Just landed? 🛩️
Heya! 👋🏽👋🏼
We’re Patrick & Duygu — a Filipino-Canadian and Turkish-American couple who traded life in Ontario & Michigan for Stuttgart, Germany in early 2024.
We didn’t move because we were chasing some romantic “European dream.”
We moved because an unexpected work opportunity landed in our lap — and we decided to take the leap.
Along the way, we’ve had our fair share of wins and struggles:
Navigating German bureaucracy,
Learning to cook on an induction stove,
Re-building our modern North American home in Germany,
And adapting to cultural quirks we didn’t even know existed.
Here, in our TwoFoodiesOnAPlane blog, we’ll share the real side of living abroad after leaving North America.
We’ll share the struggles, the workarounds, the solutions, the lessons learned.
But more importantly, we’ll share our adventures, our recipes, our designs, and our home-away-from-home!
Searching for a New Apartment in Stuttgart
Apartment hunting in Germany isn’t anything like renting in North America. Kitchens aren’t included, rent comes in “warm” and “cold,” and viewings can feel like a reality show.
We learned the hard way what to expect (and what to avoid). This series is our guide for other North American couples making the same leap.
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Moving to Germany? Here are some surprises we faced apartment hunting in Stuttgart — from kitchens to rent to viewings.
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Confused about cold vs warm rent in Germany? We explain the difference, what’s included, and how to budget as an expat.
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Apartment viewings in Germany aren’t private tours — they’re group events. Here’s what to expect and how to stand out.
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German rentals don’t come with closets, kitchens, or lights — here’s what’s missing and what to budget for.
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Moving as a couple? Our lessons from apartment hunting in Stuttgart — budgeting, paperwork, and finding the right fit.
Building a North American Kitchen in Germany
When we moved into our apartment in Stuttgart, we expected a kitchen. Instead, we found bare walls, plumbing hookups, and a dozen dangling lightbulbs.
What started as a shock turned into one of our favorite stories — how we went from a kitchen-less apartment to designing and installing an open concept North American kitchen (with an island) that finally felt like home.
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Shocked by kitchen-less apartments in Germany? Here’s what we learned, how much it cost, and tips for North Americans.
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From bare walls to a dream kitchen with a bar island — how we designed and built our kitchen in Stuttgart from scratch.
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Buying a kitchen in Germany isn’t simple. We share the lessons we learned as foreigners navigating the process.
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After weeks of waiting, our North American styled kitchen was installed in just two days. Here’s the reveal and what we learned.
Living with Portable AC Units in Germany
Summer in Germany taught us one thing: there’s no central AC, and we are not built for 35°C nights.
From deciding to buy portable AC units, to choosing the right model, to living with the noise (and finding hacks to make it bearable), this series is everything we wish we’d known before that first heatwave hit.
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Fans, shutters, and sleepless nights — how we survived our first summer in Germany without central AC and what expats can expect in Stuttgart apartments.
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After a tough first summer, we researched every cooling option and chose Klarstein portable AC units. Here’s why they won over Dyson and De’Longhi.
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What it’s really like to live with Klarstein portable ACs in Germany — the good, the bad, and the hacks that made summer in our Stuttgart home bearable.
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Learn how we built a DIY shelf for our Klarstein portable AC using Obi materials — a simple way to fit bulky units into a modern German apartment.
→ Coming soon!
Simple (No-Fluff) Recipes
Easy-to-follow recipes designed for cooking from your phone.
Where to Next?
If you’re here to figure out whether life abroad is right for you…
or to find a quick weeknight recipe…
or to see how we designed a North American-style apartment in Germany…
…then you landed in the right destination.
Welcome aboard.