post codes. Like, why is it so complicated? And so, but I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, because I finished my time in Dublin.

James Doran (45:36.65)

I don't remember exactly. I think it was June or something this end of year. And in early September, I was already in London. So I had about a month and a half to actually figure out where I'm gonna live and making sure that I know a little bit. I did create a budget. This is something I remember sitting with my parents and being like, okay, how much money do I need to actually make it work? And this...

Dublin experience helped me because I was like, okay, I understand now better. How much money do I need as a student? What do I, I'm spending on, how does it work? If London is similar, but pricing, shouldn't be fine. just to discover that it's not the similar pricing and that like life is completely different, right? but I didn't, I didn't prepare much and

I said it earlier, I didn't set any expectations or set the, like how I want things to be. In addition to this, I was also, I was a student and I was an employee back then together. So I had a second, I want to say a third even layer of challenges. Cause I was working in a big corporate in London.

having to figure out how you do this, like, does this work now? It's a big, corporate in the business district of London. So yeah, there were quite a lot of things going on there to figure out. And yes, Dublin did help because certain amount of things I did deal with before. I was like, hey, already dealt with this. It's gonna be fine. But then there were so many new...

other things that I was like, what am I supposed to do with that? How do you even start? how was that? You mentioned you kind of worked whilst you were living there. What was the kind of work culture like going? Maybe you're working kind of knowledge was perhaps from Israel or France where your parents worked or your friends or family worked and you had an idea of what it was like to

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to be in the business industry or in any industry, how did that compare to the UK knowing, okay, you may get less on your leave or you may have different holidays or different working conditions? Again, I think that's part of the things of when you grew up, you think you know, and then you realize you don't know most of the things. it's part of everyone just growing up, right? And then as I said, you add to this,

the different culture and the fact that you don't even know how you say certain things. Like I remember seeing my paycheck for the first time. It wasn't my first job, right? I worked again as a student, but in between years I worked in different corporations in France. I knew how a paycheck looked like and then I got my first paycheck and I was like, I have no idea how to read that. And I don't have an idea how, who to ask, what does it mean?

And I think it took me about a couple of weeks until I figure out who in this giant building will be able to answer my questions. I remember like it was the first time I discovered happy hour in France that we didn't have this. Suddenly in London on, I think it was Thursday's afternoon, they open up beers and we went for a happy hour. And I was like, we do that at work? How does it?

You are supposed to keep on working after how does it work? So it's a different culture work ethic And and I think one of the things that was really again you I wasn't a kid I was already like a young adult discovering and I I came from corporate in France where you are very smart dressed very like

on point, I worked in marketing, everyone was like wearing suits and everything. And then I arrived to London and first day I swear I came with my own suit that I used to have. And then I remember seeing this gorgeous woman walking on the street, right? I don't know her, but she was wearing this amazing suit and she was all smart, super smart, beautiful shoes. And she had blue hair.

James Doran (50:25.262)

crazy blue hair. And I was like, this would have never worked in France, but hey, you're in London. She looks like she went out of Camden straight to the business district. It was just so perfect to see. But again, you learn those things only when you start paying attention. Wow, that's a very good point. think the office.

Dressed codes have changed over the past years as well. I started working, it was wearing a shirt every day and sometimes a tie down. can rock up in shorts. Well, I can work from home and, you know, wear pajamas. It's great. It's a very thing. Going, stay staying on London then in terms of your time. When you, when you finished your, you said when you finished your masters, you moved away. Why didn't you?

Did you want to stay longer in the UK or was that kind of your time served? So actually I had two moments of decision making, I'll call it like this. Once I finished my bachelor's, I hesitated, like just before I finished my bachelor's, was like, what am I doing next? Am I looking for job? Am I continuing for a master's? Am I staying in London, going back to France?

