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Foreign Service Assignments are Glamorous — Right?
Climb aboard this modern-day journey to a foreign land. Join the authors, Cliff & Lynn Feightner, as they uproot their comfortable upper-middle-class life, and take the plunge into a Foreign Service Assignment — while in their late 50s. At a time when most people are moving their stock investments into bonds, and researching retirement communities, these intrepid adventurers sell everything that they have accumulated in their 40 years of marriage — Jaguar, home, furniture, Tupperware and clothing — and move bare-bones to Europe.
Cliff, after a successful career at a Fortune 100 company, accepts his CIO’s challenge and moves on to the biggest, most adventurous, and funniest journey of their lives. Travel with them as they set up home in the little village of Sandhausen, five kilometers south of Heidelberg, Germany.
Lynn’s challenges include: ‘the stove is in Celsius‘; ‘the power is all 220‘; ‘what do you mean you don’t refrigerate eggs?‘ (‘And what is that blood all over them?’); and ‘the freezer won’t hold four standard-size shoe boxes!’ Knowing none of the language, having had only a few weeks to learn the culture, and looking forward to driving to work at 140 miles per hour, they careen towards their future.
Explore with them as they stumble through Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, England, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. With a rudimentary set of language skills, in a world that is covered in road signs in a foreign tongue, they survive a major car crash and live in their flat in the winter as the windows are replaced (over a 6-week period). Drive the legendary ‘Castle Road,’ explore those centuries-old castles, savor 100-year-old libations, and discover cuts of meat in the Metzgerei (from an unidentifiable group of animals) that defy understanding.
Join us on this roller-coaster ride of new beginnings, new understandings and new friends — set in a humorous, casual style. Views from Sandhausen: Experiences from a Foreign Service Assignment is the most recent, and one of the very few books on this misunderstood subject!
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