Some facts…

Chiara is a mum of two children and she is an Interpreter and Translator for German and English. She is from a little village in Italy and she moved countries twice so far.

At the moment, Chiara waits for her husband’s work decision, to know where they will send them next in summer.

When I met Chiara, she was pregnant. We knew each other, but we were not close. About a year ago we got closer and I made her join me in teaching the religious education class in church.

The journey begins

As a lot of expat stories do, in the beginning Chiara’s life looked a bit different from how it turned out to be.

Chiara’s boyfriend at that time was working in Milan and felt that he needed a change. He asked his company if there was a possibility to go abroad and when they found a vacancy for him in Singapore, Chiara was anxious but curious enough to take a 3-week holiday of her job to see how life in Singapore would be like.

Before Chiara was able to go on that holiday though, everything changed and her boyfriend was sent to London for a year.

A year, they thought, would pass by quickly, so they tested themselves in a long-distance-relationship and Chiara started to like her weekend trips in and out of London.

Of course, that one year was extended to two years and Chiara decided to take a sabbatical year from work to follow her boyfriend to the UK.

As Chiara enjoyed her time in London more and more, in the end, with another extension of her husband’s contract (in the meantime they took a holiday to get married back in Italy), she quit her job to fully commit to a life in London without even noticing what happened to her!

Since the beginning Chiara was keen to find a job herself, and as she was young and open minded, she did not think this could be a problem! As it turned out, it was rather challenging, so she started to work on her English skills until she was lucky and found a job in a small company. Nine months later, the company was closing down, so Chiara was once again challenged to find some work to feel the same satisfaction her husband was feeling too!

She then found a good job in a finance department which she really enjoyed! 13 months later though, Chiara got pregnant, but as the department was due to move, it was actually all timed perfectly. Until now she is grateful that she gained that experience in that company!

The next adventure!

After spending 4 years in London, when Chiara’s first child was 13 months old, her husband was asked to move to Norway. 

Chiara never thought of Norway before, so she was a bit worried in the beginning. However, after her husband went to visit Stavanger, he was able to convince her, that it will be a lovely new place for them. After all, they would just stay for a year, maybe two…

One would say, another country, another adventure! Yet new beginnings are never easy, as you have to start all over again.

Getting settled in a new flat or house, getting used to a whole new environment and learning about a new culture and country can be quite challenging until you start to find new friends. Only then you start to feel more relaxed again.

As Stavanger gets loads of cruise ships in, especially during summer, Chiara decided to take a course as a tour guide. Here, her knowledge of Italian came in handy as she started to do tours for Italians whenever she could fit them in with the baby still being at home!

Of course their time in Stavanger got extended and so Chiara, always being full of energy, founded the group “Summer mums of Stavanger” in 2014 to prevent herself from sitting at home alone all day with the little one! She met up with international mums nearly on a daily basis for several activities with children in and around of Stavanger. With that initiative she even made it into the Stavanger Aftenblad!

Chiara gave birth to her second child in 2018, which soon made her take over a baby group for international mums!

Saying goodbye again

In summer 2020 Chiara will finally leave Stavanger after living here for 7 years!

After 7 years you do not really feel like an expat anymore, you think you belong here! So she will leave with one sad and one happy eye. Sad, because it feels like home after so much time, sad because you always leave friends behind! Happy though, because Chiara loves to be an expat and is excited to find out where she is moving to next!

Although Chiara admits that the beginnings are tough and this time her new beginning will be not only with one child but two, she really wants to travel around a bit more. At some point she would like to settle down, but until then she would love to meet some more people from different countries and learn about their cultures.

If Chiara had to sum up her experience as an expat, she would say that she got to know a lot of people from a lot of different countries, and although we all have different backgrounds, in her opinion, in the end, we are all the same!

If I had to sum Chiara up, I would have to say that she is a wonderful person! She is helpful to everyone, welcomes every newcomer with an open heart and always tries to remain positive and calm! It will be sad to see her leaving as sometimes it seems that she is the glue to a lot of us expat mums!