I back then I had this idea of living in Barcelona, maybe going back to Israel and plenty of ideas in had the state looked like a crazy adventure. Maybe I should try and.

different decisions. I did went to a couple of interviews in London, only to realize that maybe I should go for a master's, then started looking for where do I want to do my master's. And back then I started looking to do my master's in Israel, because I was like, maybe this is the opportunity I was looking for to go back. So maybe I should do the master's in Israel. Quickly realized this is a bad idea. I should not. And

James Doran (52:33.74)

I was like, did enjoy London. Even though the first year was the worst out of the three and a half that I was there. I had a really, really hard time the first year. And at some point I was like, you know what? I don't want to leave London with this bad taste of this all the struggles. And I didn't come this far only to go this far. Like I didn't manage to.

overcome all those challenges just to leave right now. So I eventually decided to do my master's in London. And I'm really happy I did because it completely transformed my London experience. The last two years were just awesome. And they were exactly everything I wanted them to be because I took all that I learned over the first year and actually applied it.

make it better for myself. And by the end of my master's, I had the same crossroad again. Do I want to stay in London? Do I want to start working there? Or do I want to do something else? I want to... Barcelona came back to mind and then Israel again and everything. And I remember going through a couple of interviews in London, seeing the amazing salaries I could get and...

asking myself like, wow, what about this idea of living in Israel? And I remember like telling myself, and seeing what are the salaries in Israel. I remember telling myself, well, if you're gonna start working with those salaries, you will never go back to Israel, because you will never want to devote yourself. So maybe this is the crossroad of you going to try what it is to live as an adult. This was the plan. I planned.

to stay for London Olympics. Eventually life changed and I decided to rush my move to Israel and move quicker. So I didn't stay for a couple of months after university is that plan initially. But yeah, it was like a moment of like, I think this is the right opportunity to give it a try. Cause if I'm not gonna try it now, I might not do it later. And I wanted to try so.

James Doran (54:59.407)

a real journey than you went on just in a few years. feels like, you know, lots of highs and lows, lots of decisions to be made, lots of...

James Doran (55:10.264)

polarized experiences, which we all be going through quite a lot on a micro level. Maybe the amplified, the amplitude is much bigger over the years. And in your case, especially going from student life to working life to student life to what next life, it's really quite turbulent. But sounds like you had a great time and were able to, as you said, you know, really

turn around the initial year of difficulty and turn it into a really cool and rewarding experience for you. And you might look back fondly, you might still go visit quite a lot and see friends or people you know, I don't know, because you start far off on the train as you said, Paris. So it's a short hop. But living back in London, the culture of London,

How did you find it? How did you find the food being you saw when I grew up in France and food in France being, you know, said to be the pinnacle of food? I'm sorry telling, but the British British food has not got the best reputation globally, even though I do think that's a bit unfair. How did you experience it? Because it's quite an important thing for people to, you know, everyone eats every day.

Wow. There were a lot of adjustments to do in London. Food was definitely one of them. And I think that I want to say it like this because I think it's something that is important for people to understand. When you are, when you are a young adult living home for the first time, your food will change by definition because until now it's your parents that got all the food and they decided what you're buying and they decided not but

what you're buying, they decide what you're eating. Even if you say, don't like this or I like that, it's their fridge and their food, right? It's their means to buy certain type of food. And suddenly as a young adult, when you first do your groceries on your own, you have to pick and choose because you cannot buy exactly the same food, right? I'm pretty sure that everyone that was a student at some point had Chinese noodles on the 20 P.

James Doran (57:37.336)

kind of Chinese noodles that have no nutrition in them, but that's what you can afford, right? Because if you have to pick and choose between going and having a great time with your friends out tonight or going to the supermarket, you pick the beer. So you make decisions, right? My food changed dramatically because I came from a house that

My mom would cook and we would have great food and all was good. And then I went out and I was like, ooh, what can I buy with this amount of money? And it's a completely different food. Vegetables were different. Cheese was different. Bread. This is not the boulangerie of Paris.

you suddenly, I suddenly drank way more beer than I used to before and it impacts everything else. And I remember having to like find out things like how, like not about so much about how you cook them, but how you make a mix of what there is. I'm not so much a complaining person, so I didn't complain a lot about the food.

