Expat Emire Podcast 10 | From Small Town Canada to Big City Berlin with Cheryl Howard

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Episode Description

Today we will be hearing from Cheryl Howard. Cheryl moved from a tiny village in Canada to the big metropolis of Berlin several years ago. In this episode, you will learn:

• How to build and grow a personal travel blog while living in Europe and seeing the world
• Advice about making a move to Berlin with a working holiday visa
• Tips for finding freelance clients and full-time jobs abroad
• Steps for dealing with both culture shock and reverse culture shock

…and much more! You can read more about Cheryl’s adventures on her blog cherylhoward.com. Eli Hermit edited and produced the music for this episode, please check him out at elihermit.bandcamp.com/. Learn more about Expat Empire at expatempire.com!

Episode Transcript

Intro

Welcome to the Expat Empire Podcast, the podcast where you can hear from expats around the world and learn how you can join them.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today for the 10th episode of the Expat Empire Podcast. Today we will be hearing from Cheryl Howard. Cheryl moved from a tiny village in Canada to the big metropolis of Berlin several years ago. In this episode, you will learn how to build and grow a personal travel blog while living in Europe and seeing the world, advice about making a move to Berlin with a working holiday visa, tips for finding freelance clients and full-time jobs abroad, and much more.

Without further ado, let’s start the conversation.

Conversation

David McNeill: Hey Cheryl, thanks so much for joining us today on the Expat Empire Podcast.

Cheryl Howard: Hi, and thank you for having me.

David McNeill: If you could just tell me a bit about, you know, where you are originally from, where you’ve lived around the world so far and where you are currently living, that would be fantastic.

Cheryl Howard: Okay, cool. So, I’m originally from Canada, and I was born in a small city a couple of hours outside of Toronto called Woodstock. And, then I actually lived in a few places across Canada; I lived in a small town in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in a village of about 50 people with my mom and that’s where I went to high school.

David McNeill: Wow.

Cheryl Howard: And I moved to Toronto for university and beyond, and I also did a semester-the last semester of university in Calgary to finish off school, and then I returned to Toronto to start working. And then roughly around seven years ago I moved to Berlin where I stayed for two years, moved back home to Canada for two years and I’ve now been back in Berlin since November of 2014.

David McNeill: Awesome, that sounds like quite an adventure, especially coming from Canada and many cities over there, especially ones that as you mentioned are quite small, you know, what was it like to grow up in Canada and to also spend time in such a small city now that you have the context and experience of living in much bigger cities in Canada and here in Germany as well?

Cheryl Howard: Well, especially during high school, to spend my high school years in a village of 50 people and going to, I think my high school had less than 200 people who came from a combination of different communities around us, so we just have to take a bus that was like an hour to school each way and I had to try to like become friends with a group of kids who had been together since they were five in class.

David McNeill: Wow, yeah.

Cheryl Howard: But, a little bit hard to break into but eventually I did and I had a good, especially in my last two years, they were really good. I started doing much better in school and primarily with the goal of getting out, that was my main thing and that’s exactly what I did. I graduated on a Friday, and I was back in Toronto by Saturday night. I don’t know. So, I left really quickly as soon as I could and then I came and started school right away, because it was just such a… not that bad, but not an experience that I wanted as a young person. I wanted to live in a big city and start out on life.

David McNeill: Yeah, no, I totally understand. You know, in your case, what led you to Berlin ultimately? You know, what was the interesting part about the city? Had you visited before? And how did you decide among all the amazing cities around the world that this was a place for you?

Cheryl Howard: So, I had never actually been to Berlin before but… well, kind of like a while back, like, I went to school in Toronto and I started working and everything was really good and I was working as an IT project manager, I got to the point where I owned a house, I was making good career progression, traveling a lot, playing sports, friends, like everything was great but also there was a lot of kind of like not so nice things happening at the same time, so I went through a divorce and I lost my father and grandmother in the same year.

