Curious questions of motivation to move abroad

After reading the poll results on this blog, immigration seems to be a concern for some people. I agree with this concern. I have always asked myself why do people move abroad and what is their main reason for moving? As I have said before, in my opinion, the main driving force for relocating abroad is economic. When I say economic, I mean people move abroad to chase the Dollar, Ruble, Pound, Yen and so on.

Although I also worry about immigration in my own country, people move abroad to gain wealth and to offer themselves and their family financial security for the short term. I am no exception to that as a temporary immigrant rather than a permanent one in Russia.

Job contracts for 'movers', 'expats' or whatever you wish to call them, vary from a few months to a few years. It also depends on who you work for and on what your position is. Relocation packages differ. For example, at the British embassy, families often get a very large flat (approximate rental cost 4,000 to 5,000 euro PM unless it's owned by the embassy) in prime city locations, free kindergarten and free flights, however pay is not as high as it would be for some expats abroad not working for the Foreign Office. To be honest, they deserve the job and all its sweeteners. The job application form to get into the Foreign Office is over ten pages long and very exhausting, I know as I tried and failed, not that I'm bitter. It is usual for expats in Moscow to have an on call driver and families often have a nanny. Moscow is often seen a golden honey pot for many expats where they can enjoy a lifestyle that would be totally impossible back home. This is a well known fact and Russians grasp at this situation, charging high rents for their flats. At the end of the day, we are all out to make a living no matter where we live.

People often move abroad to chase a dream and to escape the monotony of their daily lives in their birth country. The United Kingdom has seen vast numbers of immigrants entering its territory over the last ten years or so, while vast numbers of people indigenous to the United Kingdom, have left to move abroad. France has seen an explosion in foreign settlement. Thousands of Brits sold up at the height of the property boom before the bubble burst and moved to France and other European countries, buying land and building large houses with pools. That bubble has now burst.

The social and economic situation in a country often pushes people to up root and settle in another country. The United Kingdom has been on steady downward decline for a number of years, socially, morally and economically. People are tired of crime, false promises and anti social behavior and want to raise their children in a safer more harmonious environment. According to published figures, last year 207,000 British citizens , one every three minutes  left the country while 510,000 foreigners arrived. Over the last 20 years, the white British population has decreased slightly while the number of ethnic minority Britons has doubled. The United Kingdom still holds a romantic ideal for many people from other countries and is also seen as an easy entry point for a new life. To some extent this is true with benefits, free or cheap housing and a visa/citizenship entry system with more holes in it than a Swiss cheese. The official bodies that run British Visas and citizenship will scream 'this is not so, how dare you', however we can see the results with our own eyes, year by year.

You can't blame people for wanting to leave their own countries when they feel all hope is lost. You can't blame people for wanting to offer their children a better way of life. I personally would not choose to live in my own country again and I find it hard to believe why anyone would choose to move there. I feel it has slipped too far down into a black hole to ever recover in my life time.

For what its worth, if I could choose where to live, if I had enough cash, I would choose the countryside or by the sea every time. After careful research, I would choose any of the following: Greece,  Australia, Canada, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Sweden or Denmark.

I and family are temporary immigrants, nomads, gypsies. We are in Moscow for set period of time and try hard to enjoy it here. I would not have chosen Moscow as a destination to move to if there had not been any other choice. I can think of far more interesting and easier countries to move to than Russia and I am sure many Russians would agree with me. Where to next and when? I simply don't know.

Please take part in the survey poll on this blog. You can do so here. You may find this a help on being a successful expat. and on how to meet new people when abroad

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So you want to move abroad

I am not an expert on moving abroad and have only done it two times before. We first moved from the United Kingdom to Slovakia and later from Slovakia to Russia. Moving home to a new country is not rocket science and there is no university degree in it but I just want to give my experience as  a help to others.

Everything I have written here, is based on getting it right and on getting it very wrong so far in my moving adventures. Moving abroad is not just about moving, it also impacts on your comfort zone, a new culture and a new location. My experience is based on renting and on moving all my possessions by truck from one country to another, to a new flat and to an unfurnished flat. Adapting and getting it right can be easy or hard. 'Make sure' is my key word in any advice given. Make sure you follow it! Your choice.

