How it all started...

... in Small World.

Kind of.

U & M, we have both recently relocated: from Europe into the U.S., from big cities into a small university town, from the fast-paced world of journalism into the motherhood land. Call it immigration big time (M has some issues with the i-word and count on reading about it some time soon, but it will have to do for now).

That's the short story.

The longer version, time permitting, will appear on this blog. We will share some thoughts on what it takes to live in the U.S. – what we find exciting, frustrating, interesting, cool, difficult, weird, or simply worth to note.

We will write about what it takes to create your home in a new country; how you go about settling in, making friends and finding your way around; what it means to raise a child there (or, for that matter, anywhere); how we experience our exile (temporary, we hope) from the professional world.

With both of us being former news journalist there will, inevitably, be some politics, business, technology and culture – from small-local to world-global. Small-World. And stay-at-home-mothers do try to read sometimes. So occasionally we will feed you on an intersting piece in the New Yorker or the New York Times.

Very new to the New World, U will soon share some fresh experiences – expect to read about hopeless struggles with bureaucracy and highlights of academic life in an Ivy League town. She also plans a Sex and the Suburb episode! "There will be no cookie recipes and no tips on where to go shopping for babies, though!" U warns. (M, being a little of a contrarian, plans to sneak in a few comments about shopping and she will definitely write about food – fast food, slow food and anything that falls in between).

OK – too many parentheses, too many dashes, and we are reverting to writing about ourselves in third person.... Time to get down to business – this may be called Small World, but it is a Big Project after all!

One last thing before that happens – we were to tell you how it all started. "Let's try to do something revolutionary," proposed U as we tried to figure out how to find a quiet afternoon amid playgrounds, playgroups and playdates, "let's try to go out in the evening."

This revolutionary meeting took place in Small World Coffee, about the only establishment in our upscale town which will tolerate a laptop user and stay open past 9 pm... (we did venture out for a drink elsewhere after they kicked us out at 10).

It was fun. And that's one other reason we are opening this blog – it's about two women sharing thoughts, inspiring and encouraging each other, having interesting conversations. Wherever you are in the Small World, you can join in!