I was also really, really overworked and, you know, often leaving the office at 11pm or midnight. So, there was a lot of things going on and there came a point where I sold my house and got laid off by my company, so suddenly kind of like never before… That was kind of never the same as in the past, I had some money and time on my hands, so I took a two year sabbatical and I came to Europe. And, yeah, I kind of traveled around a lot and thought maybe I should move to Europe and see how it goes, and I didn’t really know where I’d end up but based on some recommendations from friends and checking into visa requirements I ended up in Berlin.

David McNeill: Nice that’s fantastic, and it sounds like you really took a difficult situation and turned it into a wonderful opportunity, so congrats on that.

Cheryl Howard: Thank you.

David McNeill: What about the visa requirements and, you know, the city, maybe the vibe or whatever it was exactly about Berlin that ultimately helped you to make that decision? You know, was it easier to get a visa here than in other places? How did you judge that for yourself looking at different opportunities?

Cheryl Howard: Well, I was kind of open to moving to different countries in Europe but based on my age and kind of like visa requirements, I wanted to get the working holiday visa. So, it really limited me to Germany and France, so it was pretty easy to choose Germany as it would be an easier place to find work and a lot of people told me that it would be easier to meet new people and kind of like making friends, and Berlin would definitely be the city for it; so that’s how I ended up choosing Berlin.

And when I first came, it was kind of just an experiment; I had enough money for six months, so I wanted to come, see if I would like it, see if I could make friends, see if I could find a new job and fortunately it all worked out.

David McNeill: Could you actually talk a little bit about the working holiday visa, how you found out about it and how you actually acquired it? Was it, you know, what the steps were, and any other advice that you might be able to provide for folks that are interested in this type of visa.

Cheryl Howard: I heard about it from a friend because her and her husband were actually planning to make the move to France for a year, and so they told me about it and I started looking into it and I thought, oh, wow, this is perfect and then I decided to choose Germany. And then, yeah, I applied through a local travel agency who actually would help… they had a swap program, I’m not sure if it actually exists anymore, but they tell you everything that you need to apply for the visa.

So, I think it took about four to six weeks to process and the visa was for one year, and with the visa there was a few different options; you could get a working holiday visa to study, or you can also get one to just come in that you can work, or you can also not work, like if you have enough money you can stay for the year and just do whatever you want. So, I actually didn’t work for the first five months, but probably into the sixth or seventh month I started freelancing and then I later just… when the working holiday visa expired, I just switched it into a freelance visa.

David McNeill: Nice. So how difficult was it for you to find clients to work with? Actually, were they in Germany or in other countries back in Canada? You know, how did you make that work originally and, you know, what was the process to actually get your visa converted from working holiday into a freelance visa?

Cheryl Howard: Well, I started actually networking probably into my third or fourth month here; I started networking a lot sort of like Meetup as well as Twitter. I don’t even think Meetup was so big at the time, and through kind of meeting someone at this hamburger tour one night because there was a bunch of people who would get together to go try different burger joints around Berlin, I ended up meeting someone I… one of the hamburger nights where I… who eventually hired me as a project manager, which sounds totally random but it’s true.

And then through the same network of friends, I also ended up getting a new gig as a blogger for a local five star hotel. So, while I was freelancing, I was kind of also working on my personal blog, working on the blog for the hotel as well as, I had kind of like a project management gig for a large German medtech company.

David McNeill: Awesome. Yeah, that sounds really amazing and especially the part about building your own blog as well. Was that sort of the origin of cherylhoward.com or is there another blog that you were working on?

Cheryl Howard: No, it’s the same blog. I started the blog a little bit before I moved here, because mostly I had those two years off and I was traveling a lot and I wanted to kind of share my stories from traveling as well as kind of have something to do because I was, I wasn’t really bored but I wanted to do something that like had a bit of a purpose. And then when I moved to Berlin suddenly my blog and my travels were more interesting, so it kind of just grew from there.

David McNeill: Yeah, it’s been amazing to see the increasing readership of your blog, you know, and specifically… you know, my experience was reading your blog through, just finding it on a Google search as I was looking for a job in Berlin, saw that you had some really great advice and I bookmarked the page and then managed to actually end up working at the same company as you here in Berlin.

