2 years...

have passed today since me, my 2 suitcases and the dream of a life in the USA set foot on Florida ground. It's been an adventure with ups and downs, but I feel very blessed to have made it this far ON MY OWN and to have a beautiful baby girl as one of the results of this adventure. I don't know where the road will take me in the near future, but the plan of 5 years USA to hopefully gain dual citizenship stays strong.

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I had emigrated with another person to share this dream with, but I guess I'll never find out. I do admit that the biggest struggle within these past two years for me was loneliness. Yes, I am surrounded by millions of people, but building friendships has proven to be like the Himalaya. Very hard to conquer!

The two main obstacles:

1) I feel like a lot of people down here are very self-centered. It's not like I didn't meet people, but the people I did meet always wanted something out of me. It was always about "who do you know?" or "what do you have?" to bring them further ahead in life. Well, coming to the States with 2 suitcases, driving a '95 car and the black Amex being far, far away, I had nothing more too offer than my personality and that didn't seem enough. I do feel that this is different in other parts of the country as I didn't have the problem in AL for example

2) Drug Usage! I've never known/seen this many people "on something" in my whole life. Xanax, Oxycodone, Methadone, Klonopin, Trazodone... words I had never heard before coming to SoFlo, but quickly finding out what they meant. In Germany I knew a couple of people that were smoked weed and I had heard of cocaine and heroin and ecstasy and LSD etc., but I never knew where I'd go to get some of these drugs. Here this has totally changed and it feels to me like almost everybody is on something. We joked about why they do not drug test at my work the other day and came to the conclusion that they'd probably only have about 5 of 140 employees left. Well, since I belong to the small group of people that can say they have never even tried weed before, I'm the oddball and it proves to be another obstacle in building friendships. I just don't fit into this scene and I don't have the urge to, as I do not surround myself with drug abusers.

I did manage to establish friendships with two German girls and I guess it is better to have a few select & reliable friends than a bunch of random ones that are high all the time.

Since today was President's Day and my day care was closed, I was off and Elaine and I spent the day by shopping for her as she is starting to outgrow her 0-3. After the shopping trip, Tanja and us two went to an Irish Pub in Fort Lauderdale where we ate and I had my first proper drink after pregnancy and baby. It was called a Bikini Martini & was very delicious! :) We had a great day and it was quickly over.

Now after 2 years and last weeks craziness I can still say that my car has been very good. I got it back on Saturday and the total bill for servicing, tow, & car rental came up to $1150.-. Needless to say that I was very happy to have gotten my tax refund on Friday, so I was able to pay this bill.

Okay, time for bed now! If you find any errors, keep them ;) I'm almost falling over on this chair as I'm sooo sleepy, but wanted to have a blog entry on my anniversary!

Good night from beautiful, sunny South Florida with temps in the '80s!