Courtesy of Oana Adamopoulos
- Oana Adamopoulos moved to Washington, DC, in 2012 and then to Sarasota, Florida, in 2017.
- When she first came to the US from Europe, she found it difficult to make friends.
- She was also shocked by the lack of maternity leave and the cost of healthcare.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Oana Adamopoulos, a 36-year-old traveling veterinary technician who founded Pet Lift and lives in Sarasota, Florida.
I was born and raised in Romania. In 2006 I moved to Italy, and a few years later I met my Greek American husband in Greece. He was applying for work all over Europe and beyond, but Greece was not a good choice for us at that time because of the debt crisis there.
He was offered a job in policy at the Department of Labor in Washington, DC, and we decided to move to the United States.
He moved ahead of me, and we got married before he left. It took about nine months to fill out the paperwork to obtain my green card. Finally, I was able to join him in April 2012.
Moving to Washington was a roller coaster
The culture shock I experienced in Washington was greater than I expected. Moving from Romania to Italy was fairly easy, but Italy to the US was very different.
The people I met felt distant and not very friendly. I came to realize this was more of a DC thing than a reflection of Americans in general, which I learned after visiting other cities in the US.
DC is a very high-demand city. People tend to go to DC for their career for a few years and then go back to where they moved from. Unfortunately, that means it can be challenging to make friends.
This social aspect was the hardest thing for me about moving to America. I did make some close friends in DC that I am still friends with today, but most of them are from overseas.
After about two years, it started feeling more like home. I like DC now. I appreciate the culture and the museums and how the people around you are educated and stylish.
I got pregnant in 2016 and took a break from work
Courtesy of Oana Adamopoulos
When I found out I was pregnant, we decided to sell our food business we had started in DC, The Mediterranean Way.
I became a stay-at-home mom for almost four years. We had originally planned for me to take 2 ½ years off, but COVID-19 caused me to take longer.
After my time at home, I transitioned careers into veterinary medicine and started a new company, Pet Lift, last year.
I was shocked to learn that Americans don't have protected maternity leave
We don't have the opportunity as new moms to stay with our babies as moms do in Europe.
It's so sad to see people have a baby and then, six or eight weeks later, they have to go back to work. I don't think that's right — it's not natural to leave a baby without a mom.
There's generally some form of paid maternity leave all over Europe. In Romania, new moms get 18 weeks of maternity leave paid at 85% of income, which is not taxed.
The cost of healthcare in America is also really disappointing
Navigating health insurance has been really difficult here, and it's still bizarre to me that you can't get basic health services for free, or for a very modest fee, like you can in Europe.
I pay a pretty high co-pay because I need to see a specialist, and hospital deductibles are still really high. But we're lucky because my husband works for the government, so we have a much better plan than a lot of other Americans.
I think the US should adopt a similar healthcare system to countries in Europe. Here, even a visit to the ER for something minor can end up in a crazy bill, and it's just not right.
We moved to Sarasota, Florida, in 2017
We moved to Florida in 2017, shortly after our daughter was born, to try to improve our quality of life. As Europeans, we prefer a more laid-back lifestyle, and DC didn't provide that.
My husband was able to transition to remote work. Our main reasons for choosing Florida were the lower cost of living, warmer weather, and more spacious housing than in DC.
The weather here means that you can have fun all year round, and the people I've met here are a lot more friendly.
The quality of life in Europe is definitely better than in America
In Europe, people manage to balance family, work, and their social life better than in the US and they have more time off — usually four to six weeks — each year.
In the US, it feels like the emphasis is more on work and careers rather than valuing quality of life. However, I do think starting a business from scratch here is easier and comes with a higher chance of success than in Europe.
As a mom, some other things about living in America worry me
Gun violence here is a bigger problem than in Europe. I worry about gun violence at schools and in public places.
Also, the high cost of college education in the US makes me hope that my daughter will want to go back to Europe to study if she goes to college.
It's hard to say now what our long-term plans are, but if my daughter one day decides to choose to study in Europe for college, we will definitely join her.