• Leaving home

A lot will depend on your situation and reasons for leaving your home country but think about how you will feel when leaving a job behind, friends and family. How will you cope with being away from them, from your known environment and from your natural comfort zone? You will need to think about how any friends or family will visit you in your new country. If your parents are sick or old, they may not be able to fly over to see you, the flight could be a long one and visa entry regulations for your new country may be difficult or a nightmare to obtain and arrange.

Your children may be very sad to leave their school friends behind and may have to learn a new language when they arrive in your new country, consider their feelings before you finally agree to move. You will also have to carefully select a good international moving company. Some people are lucky enough to have all their moving logistics taken care of by their employer, if you are not one of those lucky people, you will have to select a moving company and find place to live in your new county. You may also need to have vaccinations for your new country and you may have pets that you want to take with you. Pets will need a pet passport and vaccinations and not all countries allow certain breeds of pet into their borders. Research, research, research is the key to moving success. See my FAQ'.

If you own a flat or a house, you will need to let it out (rent it out) to pay the bills or mortgage. It will depend on where your flat or house is (renting and letting laws are different in each country) but choose your tenant(s) very carefully. Make sure they have not just escaped from the local loony bin or that they have not just been released from prison for an a double axe murder. Get good references and a full work record, including copies of their bank accounts and employment contract, this is vital. What they tell you and what the reality is, can be two different things. When choosing a tenant(s) make sure they have the funds to pay you each month.

You could let out your flat or house through a letting agency but be careful which agency you select, some charge high commission or are simply not professional, despite their fancy website and trendy office. Redirect all your post to go to a friend or family member or have it redirected to you. The British Royal Mail offers this service and I am not joking, despite their bad reputation, this service does work, you can select from a few weeks, months to years and it's sent onto you abroad. It's not cheap but worth it. Inform your bank and credit card company of your new address and check that they they actually update their systems as you instructed them to. Because of the Data Protection Act in loopy land Britain, they cannot not read you back your address to confirm they have spelled it correctly but instead ask you to read your address back to them, so it's a case of fingers crossed that they will get it right. Deep breath and keep calm.

If you are following your partner abroad, what will you do in your new country while he or she works all day? You could find yourself at home bored to death. Will you be able to work with or without a work permit and what type of work will you do? If you have children, you may want to hire full or part time baby sitter. Find out how much one will cost per hour. Before you leave start planning at least three months in advance. Surf the world wide web, read helpful blogs like this one (make a donation to helpful blog like this one via Pay Pal) or hunt for forums where you can ask questions to others who live in your future country. Be careful of forums as they often have wackos on them but occasionally you can get some useful information. Never use your real name or publish your email or contact telephone number on any forum, regardless of how the forums looks. Type in key words in Google when searching for information, it should produce good results.

Try to join expat clubs prior to leaving your country so you can try and meet some like minded and friendly expats. You will also need to arrange medical insurance and may have to open a bank account in your new country. Check out what paperwork the bank needs from you before you actually leave your home country. If you plan to drive in your new country, you may need to get an international driving license and I would suggest you find out what it is like to drive your future country, ask others who have experience. The roads in Russia or Nigeria (including driving laws) are not the same as you are normally used to. If you do not speak the country language, buy a satellite navigation system (Tomtom) as it will direct you to wherever you want to go in your own language. Take originals and copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates and job contracts and take photo copies of all your individual passports in case they are lost, stolen or damaged.

• Your new home

Before arriving in your new country, fly there to check it out. Stay in a cheap hotel for about a week and look around areas to see what they are like and how far they will be from your new work place. You can also have a play on Google Earth by typing in an area in the city to see how it looks from the air or at street level. You may find a flat or house that you love but the traffic in the city (Moscow for example) may be so bad that it would take you two hours to get to work each day. Make sure you try to get a flat or house near to a metro so you have the option of taking a train. Make sure it is not too polluted where you want to live. If you like sport or running, you may like to live near to a park so you can go running outside. Renting near green areas often pushes the rent price up, even if the flat is a dump.