But it was just different. I just had to learn how to do with it. The one thing that I remember that I really, really loved was Sainsbury. I was like, this is the supermarket I go when I want to treat myself. Because they had really good stuff. And it was like, it was like, you go to a different type of supermarket to get different type of food, right?

And then you have bagels with cream cheese that you don't have in France, which is amazing. I mean, I had one those yesterday. It is incredible. I know. wow. And then kind of going forward to your next move then back to Israel. Obviously you grew up there or have a lot of spent a lot of time going back and forth from there and found me there.

James Doran (59:56.238)

But you said you struggled when you first moved because you moved by yourself. It was your first experience not being a student. How far along that journey when you were living there? How did take you to start making friends and what were your vehicles for doing that? Was it joining a social club or colleagues in work? What helped you along that way? Friends-wide, I think it was at some point it was work. My colleagues became friends.

But it took an easy, I want to say two and a half, almost three years until we really became friends. It was connections before that, like really good connections and then people that you maybe meet sometimes once every once in a while outside of work, but at least at work I was having a good time. anyway, and it took time.

I guess that's one of the reason why I worked so hard. Work became everything. Now I know that it was to cover other stuff that I didn't want to deal with. Again, some retrospective allow us to see better the situation, but it served its purpose back then of not having other people around. And it's once I started, it was easier.

And also realizing that I said it before, it had to come from me. I expected people to be welcoming me and to invite me. And I didn't understand why they don't do it. Cause they would be like, yeah, we're going there and we're going there. And I was like, I just wish someone would invite me. And when I finally dared to say like, hey, can I join?

the thing started to shift because it's not that people don't want you to come. It's that they don't think of you as part of their group. So you need to make them aware of that. We said it earlier, you need to make them understand that you inside of their group is actually good value. But for that, you need to put yourself out there. need to pitch yourself to this. It's not something that is

James Doran (01:02:24.238)

obvious or has to be taken for granted. It is work and it's something we're not used to do as adults. Yeah, can be. And even every expert has to try and be an extrovert at times. Even if you're an introvert, you wish to make friends and make actions and get help. You need to put yourself out there and someone on the podcast. I forget who, because I've done too many of them now, but

said the best way to make friends is to be one first, which is a really good analogy or thing to have is if you want to make friends, you've got to put yourself out there and help other people. If someone's moving house, go out the move house. If someone needs help doing some DIY, go help DIY. They're doing a marathon or a fun run or

a 5k go and support them go do all these things that you would do with with your with your friends or would want someone to do for you. If you did those without asking, you'd start to make friends pretty quickly, I'm sure. I guess we spoke in quite I remember this quite vividly because at some point I was like, I wish someone would invite me for dinner, or I wish someone would tell me, let's go to the beach on Saturday. And then I was like,

Instead of waiting for them to do this, maybe I should ask, hey, do you want to go come for dinner tonight? I can cook. Hey, do you want to go to the beach this weekend? It will be fun. Hey, do you want to do this? It was hard because you have this fear of being rejected, which is totally normal. But again, there's no other way.

than you putting yourself out there. They will not do the work for you. They have their own life. They're good. You need to make the effort. Completely. it's a very good point. And dinner is an easy, easy way of inviting people in and starting conversations. So that's a great tip. Thank you for sharing.

James Doran (01:04:41.326)

Is there anything else that you needed to, that stands out in your time of boards? Obviously to see places. But is there anything else you want to share about your time in terms of what was good, what was bad? You could think of. think the biggest thing is understanding that it's not against anyone and the challenges are there for a reason. We just need to

find a ways to get over them. We grow, we learn, we make more mistakes. You make a lot of mistakes when you live abroad. And it doesn't matter if you know the language or you don't, or you know the culture or you don't, you make plenty of mistakes. And the moment you stop freaking out about making those mistakes, this is the moment you can actually start living.

because you're not afraid of making them. You're like, yeah, well, I'll make mistakes that that's the evidence of it. now let's see what am I going to learn from them? But it's a journey. It's not easy. As I said before, you get better at this. Right. Well, what a great way ending section two. And I'm sure we'll get into a bit more advice in section three.

