Baltimore

I’m a big fan and advocate of the city of Baltimore, so it’s sad to see all the stuff going on there at the moment in light of the Freddie Gray incident.

I’ve grown very, very fond of Baltimore and see it as an eclectic, diverse, cultural, gritty place that of course has many, many problems, but which had come through the worst of them. Maybe not so, sadly.

This happened at the Oriole’s baseball game last night:

Stay safe in Baltimore

Meeting people in the USA

I’ve met so many amazing Americans during my time here. They truly are a friendly, welcoming bunch. It makes my job as a networking expat much easier!

I recently met with an author and publisher called Kathi, whose book I am currently reading.

She wrote up about our meeting on her blog, saying: ‘Yesterday I sat and talked with a beautiful young woman, a British expatriate (you have probably seen her blog mentioned on my page), and we talked about creative vision. It was … a very enriching experience for me and I felt as though my life had been changed during a grande Caramel Machiatto.’

That’s funny, because I felt the same about that meeting – it was an enriching experience meeting her 🙂 Some people say to me ‘how do you meet all these people?’ and I say ‘put yourself out there, invite them for coffee or say yes to their invite because you never know’. That’s the expat challenge and how I’ve managed to develop a fully enriching experience.

How to be an expat!

What do you do?

Someone asked me the other day what I did in the USA, and I actually found this hard to answer, but when I saw this write up from the PR company in NYC that I work with to promote event and related products on the TV, I realised it captured the extent of my time here in the USA and how much I’d accomplished.

“Claire Bolden McGill is a lifestyle expert who is originally from the UK, now living in the US. Calling herself a ‘UK Desperate Housewife‘, Claire is an ‘expat’ who is pretty much seizing every opportunity she can in this strange and wonderful country (whilst also being a mother, wife and rather rubbish housewife.) A prolific writer and blogger, she has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show as well as local TV. Claire is also a model, fitness instructor and actress – having appeared in popular series including VEEP, House of Cards, and more.”

Not the best pic ever! (It was 640am!!)

There is more still to do tho! Volunteering, more travel, more writing and more events! And only three months to do it in!

My repat blog

My husband made an observation yesterday and it went like this: ‘It’s May next month; we’re running out of time!’ No shit!!!!!

Back to the UK soon!

I wrote about how manic the repatriation process is via my other blog, ‘From America to England’ this week. Check it out if you haven’t already and sign up to get email updates!