This 'event' pre-dates the invention of the World Wide Web. Dang I'm old...
Every Wednesday we had a department meeting and "Laura" (not her real name but close) would always arrive later and sit there sniffling throughout. Why she ever thought she could manage a move across the globe when she had never spent a night without momsy (her name for her mother) tucking her in I'll never know - but as the resident department gwaipo I was expected to have some understanding into her condition. *sigh*
thats just bad HR to be honest... when i studied this in Uni (we had a specific class on expatriates in HR) and the company HR is supposed to have numerous interviews and actually know what the person is like before sending them over.
they would have found out that she hadnt left home ever and decide that sending her on a lengthy overseas assignment was not the best idea.
rapid_jap - I'm thinking that I will do what I've always done when I moved around (that is within Toronto) and explore by foot. Finding the idiosyncratic characteristics of the area and integrate into it. For anyone who lives/lived in Toronto, I had a hard time moving to Richmond Hill, but now can't imagine why I thought that before. So with that said, I'm feeling increasing confident with the "big" move.
I'm a winter baby so the cold is my friend, but the heat, not so much I'm not a fan of huge crowds, so quiet times and places will be something I will be on the look out for. Life with two kids three and under will be challenging there, that's for sure. Thanks for sharing and for the pointers of locating daily necessities; didn't think about that before.
Both my wife and I are well traveled and understand that when speaking to those who are not fans of traveling, you end up hitting walls in many topics of discussions. But I digress, there are travelers who are happy to jump in front of X and take a photo and say they've been to X, and then there are others who explore the area a little deeper and find a connection to the culture. Not judging here, just that I've been in conversations where we talked about the people of X, while the other person remain fixated on what they read from Frommer's guide and their photos. Nothing wrong with either, just hard to have a conversation when both people think they are talking about the same topic, when they really are not.