Be careful when choosing a flat (apartment) letting agency, there are often many in every city. This is true in Moscow and they make a commission or one months rent from the flat owner or from you and sometimes from both i.e they take two months rent. See renting in my FAQ's. The higher the rent, the more profit they make. When you look at any adverts for flats and the advert gives measurements of the room sizes please be very careful. I had a bad experience of renting a flat and it was too late to back out as I had signed the contract, the advert had been economical with the truth. The room sizes looked acceptable on the advert but when we saw the main bedroom when we visited the flat, the room was smaller than the actual advertised size as a result we had problems to fit the furniture into the room. This was because the young guy who was the letting agent had measured from inside fitted cupboards and from the Logier (very long narrow balconies, common on old Moscow flats) rather then measuring from the usable floor space. Take a tape measure with you when looking at flats and carefully measure the floor sizes. Visit the flat at least twice to see if it is noisy at different times of the day.

Be careful of the direction the flats face before you sign the contact or you will cook later. If the flat is not protected by trees or has no air conditioning, some rooms may directly face the afternoon sun from midday and as a result, the bedrooms or living room could become like mini ovens and you will be very uncomfortable in the summer. The summer sun heats up the air and if the city is congested with traffic and your flat is on a main road, you will have to breath in car fumes. This may seem a stupid thing to mention but if you look at any potential flat in the winter you may not know this. I visited my current flat in November when it was not hot and now cook every summer. See blog.

Make sure the flat or house you are going to rent has a good internet connection and if it does not, ask the owner to install it. Find out what TV packages are available in your new country and how much they cost. You will also probably want a mobile phone. If you take a phone contact, make sure you can cancel it if you leave before your employment contract ends. Make sure the rental contract is a solid as it can be and that the rent is fixed for a set period and that the currency you pay in is easy to obtain and not to volatile in the exchange rate. If you feel nervous of the landlord walk away, the same applies to the letting agency. Make sure your new home has window locks if you have small kids and that it is safe and secure. Make sure there is a local shop near to your new flat or house and that the neighbours are not insane and that the building has a safe and working lift. I would also suggest finding out any laws on nuisance neighbours in your new country and find out what your legal rights are.

• Being there

Once you have settled into your new county, try to keep in touch with family and friends. Use Skype or Google chat. Get out and about, join clubs and meet people. Join a gym and keep active. If you are working, it will be a lot easier than if you are following a partner. If you take a partner with you, please consider how he or she will fit into the new country and how they will adapt to a new life abroad. Try and take regular trips home or out of your new country and take regular breaks.

Remember, moving abroad is an experience and is usually not forever. Most expats move abroad for reasons of work and stay abroad for 2 to 5 years. Try and learn the language if you are OK with languages and visit as many places as possible away from your flat or house. Live the country and drink in it's culture. Mix with the locals if you can and see your moving as an experience. If you get depressed take a break away from the country or if necessary leave. There is no point suffering a situation you are not happy with, even if the salary is good. Money is not always everything, happiness is worth more than money. If you are unhappy in your new country leave. 'Make sure' and research are the main buzz words to a successful move abroad.

Answer the Poll here

Note: Some people reading this may have a different experience and opinion to me. If you would like to add or disagree with any advice that I have given, please post it below. If you found this post helpful, please tell any friends who are thinking of moving abroad.

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Yay, we won an Award!

Much to our surprise, we were given the Liebster Blogging award yesterday; many thanks to Allie at Cancer and Baby equals Chaos!

The Liebster Blog Award is for people with little blogs (less than 300 subscribers) to share blog love and spread the word.

The Rules are:

1. Post displaying the award, linking back to the person who awarded you.
2. Choose your own blog picks and let them know they're awarded.
3. Hope everyone discovers some new favourites.
4. Revel in the blog love.

These are the blogs we've chosen to award. They are all great blogs, so you should definitely check them out!

Our handmade journey
TeacherX
Do you speak Polish
RJs Place 
What would Eve do 
Impressions of an expat 
Phil Hawley

Kindergarten time

It's that time now to find a kindergarten for my kid. I went to see one near me the other day . I walked there with junior, I pressed the buzzer on the gate to the school and waited. A man spoke to me via the intercom in Russian and I did not understand a word he said. We waited in the street then a toothless security guard came out but would not let us into the school. Feeling frustrated by my linguistic disability, I was about go home, when a woman came out of the school gate, I spoke to her in English and she understood me and luckily for me let us into the school.