James Doran (01:06:08.238)

So welcome to section three of the podcast, which is not actually named, but Gal, it's essentially a review of your time. the first question I always ask my guests is if you could go back to when you first moved abroad. For you, it's quite difficult. and give yourself some advice, which might have helped you. what might it be now? Appreciating that you went first when you were two, maybe we will would not count that as, as it may be even

your other kind of moves before you were 18, it may be quite difficult to really give yourself some advice, but going for your move as an adult then, what might be the advice you would give yourself for that kind of journey going forward? The number one thing that I will say is know why you're moving. Know the real reason for you to move. There is this like idea of

I want to live abroad. I want to experience. I want to go on an adventure. But what is it actually that you want? I think that if I knew what I wanted back when I was 18 going to Dublin or even probably when I was 10, if my parents would have asked me, okay, you don't want to move to France. Why? And actually make me think about that. Then maybe I would figure out that I actually want.

move and I have it's gonna be fine. But definitely later on as an adult the only time I asked myself why do I want to move was this last time moving to France. All the other time we're like yeah well I have this opportunity I'm going. Okay but why? Because when you don't know why the moment it gets extremely hard you don't have a reason to deal with it.

And then you sit on your fucking sofa, sorry, my language, and you cry your eyes out or you drink or you blame everything or you want to give up because you don't have a reason for why you're doing this. So yeah, my biggest advice, know why you're doing this. That's a great, really, really good point and a very valuable one, sure. Cause people often move to run away from a problem.

James Doran (01:08:34.53)

But if they haven't solved the problem, the problem will follow them. You know, if it's a problem that's within you, you haven't dealt with it, then you just had an expensive therapy session. kind of moving country, only to find out, the problem wasn't back where I was. The problem is me. need to, you know, look internally and solve it. which people have spoken to have, we all know people who've had, who've had that experience. We all have ourselves at some point parts of our life we might have been winning from.

might not be all the reasons why, but there's certainly some of it which you need to deal with. don't know anyone who actually hasn't moved abroad and had some minor level of that because it's often the case. If you could maybe give some, I guess we could probably throw the floor to what you do with your sister, actually. This section is pretty perfect for it. Being a

all about advice and helping people. know, kind of tell us all about the journey of how you got to your, what you do now as your career or your job. You know, what was the, what was the why for that and what services are you helping people with? So a little backstory, I talked about London and I talked about Dublin. I used to have a career in business and marketing.

That's what I've done for, I to say the first part of my adult life. Until some point I was like, I do really love this career, but it's not what I want to keep on going and doing. I want to serve differently and I want to explore differently. And I had to do a lot of inner work myself on my personal life. You talked about running away. So my easiest choice.

for everything until that point in life was, well, let's move country. Let's go somewhere else. But as I said, it doesn't solve any problem. You just take your problems with you. So I started doing some inner work and this inner work got me to go back to university and I decided to study positive psychology and really figure out like, what is the thing that

James Doran (01:10:58.604)

gets our brain working and why do we think a certain way? And true, I was always an optimistic person, but it got really turned off, I want to say, for a couple of years and I wanted to find it again. So I went back to uni and I enjoyed it very much and I started working as a coach and I enjoyed this very much. And then COVID happened and life stopped.

And I found myself looking for opportunities in the challenges because that's what I learned how to do. Again, it was part of me before, but I now had the tools, the actual tools to do this. So I woke up in the morning and I was like, what would be the one thing that will never close during those lockdowns? Well, I'm going to go and be a cashier at the supermarket.