So, it’s quite a small world but it was amazing to see, you know, your blog and how it’s taken off. You know, what was the sort of way that you were able to grow that over the years? And what have you found to be some of the most popular stories or posts on your blog in the last handful of years that you have been working on it?

Cheryl Howard: So, some of the most popular posts on the blog have been the one that you mentioned about how to find a job in Berlin, another one was reasons to visit Mostar. I don’t know why that one took off so well, that’s a city in Bosnia with this really beautiful bridge but that one’s done really well, and one of the funnier ones is, I wrote a really honest experience about getting naked at the German sauna for the first time.

David McNeill: Yeah.

Cheryl Howard: And that one did really well but thankfully the popularity of that post has gone down in the past year or two, other people have taken over and I’m kind of letting them-happy to let them take the reign on that one. And one of the other ones, it’s a little less popular but it did really well, it was a post that I wrote about how I made friends in Berlin in kind of like the first year so I was here, and that did really well and when I moved back to Berlin it actually led to me and a friend of mine starting a meetup group called “Make Friends in Berlin” and we have now been running that for three years, and I think we have… We’re really, really close to making the 7000 people mark within the group, so it’s a pretty cool thing I’ve developed.

David McNeill: Yeah, that’s really amazing and I’ve always been very interested in going to some of those meetups, I’ve seen you at some of them and, yeah, they’re always packed up, they’re always got a long waiting list and a couple hundred people signed up and, yeah, it’s amazing what you’ve been do there. Do you have any specific advice? I mean, of course, maybe taken from your blog post which is the, maybe the best source of the information, but in general, for making friends in Berlin and what that experience was like for you when you were first starting out?

Cheryl Howard: Yeah! So, one of the first things I did was enroll in a German class, which was really nice. I was able to meet other people who were studying German, but that wasn’t really the most helpful way because I found a lot of the people in the class were just students who were here for the summer, so they weren’t really sticking around. But I also, it sounds weird but I also went to a bar near my house a lot which was really this local bar, and I became friends with the bartender who introduced me to almost everyone who was coming in that she thought was interesting and that’s where I met some ladies who became good friends and even a guy dated for a while.

So, that was kind of interesting and, also at the time, like I mentioned before, using Twitter; I met a lot of people through Twitter, it was kind of a different time of Twitter in Berlin and it wasn’t so spammy. So, it was so easy to connect and meet with locals and also just going to different meetups as well. So, I kind of found after a few months that like my social calendar started to get pretty full and then life in Berlin actually became really interesting, and then when I moved back to Berlin a couple of years later I’m still friends with a lot of those people, so it’s pretty cool.

David McNeill: What was it like for you right after you moved to Berlin? You know, I’m sure that there were some surprising cultural differences let’s say, and also some, maybe challenges that you had to encounter in your first few months, if you could take us back to that time, you know, what was that like for you?

Cheryl Howard: When I first moved here, it was really lonely and I kind of questioned myself like as to why I had made such a dramatic change to drop everything in Toronto and move to Berlin, and I kept having long Skype conversations with friends at home which obviously wasn’t really helping and so they kind of really started to tell me, “girl you need to go out, just do it”. So, after two or three months like I said, I enrolled in a German class and I started going by myself to this bar near my house and finally started meeting people and then that’s when things probably changed and everything became fun.

And then some of the biggest challenges was, well, I didn’t know any German so it wasn’t the wisest thing to come here without any grasp of German but the bureaucracy was a bit unexpected and then there was a lot of things that I didn’t know about before coming here which was my own fault, I should have looked more. But like, for example, I didn’t know you had to register your address with the Burgeramt in order to be able to open a bank account, so when the bank told me I needed some paper, I was like, I don’t even know anything about this. So, I ended up hiring my… I was renting a holiday flat for the first few months, I ended up hiring an intern that they were using to go to the Burgeramt with me and help me get through the experience. And considering it took four hours waiting, it was a little bit costly to have her do it. So those are, those are some of the first surprises.