I went up to see the director of the school (they are called directors and not headmasters or headmistresses). I sat down at her desk and explained to her using only my hands and by pointing at my kid and at a calender on the wall, that I wanted to see if my kid could attend her kindergarten. I hoped junior would behave and smile sweetly but instead he made a bad smell and screamed. Despite junior tantrum, she understood me regardless of my lack of Russian, as I am good with my hands and can make myself understood in most languages without speaking the language. You should see me, it's a comedy dance of acting, polished by years of teaching English and being too stupid and too lazy to learn any other language. She gave me some information about the school and I left and went home.

Subsequently, I later found out that you have to register for a place and can apply for up to three places for a Kindergarten in Moscow. This new system came into being last year. If you are feeling brave, you can have a read through the Department of Education Moscow website, use Google Chrome to translate it. We don't want to pay for a private one as its far too expensive such as P'titCref where it's almost 4,000 GBP, 4,521 Euro or 6,400 USD per  'trimester' (academic term), so the next option is to use a cheaper Russian state kindergarten. Places are given by priority to people from Moscow who have a 'permanent registration' in Moscow. We dutifully completed the online questionnaire, all of it being in Russian and hit the submit button. We will now wait and pray.

I don't know how it works in the United Kingdom or in any other country? All I do know, is that trying to find a decent Kindergarten or school place for your kid is absolutely vital for any parent, regardless of their income, location or circumstance.

I must confess, I feel tempted to start a school here myself, many have tried and succeeded, although I am sure the bureaucracy could be a total nightmare. Owning a Kindergarten in Moscow, is like owning a medical centre in Moscow, you can basically print your own bank notes.

Note: I dont believe it is necessary to learn Russian unless you plan on moving to Moscow long term. Most under 40's speak some English.

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лето - summer

Summer (лето) is fast approaching and people are beginning to ask will this summer be like last summer? The city of Moscow cooked and chocked in thick acrid smoke. Temperatures were up to (and sometimes, beyond) 36c, it was sweltering. The entire city stank. The smoke contained toxic particles, your clothes and hair stank as if you had spent a few hours bent over an open fire of damp leaves. Carbon monoxide levels were reportedly 30% above safe levels.

The Russian government then began to fire (sorry for the pun) key personnel across Moscow, who they held responsible for fire prevention. People blamed other people, in an endless circle of blame. As far as I know, Moscow last suffered smoke levels like last year back in 2002. The former Mayor Yury Luzhkov, even returned from his holiday when the smoke became too bad. People wore surgical masks when walking outside and Moscow looked like London in the 1800's in a thick pea soup. I have not experienced conditions like it in my life.

It is impossible trying to get a small child to wear a surgical mask, they just tear it off in seconds. I expect it is easier to get a child to wear one in Tokyo and china were the wearing of a mask is second nature when going outside. They are used to smog that comes from their vast coal burning power plants and city traffic. We are not so used to it. You can protect yourself from city smoke by drinking a lot  of water, keeping windows closed and by wearing a mask. Here is an example although it does seem a sightly comical in my opinion, 

Russia is a place of extremes for many reasons, not least of all becuase of its climate. You freeze in the winter, usually from about late November through to late March and cook from May through to late August. The winter brings with it welcome relief from the heat. The roads and paths are covered in snow and ice and the air seems almost fresher. In the summer, the air is heavy with pollution and the heat is unbearable. Many expats as well as Russians, flee the city from July and August. Russian families escape to their dachas, (country houses) while expat mothers head home to parents or friends during the hottest times. Fingers crossed, this summer will be better? We can only hope the Russian authorities have put plans into place to be ready for any fires and that Russia does not experience a heatwave again this year in 2011.

In Moscow, you can be blown up by terrorists, frozen like fish fingers in the winter, cooked on a high temperature in the summer and then smoked like kippers until you are brown.

TV abroad for expats

When you live abroad you may want to watch TV in your free moments. Going out in Moscow (depending on what you want to do), can be very expensive . If you have kids, you will be stuck at home most nights. In my country, we have the main channels which are the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and a host of others.

We used to have just three channels back in the distant 1970's but now we have many more. It's almost like the US where 90% of the channels are crap but at least we now have a choice of crap. Reality shows, talent shows, shopping shows, game shows, celebrity reality shows, life style shows and others of a similar vogue and quality.

