California

I had a college friend who went on to grad school at Stanford. He invited me for a visit the year after we graduated and I spent a weekend in San Francisco before visiting him at the Stanford campus.

After that visit, I decided that I wanted to live in the San Francisco area for a time, then move to Europe (I vaguely considered either England or France, then I met a Danish girl, but that’s another story). I figured moving to the other side of the country would prepare me for the greater cultural shock of moving to another country.

I didn’t imagine either happening in the near future at the time, but circumstances presented an opportunity to move in 1993, and I took it. Then, I met the aforementioned Danish girl and moved to Denmark in 1996.

My assumption was actually quite correct. Moving to California was more of a cultural shock than I had expected, and it did prepare me for the even great shock of moving to Denmark. I’m quite glad that I did both.