David McNeill: Yeah! Absolutely and I think a lot of us, myself certainly included can relate to those experiences; I think it’s very common. If you were to give yourself some advice looking back now on those days, is there anything in particular that you would recommend?

Cheryl Howard: Yeah, a lot of things actually. Like, especially the most important thing is that, like especially when people are out thinking about the visa questions, or rules about finding an apartment, or, you know, different kinds of things that, the best thing to do is actually use the cities or the city or government websites and maybe also read blogs as well because sometimes the websites might be missing a little information but you should always trust the websites first before the blogs.

Or if you’re coming here for a job, to ask your HR for help and if worse comes to worse hire professionals. So, there’s different companies out there that help people relocate here. There are tons… in the past couple of years, there’s been a rise in some really scammy ones but there’s definitely some good and well known ones out there that will help you with different aspects of relocating here, but what makes me really frustrated is you’ll see somebody come in and ask a question in one of the various Berlin Facebook groups, and I don’t know why they are trying to put their life in the hands of other people in their Facebook group and, you could the ask one question one day and another question on another day and you get completely different answers.

So, I would just say, not trust the Facebook group but stick to like the government websites, maybe with a combination of the blog but not always taking the blog so seriously either and to just kind of trust the people who know their things. Like, if you’re asking around about the best Mexican places to visit in Berlin, it’s not a problem but like, when you start asking things that like concern your livelihood, like an apartments and stuff, I don’t know, I think you should just be a little bit careful.

David McNeill: You mentioned enrolling in a German course soon after arriving and that was a great way for you to meet people, and also the fact that, you know, you probably wanted to learn a little bit of German while you were here, you know, how important was it for you to be able to speak German and, you know, how have you gone about trying to improve it to the extent that you have while you have been here?

Cheryl Howard: So, yeah, like I mentioned, when I first came I didn’t speak any German at all but I took a class the first summer I was here, and then actually the rest of the first two years I lived here I didn’t do any more, just I was working and I’ll admit it, I was partying a lot and having a good time. So like, studying German wasn’t really my biggest focus but then when I was home in Canada for those two years I knew that I planned to come back at some point, so I was actually studying a little bit more in Canada but once again since returning, so I can…

I have a really, really basic level and it should be better, I’m not really proud. But kind of like for the past year or so of my life, I’m working eight hours and commuting one hours each way, between that and the blog and the meet up, it hasn’t really left a lot of time for German, but I hope to change that at some point.

David McNeill: So you mentioned eventually returning to Canada, I guess, and obviously back to Berlin again, you know, what led up to that? And when did that happen? And, you know, why did you decide to go back to Canada for a bit?

Cheryl Howard: Well, I lost my main freelancing gig as a project manager and, I don’t know life just felt a bit weird at the moment and I didn’t feel like trying to hustle some more freelance clients and my other clients paid much less than that Job did. And I also really missed home, so I actually went home pretty eagerly, and I really just kind of wanted to just take some time to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life, whether or not I wanted to be in Toronto, or whether rather not I want to come back to Berlin. And I wanted to use the time to be home with my family and friends as well as travel around North America for a bit. So, that ended up lasting two years.

David McNeill: What was it like to go back up to that time? It sounds like you were quite excited to go but did you find a lot of reverse cultural shock or did you get acclimated back to home pretty quickly?

Cheryl Howard: So when I moved, when I first moved back home to Canada I didn’t really experience any reverse cultural shock really because I kind of fell back into my old life right away, like I had a new apartment but I went back to work for a company that I had worked for previously, at one point I was even seeing the same guy that I used to see, so it didn’t really feel like anything was different.

And actually, weirdly, so… Though, I didn’t feel any reverse cultural shock, I felt disappointed and I felt sad and I just wanted to come back to Berlin pretty much from the first day I got back. I didn’t know why I was there but I still really enjoyed the time home, like it was really valuable and it was just kind of nice to breathe for a while and figure out what I wanted to do but, yeah, like, life was just the same old life, so I was just kind of disappointed.