In Moscow, we chose a TV package called Kosmos (see link) There are others available. We pay 600 Rubles per month for a basic TV package. The main things we watch are Nickelodeon (see link) as it has some harmless shows for little kids such as 'Sponge bob Square Pants' and others like 'Dora The Explorer'. These shows are educational for small kids and teaches them colours, counting and are interactive. We also have BBC World. I only watch BBC World for the news and for the travel shows.

In Moscow, we have BBC World, CNN and RT. I do not want to offend any Americans and I openly admit that many British TV shows and British presenters are highly annoying and bad but I cannot stand to watch CNN or RT due to the 'Americaness' (Not a real word but my word, meaning American in style). However, I do not just target Americans as annoying in their language and TV style. On CNN, there is a British presenter called Richard Quest (see link). He has the kind of movie English accent that I think many Americans like and that they actually believe to be 'typical' English. He is their Dick Van Dyke (see link) although Richard Quest is a real and genuine Englishman rather than a Dick Van D, (although he is a dick). He sounds nasal and very annoying, he wears elastic braces on his trousers and stripped shirts with cuff links.

I think the producers at CNN, saw him as a typical 'limy', clapped their hands together and said to their PA's 'hire him darling'. There is also Becky Anderson, (See link) another Brit. She looks slightly masculine and reads the news in a tone as if she really couldn't give a shit and would rather be at the hairdressers. She reads about natural disasters with a cold neutrality, then smiles as she links to the weather man. As for the American presenters, they sound so annoying that CNN is unwatchable for me. They speak as if they have come from a cliche example of a fake news channel, from a bad American movie.

Then in Moscow we have RT (See link) Russia Today. They have a mixture of nationalities presenting and reporting. Russian, American and British. One female British reporter, cannot pronounce Russian cities or names correctly and she has the look of not caring either, much to annoyance of her British anchor colleague back in the studio who can pronounce Russian correctly and who clearly practices before the show goes on air. While at the other extreme on RT, there are a few Russian presenters who sound more American than the worst American actor on a fake news channel, on a cheesy American movie! They pronounce Moscow making the ending of the word (cow) to sound like the animal and say things such as, ten after nine, instead of nine ten or ten past nine. They use the word 'fall' which I think is Autumn? I don't know what they sound like this? Maybe it's becuase they lived in America or have had coaching to sound like that or think it's cool?

Despite these annoyances and my criticism, RT is generally a good news channel but it all depends on what presenters and reporters are on duty and on the day or time you watch it. I am sure RT and CNN are loved by many but not by this guy. I am not saying American English is better than British English but the two are different. Russians should not try to sound American.

I download a lot of movies and TV shows for free. I know I shouldn't do it but I just follow the crowd since everyone is doing it these days. You can also easily (and without the threat of arrest), buy copied pirate movies at many of the markets in Moscow. The sound quality is not always good but you can see many of the latest movies for about 2.50 euros. I also subscribe to a TV package that shows British TV channels. This service offers many proxy server IP addresses (Internet provider).You just log on, select a proxy and can watch any show via streaming, directly to your home computer.

When you live away from your country, it's important for your sanity to have the option to watch shows from your home country to maintain a common link to you your homeland. It makes being abroad less isolating and is an escape from the reality of being abroad, vital in a place like Moscow.

Note. I like Americans but my rant here is aimed at American news channels (and American style news channels) and non Americans trying to sound American. 

Furless Austrians

I have just returned from a much needed break from Moscow. Our destination was Leoben in Austria (see link). The first thing you notice on arriving in Austria is the fresh air, the lack of people and the excellent motorways (highways/freeways).

Austrians have excellent, fast, new and highly efficient motorways that are a joy to drive on. Austria is a country I love to visit. Not necessarily for the Austrians but more for the country itself. The nature, especially in the mountains and countryside, is truly beautiful. Austrians can seem a bit snobby at times, although I have met many nice Austrians. The older generation seem to have this attitude towards foreigners. We went to one of the many spas or 'Wellness Centres' as they are called, that are are dotted across Austria. They range in price but we found the spa we went to, online and for a very good price. However, when you live away from your home country and have a family, you will also have to pay for a hire car which does push up the price of a holiday. You could use the train but little kids come with all kinds of equipment plus you will have a lot of baggage to carry if you use the train.

