InterNations expats gather for year-end brunch; organization has a million members
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- Published on Friday, 03 January 2014 13:28
- Written by John Pint
All over the world, expatriates come together to socialize and chat about the joys, sorrows, strategies and surprises of living abroad. Until now, all such gatherings I’ve attended have been spontaneous reunions of people who have been “thrown into the same boat,” people who are often colleagues in the same line of work.
Recently, however, I discovered that the far-flung communities of expats have become organized—on a worldwide scale. Yes, it seems that in 2007, a few friends in Germany came up with the idea of making it easy for you to find the local expatriates, no matter where in the world you may end up. They called their organization InterNations.
In Guadalajara, the current contact person for InterNations is Nina Schulte, a German teacher who ended up opening her own language school in Guadalajara. I met her during an InterNations brunch held at Le Bistro restaurant, located near the U.S. Consulate.
Tapatios will be pleased to hear that Schulte picked this city to be her home after backpacking all over Mexico. When I mentioned this to the person sitting across from me, David York, he nodded in agreement. “I too traveled all over Mexico,” he commented, “looking for just the right place to live and at the end I also decided on Guadalajara.” And – would you believe it – I was also told the same story by people on my right: Vanessa and Albert, two New Yorkers who also chose the City of Roses after thoroughly checking out all the alternatives. Now you know why I keep calling Guadalajara “The Magic City.”