David McNeill: And then eventually you did come back to Berlin in the end and I guess that feeling ultimately won over, so how did you make that happen? How did you make that decision? And, you know, find your next position or get your next visa in Berlin?

Cheryl Howard: So, yeah, I kind of… while I was taking German classes to kind of prepare myself for whenever it would happen, then I was contacted by my former boss in Berlin who I had lost that one gig with, she was actually launching a new startup and had asked me to join them. So, it took about… from probably when she first mentioned it, it was probably another six to seven months later before I ended up in Berlin so the conversation was going for quite a while.

She visited Canada for a business opportunity and I met with her and then one of her co-founders came into like Canada and I met with him, and then when I went on vacation in the… came to Berlin for a vacation in the summer I met with him and the other founders and then probably three months later I was finally here again, so that was in November 2014.

David McNeill: How did it feel to be back? Had you visited in the meantime, you know, did it… Did the time away make it feel, you know, a bit more rosier in your memory than it actually was when you got back on the ground, especially coming in the winter?

Cheryl Howard: Yeah. Actually, it felt great to be back. I had come from living in Toronto and working at a job that involved a two hour commute each way to being back in the middle of Prenzlauer Berg, working at a company that was exactly a five minute walk from my house. So, that alone was this huge life changing thing and then plus I was back in Berlin, and I was just so happy. I had also visited a couple times over the two years and it had been really nice but it always felt weird because it was this familiar place but then I always had to leave it and I didn’t feel like part of Berlin anymore.

But, coming back I just jumped right into it, like even the afternoon that I landed on the first day that I returned, I went to the flat where I will be staying, kind of like dropped off my luggage, took a shower, I went to my favorite local bar-the one that I had met a bunch of people when I first moved here and started having wine, drinks with friends; so like, I was here for a little less than two hours before I was out and back to my old habits.

David McNeill: That’s incredible. It’s amazing to hear that you were able to jump back into life in Canada and then back into Berlin again so seamlessly and quickly and easily. So, that’s great and I think it show that, you know, you’re very able to fit into different situations and ultimately it sounds like your hearts here in Berlin. Do you find that you’ll, you know, probably be here for a while yet or other European or worldwide destinations may be catching your eye in the not too distant future?

Cheryl Howard: I’m not really sure, and it’s a question I always struggle to answer because sometimes I think about moving home as well. And Berlin as much as I love it, it’s kind of, at least for me, gotten a little bit boring in recent years and especially with having some friends leave-all the good friends, it kind of makes Berlin a little bit less fun. And, I know I’ll make new friends and stuff but it’s kind of just not the same. I’m not really sure what’s next but fortunately for what I do for work, the markets really hot and, you know, the job opportunities are kind of pretty good right now, so that’s kind of what’s keeping me here for the time being.

David McNeill: Yeah, I was actually curious about your job search experience and it sounds like, you know, originally you started out of course from working holiday visa and then moved to being a freelancer and then you ended up joining a company over here again with somebody that you were working for before that but, you know, how have you really built your career here? And how have you found other opportunities? And how would you recommend that people go about that if they’re interested in actually working here in Berlin?

Cheryl Howard: Sure. So, yeah, since I’ve been back, I guess, which is just, I guess I’m coming up on three and a half years, I have had the opportunity to work for some cool companies with some really amazing people but I kept having this problem-is that I kept getting laid off when some of the companies were starting to tank and that was always really, really tough, like searching for a new job, getting a new visa, worrying about whether money was going to run out and you’d have to start paying health insurance or worrying that you couldn’t find a job in time before they would kick you out of the country, it was always a bit of a stressful situation.

I’m really thankful now that I’m working for a really cool company who seems to have a bright future and I really like my team there, so I’m kind of excited to see how that will play out. But during the times when I have had to work, it’s always been pretty easy and I know that I’m really fortunate, so like I’m not like bragging or anything because I know other people have a much different experience than me but I think that if you’re working in tech, you’re really lucky because no matter what you do, whether or not you are a developer, an agile coach like myself or a product manager, there’s lots of job opportunities.