What I want to write about here, is the Austrian preference for going naked. At the spas they have wet areas where you can take a sauna, wet steam or dry room heat. Once you have finished your sweating, you can then sit in freezing water or relax on a chair in the nude, letting it all flop out. Being a typical English man and perhaps a bit shy, I prefer to keep my swimming shorts on. This is rather taboo behavior in Austria. At some spas you can be told off by staff at the spa for not being naked. Austrians love to let it all hang out and to let the wind blow through their peaks and valleys.

The human body comes in all shapes, sizes and colours. The older I get the more ridiculous I realize the human body is. Of course some can be beautiful but generally I find it slightly ridiculous including my own body. At the spa, there were naked men and women of all ages, gravity and time causes bodily parts to drop and hang low on men and women and is not a pretty sight. Some had tattoos and some were furless. When I say furless, I mean hair free down stairs, (shaved), 'pubeless'.  I have never understood this obsession some people have to shave all their pubic hair off. This applies to men and women. Its natural for women to shave their legs and under their arms but to do other areas is just weird. It's even stranger for men. Some men at the spa sat on sun chairs, legs wide open with a hairless undercarriage, sausage pointing north, without a care in the world. Not a pleasant sight when you are drinking or eating a cheese sandwich.

At the spa, there was an eating area and a bar in the 'naked zone'. In between your steaming, you could sit at a table, drink a beer or cappuccino and if you felt hungry eat a cheese sandwich. I did not eat and that's all that was on offer in the way of snacks. Across from my table and outside, as I drank my coffee, I could see a very large open air sauna situated up some steps near a pool. As I sat there sipping my cappuccino, a horrible sight hit my steamed eyes. Looking through the window, I could see large groups of naked Austrian men and women standing and waiting in line up the steps to the showers outside the sauna. They were of all ages, shapes and sizes, fat, thin, pink, wrinkled, smooth, hairy and furless. They waited in line chatting in German in the fresh mountain sunshine. An image and thought hit me, like a freight train from hell. They looked like concentration camp victims waiting for their death showers. Austria was well known in the Nazi occupation for death camps and had a few (49 in fact) camps, such as Mauthausen (see link) where many people tragically died. I know this image is an awful one and I am not suggesting for a moment that Austrians today are 'Nazis', but the image terrified me and seemed very ironic to me. I grabbed my towel, drank my cappuccino and left feeling sick with the image stuck in my head. A few years ago, I visited Auschwitz in Poland and it disturbed me for many months after. I also saw Schindler's list which was a very moving film and I recommend it to anyone.

If you can get over any hang ups and shyness about going naked at a spa and avoid having awful images like the one I had (as described above), then go to Austria from Moscow and get naked, go to a spa and visit the mountains. You can fly directly to Vienna and the flight time is only about three hours. Rent a car and head for the mountains. Breath in sweet fresh air, enjoy the countryside, pine trees and lakes. Take a walk and end the day with a swim or sauna at your hotel and forget all about Moscow or wherever you came from. Austrian food is excellent and the beer is very drinkable. I have always wanted to take a train across Austria and up to the alps to enjoy the beautiful scenery, green grass and pine trees and I intend to do this very soon. Austrian trains are clean, modern and highly efficient. The trip will be slow but relaxing and fun.

A spa trip washes away the dirt and grime from your body and mind and is just the tonic, after spending months or years in a place like Moscow or any other big dirty city. Throw away your swimming shorts or bikini and let the wind and steam caress your body. When everyone else is naked, it seems stupid not to be, don't be shy and try it. Despite my naked nerves, I threw off my shorts with carefree abandon and joined them. I sat in the sauna sandwiched in between a very large man and fat woman with tits down to her knees. My dreams of sitting next two curvy twenty year old beauties, were dashed liked water on the hot coals.

After about 15 minutes, I felt more relaxed about being nude, although I really don't plan to make this a regular activity! There were no naked beauties in the naked zone, but I left with a clean mind and a very clean body. I have never understood 'Naturism' but I can see why some people may like it. Enough said.

Note: If you are furless, that's your freedom and your choice. Respect to you my furless friend. I also want to say I do not consider Austrians to be Nazis!

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Being a stay at home dad or mum

Routine

Its very important for you and your child to have a daily routine.  Children like routine and feel secure if they have a daily routine. For example, have breakfast with your child, make toasted soldiers with Marmite, make pancakes, have a walk in a park and play for a set period of time, laugh and interact, play with that train set you always wanted. Do activities in the morning, have lunch at a noon followed by an afternoon sleep. Don't let your child sleep too long, ideally for an hour and a half. When they wake up, give them a drink of milk or juice, watch the TV for an hour or two, go to the park again and play. In the evening, have a bath at a set time and bed time at a set time. Stick to the daily routine and times making an exception at weekends and on holidays.