And everyone around me was like, you're crazy. Why are you doing this? You have two master's degree. What are you going to do as a kashir? And I was like, well, I'm going to smile at people because people need more of that in this world. So I went and I was a kashir for six months during COVID. And this is also the time that I started to process the idea of I'm leaving Israel. time to go to, it's time to end this adventure.

And all those things came together. And when I used to have another business in Israel in marketing and everything shut down and I was like, it's an opportunity to really think what do I want? And I was like, I want to help people. didn't know how. Funny enough, my very naive version of me was I want to make more people smile. That's what I want. Can the world fly more and can the world be better?

I was like, it's not a business. It's a vision, but it's not a business. And it took me a couple of months to start thinking about it. This is when Mayan and I had a talk. We wanted to work together for many, many years, but every time there was like, we were in two different spaces. again, COVID allowed us to finally talk and be like,

James Doran (01:13:24.224)

We're currently in a very similar headspace, both on our personal growth journeys, but also both of our businesses got shut down during COVID. So it was an opportunity to start something new. And when we asked ourselves, what do we know best? We said, we know how to move. We know how to make the most out of living in different countries. We know how to make the most out of challenges, how to look at change.

as something that is good and not something that is terrifying. That's what we know. And we know it's really good. And we started, we're like, okay, we're gonna help people do this differently because we've done it miserably many times. And now we know how to do it in a good way. We know how to do it in a way that serves us best. So we actually enjoy this life abroad. And it doesn't matter if you're moving

for a year or a decade, actually no one knows because you go and then you figure out, right? If it's a really bad adventure, you are going to give up after a couple of months, even if you plan to go for five years. And if it's a really good adventure, you might make it your lifetime. So that's what we were like, okay, that's what we want. Amazing. And where might people find your work then?

If someone wanted to seek this help, where could someone find it? So today we have a new mobile app that's named C-Lab, which is an acronym for simplify your life abroad. We've partnered with a bunch of experts, life abroad experts. So we tackle every single aspect of life abroad. Both Myanne and I, we bring in the

emotional and the mental side of a relocation. And we help you find your real reason and figure out how you build your confidence and resilience and deal with all the stress and the challenges and everything that life abroad hits through it to you. Let's say it like this, but it's not enough. So we partnered with lawyers and financial advisors and friendship coach and career coaches and parents.

James Doran (01:15:49.838)

parenthood coaches and many others so that you have everything you need in order to simplify your life. So you can look for it on zilla score app.com or you can look at smuzative.com. is the name of our business. And that's where we share most of our tips and most of our value. It's amazing. I'm sure we'll

be sharing them on my socials for sure. And also in the sharing ads podcast, at least the smooth tip website, so you can find everything about this amazing work that you're doing with your sister as well. Is there anything else you want to add about your life abroad or we can close it there and let everyone go and download your app? I think the only thing I want to add is that if this thing

of living abroad is playing in your head or your gut or your heart or whatever it plays inside your body. Listen to this. You might face some challenges. You might have to conquer some difficulties and find creative solutions to make it work. But the solutions are there and it's an amazing world.

And once you open yourself up to it, you become a better person, a better human being, in my opinion, because you've seen way more than when you just travel. You actually live in different places, different cultures, different systems. So you're more open to be a citizen of the world. And that makes us all better people. So we'll smile more and we'll be good.

My name war is always a positive thing to end on for sure. So thank you for sharing it and your wise words and your incredible stories and journeys you've been on. Yes. And thank you for your time as well today. Just talking to me. Really appreciate that. I'm I'm glad to share the space that we're in, I suppose, in the XPAP support group and trying to

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provide anyone listening more opportunity to make it easier because, know, no matter who you are, it's the 10th time or the first time it will be difficult. There will be a new challenge and apps like yours will hopefully support that. So thank you for making that your new goal, suppose, or your new purpose. Thank you so much, James, for having me. Always, always. And if you have enjoyed the podcast and found something interesting, do let us know in the comments.

like share and subscribe because that's what everyone says you have to do and as always we'll see you next time for the Expat pod.