Four years ago, a company bankruptcy and children home at university sent my husband and me homewards to New Zealand -- after twenty six years living as expats. Actually, I was on my way home. For my Swiss husband, it was just another country. We made the right moves – packed up, organized freight and bought plane tickets, but my feet dragged – through Viennese art galleries and cozy niches of the coffee houses that I wasn’t keen to leave behind. New Zealand didn’t seem very real or even very attractive after the mysteries of the places we’d lived in.

Love is blind they say, even scientists, who gleefully point to studies that show how the rush of emotions place blinkers on our brains, shutting down rational thought. Falling' in love with someone from another culture is hardly a misnomer. We truly prove our love with the ultimate commitment -- launching ourselves off the hard ground of our personal reality into the unknown of another.

Moving abroad it is an adventure that presents us with a wealth of new impressions and experiences. But these gifts do not come without losses. We had to leave behind people we care about. We can no longer drop in on our best friend for coffee. Favourite foods and drinks cannot be found. Our new apartment may have decorative ceilings, but none of the conveniences we are used to. Even familiar things like possessions and husbands seem different here.

"Oh no," Senta says, "In three days I'll have to speak just English again. I won't be able to mix languages anymore. What a hassle." Children from bilingual or multilingual environments get used to switching from one language to the other. They speak to one person in English, or French, or Spanish and to the next in German, or Arabic or Flemish.

Recently a mother called me, saddened by a conversation with her six-year-old. The children in her class had been asked to talk about where they came from. This little girl who had grown up in Belgium and Austria hadn't known what to say.

Getting married or moving in with a partner is to enter a state of constant negotiation; who takes out the rubbish, how much should be spent on books or wine, and whether having a manicure is an essential expenditure.

I am part of all that I have met (Lord Tennyson). Has the time come to turn your back on Vienna? Are you already savouring your last coffee at the Café Central, squeezing in the last few bars of Mozart or Mahler at the Music Verein? Are you wondering how to bid farewell to friends you have shared special moments with?