Keep your sense of identity

Since you will be stuck at home most of the time while you take care of your young child or children, you will be out of the world of work and therefore isolated from adult company. If you are an expat abroad in this role, it will be harder for you not to feel isolated and cut off in a foreign city. Get out and try to join clubs and chat to other parents. This will be harder if you are a stay at home dad as most others in your situation will all be women. Don't lose heart keep trying and be strong. Take up a hobby, write a blog, take up butterfly catching, shoe cobbling, taxidermy, train spotting, singing, naked fishing, photography, play the guitar, do what ever you can to keep your brain active. Although kids are a real blessing, your time will be taken and you will get very tried. Keep fit, join a gym and try to find alone time for you. Alone time and free time will be absolutely vital to your sanity.

Don’t worry too much about what other people think.

People have ideas about how things should be. These ideas are installed into them from an early age by society and by parents. People have norms and values that they feel are right and wrong. Being a stay at home dad generally goes against many of societies norms and expectations. Many women do not consider a man to be at all suitable as a carer for a child or children. Many women consider caring for a child or children to be the total responsibility of a woman. A 'woman knows best' when it comes to children. A woman carries the baby, a women feeds the baby. In some ways this is true, and biologically we can't argue it, but men can be excellent with kids, caring and loving. Men have to learn these skills and it can take longer to acquire these skills. Kids don't come with a user manual but to be honest most of it is just common sense rather than skill and in my opinion most men could easily do it.

Home help

If you can afford it, try and get a person to come to your house or flat one or two times per week to clean and/or look after your kid or kids. This will allow you to get out the house or flat and to recharge your batteries. You could try and find some part time work or just keep fit or meet some friends. If you are a man cleaning and ironing will be alien and hated areas of domestic life as they are for me. Don't do it pay a women to do it for you. Keep your balls and be a man.

Have fun
The most important thing to do if you are a stay at home dad, in a place like Moscow for example, is to have a sense of humor. Have fun with your child or children, laugh, draw pictures, play hide and seek, watch TV, play. Your kid or kids only get one childhood and you will only get one chance to see them at this important time in their life and in your life. Educate with firmness, without being cruel, laugh and enjoy this time together with your child, let your boy or girl be child, let them run around, let them be noisy, don't wrap them up in cotton wool devoid of any personality.

If you are an expat abroad and your child or children are very little, you will remember the time you spent abroad with them in happiness and in pain, more than if you were at home in your own country. The chances are, your toddler won't remember a thing about his or her time abroad when you joke about it later with them when they are spotty teens, but you will always remember those walks in Moscow and other situations. Without sounding like a cheesy American TV advert, these times are precious so hold onto them. Enjoy them as best you can, for later they will be gone for ever. Have fun and laugh. You may like this article.

- Some nice quotes on raising children -

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home. 

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home. 

Note: I am not an expert or a professional in childcare, I only speak from experience and common sense.

Moscow in March

You walk along the pavement in Moscow and try to cross the road. Step carefully over the dirty black puddles. Large jeeps with black windows, fly by sending people a free, but dirty black shower. Walk carefully on black ice. Girls who are dedicated to fashion, walk a dance of choreographed professionalism in boots or high heels, years of Moscow experience in the art of ice walking. The weather is changing, one day its snowing, the next day blue skies and cold air.

I take my kid to the local park and release him from his captivity, freeing him from the straps that bind him to his push chair. He runs away happily, falling and touching the snow. Frozen time capsules, produced by dogs and drunks are beginning to melt and to reveal their packaged contents. A brown treat for spring, but not a tasty one. Brown dog turds and frozen pee lollies are on offer to all, shinning and glinting in the tentative but unsure Moscow sun. People skate on the pond to the sounds of 80's pop stars.

A group of Moscow teens jump and swing about like baboons on speed, in the kids play area, crashing down slides designed for smaller bodies,tugging at the swings, making the swing chains loser, ready to launch an unsuspecting toddler into the air and probably to his death from the plastic swing. Broken chains, broken time bombs. No one intervenes, I try to but they look at me blankly and continue their antics.