So, I’ve usually had a mixture of companies approaching me and me approaching companies and every time that I’ve looked for a job, I’ve always kind of been running between three and four different companies and getting more than one offer, which is pretty awesome and I don’t think that’s something that ever happened to me before I moved here. And yeah, like so far, so good. So, it’s kind of like I was saying, it’s one of the things that has kept me here. So, for the people who work in tech, I’m not really sure if there’s any advice I can give them because I just think they’ll be able to find jobs.

People who work outside of tech, I would kind of recommend a lot of the things that I have on my blog about how to find a job here but trying to learn as much German as you can before you come or like coming here to study so then you can at least get an intern job and kind of work your way into it or working for startups is another option, as volatile as they can be they are also a pretty fun… it’s a pretty fun space to work in.

David McNeill: Yeah, definitely. That’s great advice. I recommend everyone listening to definitely check out Cherlyhoward.com for more information in the blog post because that’s the exact steps that I followed to find my position. So, that’s the best advice I think that you can give but, you know, in your experience working for a number of different companies both in Canada and in Germany, what’s been your experience around maybe some differences in working for German companies, foreign companies perhaps based in Germany, you know, the local offices or even, you know, working at companies in Canada? Have you noticed any major differences in terms of work culture, style in management and things like this that you have any thoughts about or has it been pretty similar for you?

Cheryl Howard: Well, I guess, like in Canada I’ve always worked for really big companies, so for me most of the differences are not really so much between German and Canada but more or less working for big companies versus startups. The first project management job that I had here was for like this big old school medtech company, they were really kind of like old fashioned in the sense like if you wanted to send somebody an email, you had to say, “Dear Mr. So and so” and if he had his PhD, it was definitely “Dear Dr. so and so” whereas in Canada or if working for any startup, you would just be like, “hey, Bob”.

Or definitely with the startups, like having beer on Fridays and drinking with your colleagues, whether or not they’re someone who works in customer service, to someone who works in finance, to someone from C level, you’re sitting there having beers with them and everybody is pretty cool about it. I have never seen that anywhere else before and that’s really a lot of fun and I really enjoy the social aspect of that. Yeah, and I guess the last difference would be just how casual people dress at a startup; like I swear, some people look like they’re coming-in in what they wore to bed the night before, whereas like at any company I worked for in Canada, if you like came into work in like jogging pants, they would probably like send you home or something.

David McNeill: That actually sums up most of what I wanted to ask you. Is there anything else that you’d like to share with the listeners in terms of, you know, how they can find you? Any other advice that you have for folks that are interested in living in Canada especially here in Berlin? Yeah, any last thoughts?

Cheryl Howard: Yeah, not really too much except thank you for having me and listening. And if you want to find me, you can find my blog at Cherylhoward.com and all the links to my different social media channels are there and I can say I’m particularly vocal and active on Twitter, so I talk a lot about life in Berlin on Twitter.

David McNeill: Awesome. Well, I’ll definitely have to follow you there and I recommend everyone else does as well. I’ll put this links in the show notes and really appreciate your time today; it’s great speaking with you and I look forward to hearing about more of your adventures on your blog and Twitter, and hopefully seeing you here around Berlin as well.

Cheryl Howard: Okay, cool, thank you so much again for having me.

Outro

Thanks to Cheryl for sharing her story with us. You can find the full transcript and links to the websites mentioned in today’s episode at expatempire.com.

If you are interested in sharing your story on Expat Empire, please consider submitting a user post about your expat experiences on expatempire.com or email us at podcast@expatempire.com and let us know more about your international background.

Music on this episode was produced by Eli Hermit, please check him out on Bandcamp and Spotify.

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On a personal note, I am heading to Japan soon to get married, so we will take another quick break and be back with a brand new episode in four weeks! See ya then!

Originally published at https://expatempire.com on April 29, 2019.