So two years ago my family and I moved to Brno in the Czech Republic due to me starting a new job at Red Hat. It has been two roller coaster years with a lot of changes happening both inside Red Hat and with the world that the Linux desktop operates in. During those years my wife and I have gotten to love Brno, which both of us find a bit surprising as we where both quite skeptical to the city in the outset.

I think having grown up in west europe during the cold war I had some preconceptions about what life was like in the former east europe and Brno specifically is struggling a bit with being the second city in Czech after Prague, due to Prague so often being hailed internationally as a beautiful and exciting city.

But I think during these two years Brno has proven itself to us as a place that is great to live, especially if you have a little child. Brno has a lot of beautiful outdoors areas which are great for hiking or relaxing, it is packed full of these childrens cafes where you can take your kid to play while you sit down and have a coffee or a tea, a vibrant expat community, affordable housing, a good range of restaurants, short distance to major cities like Vienna, Prague and Budapest. And lot of old castles and towns around to explore in the vicinity. I think Telc has to be one of our topmost favorites in that regard. And it has very little crime, my wife has been telling her friends how Brno is the first city she has ever lived in where she feels that as a woman she can walk along through the city in the evening or at night and feel safe.

But that said the time has come for us to move on. Due to one of these changes inside Red Hat I mentioned I am getting moved to our US Engineering office in Westford, Massachusetts. For those not familiar with Westford it is close to a city you probably do know, Boston.

So tomorrow the moving company will arrive at our flat here in Brno and pack up everything for the transport to the US. The furniture will take some time to arrive there, so while our stuff is sailing across the ocean we will live with my family in Norway, while I take advantage of the Red Hat office in downtown Oslo. So by mid-October I expect us to be fully set up in the Boston area, although we are heading over there next week for a final house hunting trip so that the furniture has a place to arrive to :)

So goodbye to Brno for now, and looking forward to seeing new and old friends in Boston!