I slide and chase my son around in the snow and on the icy pond, trying to imagine we are somewhere else other than in Moscow. Snot dribbles from our noses and I see the familiar faces of mothers that often come to the park. Perhaps my second spring in Moscow will soon be here? We leave soon for a break from Moscow and to recharge the mental batteries. As I have said before, the need to get out of Moscow every two or three months is essential to the mind and spirit. Officially, winter is still here. My wife asked if I wanted to ski this year for a weeks holiday, I said no thanks, I have seen enough snow. I need to see green grass, fields and to breath a cleaner air. Who knows what this summer will bring us? Heat for sure but hopefully not smoke. Last year we were smoked like kippers for breakfast. The best time to leave Moscow is around July and August when the city is baking in the dry summer sun and when the air is tinged with yellow smoke. Go on a holiday far way, to the sea or to nature.

I asked one expat mother the other day if she liked it here, she said she was leaving and has liked it here, I tried not to look her her as if she was mad but failed I am sure. I envy those people and don't understand them. If you are an expat in a big flat with money to burn, Moscow can be a good place to be. There are plenty of bars, restaurants and shopping centres. Moscow, is fast and furious and a city that does not sleep. Like it or loath it, Moscow is an experience what ever the season.

Visiting the doctor in Moscow

We go to a Russian clinic, rather than to an expat one such as the 'EMC' (European Medical Centre) . We do this out of principal and the EMC charge one hundred and fifty euro just for a doctors consultation (two hundred and ten green backs). If you are a rich expat or have your medical insurance paid for directly, then that's fine go there and make the owners even richer than they are now. I personally refuse to and would only go there in an absolute emergency.

I think most expats that go there, including the clinics Russian patients, must have 'idiot' or 'rich' tattooed across their foreheads, although to be fair to them, they don't have much choice, its that or a state hospital. That clinic is literally printing its own money. If it only saw 20 patients a day it would make 3,000 euro a day, times 5 days a week, equals 15,000 euro a week, times 4 weeks per month, equals 60,000 euro a month. I am sure they see more than 20 patients a day and this excludes tests etc. This translates as 51,000 GBP a month or 84,000 USD a month for the clinic, less staff wages. This is one clinic in Moscow, there are other private clinics charging similar prices. No one questions it, no one complains. The insurance pays it for some. Life goes on. Sickness is big money and big business the world over.

At the clinic we go to, its a lot cheaper, clean modern and well run. On arrival you have to take off your coat, leaving it with a coat woman, who issues you with a numbered plastic hook token for when you collect your coat. Push chairs have to be left at the door and two bored, fat looking security guards eye you with great suspicion. You have to then register and go to the required floor and wait. Its a bit hap hazard, people sit on chairs against the walls, like runners on starting blocks at the start of a race, waiting for the starter gun to go off. People guard their place with killer territorial instinct, waiting for the doctors door to open and to let them in. I went there today with my kid on the metro, to see a generalist doctor for a bad cold. Getting there on the metro, negotiating steps and escalators is a test in itself.You have to go up the escalator backwards, holding the push chair facing down. Russian metro escalators are steep stairs that rise up or down into a bottomless airless abyss. Hold on tight to the chair as its rather dangerous.

My point of writing about a doctors visit, is mainly to air my suspicion on the medication that the doctors give out. In my own country, you almost have to beg to get any form of prescription drug, while here, they hand them out freely. You leave the doctors and then leave the pharmacy, with packets of pills and syrups. I left today, with four boxes of tablets and one syrup for my cold. One box was antibiotics, which I am sure was all I needed and maybe the syrup for my cough. I noticed that the syrup the doctor gave me, is exactly the same one as they always give my son when he has a cough. Leaving the doctors here with vast quantities of pills and syrups is not unlike Slovakia, there doctors prescribe with enormous generosity like in Moscow. I have a theory that doctors get kick back, commission payments from the drug suppliers. I cannot prove this theory or provide any data but its just my feeling.

Having said all of this, in my own experience,  I feel treatment here is far better than back home in my own country. You get what you need including tests, x-rays, etc with minimum wait or aggro. The only down side is you must pay. We have insurance, but have to send off claim forms to get paid back, we often wait many months to get some or all of our money back from the insurance company.

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