Hello, I am Audrey, from France.
Eindhoven was not my first experience as an expat. I lived a bit more than 3 years in Canada (French speaking part) before coming to the Netherlands in August 2016. I followed my boyfriend there and again here, and I have to say the expat experience in Eindhoven is much different, especially for spouses (or “desperate housewives” as I like to joke about it). Get in Touch is one of the reasons why I feel good in Eindhoven. It was not easy at the beginning; I kind of cheated for my first Get in Touch meeting. It was apple picking at the Phillips Fruittuin. So I brought my boyfriend and a French girl we met few days ago at the Hub. We did not stay for long with the others. I didn’t remember it was the first time I met Swapnali until I checked the pictures on the GiT family Facebook group; that’s how we mixed with people that day…
At that point, I have to say that I had no confidence about speaking English. Well, I used to read novels in English and watch TV shows and film in English, but my year in Scotland was far (and I wasn’t that good at that time anyway) and, except for few parties with internationals in Canada, I almost never spoke English. So I felt quite dumb while talking with my weird accent and rusty English. And another problem is my reserved attitude. When I meet new people, I tend to listen to them and not say too much myself, and it’s even worse when there is more than one person discussing with me… Also, I don’t feel awkward when there is a blank in the conversation, am I weird?
My next GiT was the Strijp S tour, where I was with Carola only, no other spouses showed up. The part where I tried a kimono was quite nice. At the end of the tour, we reached SGE International for a presentation and joined some spouses. I discovered when we arrived that the presentation was about pregnancy in the Netherlands. Well, since I was the only one not concerned by the subject, it was a bit weird but I learned some things.
Then, from January 2017, I joined the International Spouse Program at the TU/e sport center and, instead of seeing my fellow spouses once a week (which is already nice), I met them 3 to 4 times a week. Through the 10 weeks of program, I began to open up more to the others and I became friends with some spouses.
After both the first meetings in September, I missed a lot of the following ones (5 over 6 I think) until mid November. I don’t know exactly why, for a great part my laziness to interact with people, especially in English, I think. The meeting at that time was at the TU/e sport center (SSCe), Susan Lambriks told us about the International Spouse Program – I will come back to it later. Joining more often allowed me to meet people more than once. During a meeting about healthy food, we decided with the two other present spouses to prepare a workshop on the very same subject.
When I found a job in October 2017, I was quite sad to stop going to GiT meetings. I left my job in May and wasn’t able to join GiT meetings before the “End of season Potluck” in July. I was so happy to meet again with other spouses in September.
What annoyed me at the beginning of “my GiT” was the fact that I just had small talk with others at each meeting and it was difficult for me to build friendship on it, but it’s so important to get out of the house, to discover Eindhoven, to have activities and talks with other spouses that live the same expat experience… And friends came a bit later, through the ISP at TU/e for me, during the dance extra GiT for other I bet, and I also saw that some spouses created/joined an English speaking group on Facebook and met once to twice a week.
Balancing on the rope while my friends help me.
To conclude, I would say that GiT allowed me to make friends and to feel at home in Eindhoven, even if at the beginning I was shy/lazy/skeptical, yes, a bit of those three. It’s like everything, more you invest in it, more you get in return.
Thank you Carola and Get in Touch !
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