Today we’d like to introduce you to Audrey Roberts.
Hi Audrey, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi! I’m Audrey! A girl from the small town of Anderson, South Carolina. I relocated about 30 minutes down the road to my favorite little city of Greenville, SC back in 2016 after graduating nursing school. I worked at a level one trauma center in Greenville for almost 8 years. Around 6.5 of those years were in the Intensive Care Unit.
Everything changed when I met a boy from Southern California who happened to be in Greenville of all places playing hockey for a minor league team here (shoutout Swamp Rabbits!). We met in 2023 toward the end of his hockey season. We were only able to go on 2 dates before he had to go back to California for the offseason. Still barely knowing each other, I decided to visit him in California over the summer, and we quickly knew we wanted to keep seeing each other. Ethan was supposed to go overseas for the next hockey season, but as our relationship grew over the summer, he decided to put a pause on his European hockey plan that year and come back to Greenville to play another season. He ended up falling in love with Greenville, we bought a home here and this is where we will call home once we officially settle down after hockey. After being together for the ‘23-‘24 hockey season in Greenville, we decided to take on European hockey together for the ‘24-‘25 season. I quit my job at the hospital last July and we left for Budapest, Hungary in August of 2024. We absolutely fell in love with Budapest, the culture, the lifestyle, the views! It was a once in a lifetime experience. Neither of us had really explored Europe until this opportunity came up so we really soaked up every experience we could. We were able to travel to 6 other counties during our time there as well. I created a tik tok account called Audrey’s Adventures to capture this huge life change for us. I wanted to have a record of all our memories throughout the season and share a glimpse into this overseas hockey lifestyle experience. As someone who grew up in the South and knew nothing about hockey until meeting Ethan, this was all very foreign to me. I captured a lot of our travels, day trips, posted “day in the life” and gameday videos, and tried as many coffee shops and restaurants as I could and posted about those places as well. While being there, Ethan’s team won the Hungarian Championship, I met many wonderful friends, joined a run club, and fell in love with Pilates, but my best memory of all will be getting engaged over there! Having never truly lived away from home, especially a foreign country, I grew and learned so much as person and we grew as a couple through this journey. I’m forever grateful for the experience we had. We plan to continue this for a couple more seasons before fully settling down in Greenville again. While we are home in SC for the summer, we are actually getting married at the end of June. So we are really looking forward to that!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As far as challenges go, it’s pretty complicated trying to work as a US citizen in another country, especially as a nurse with a US license, and not to mention the language barrier. Most people in Hungary and Europe speak their native language and multiple other languages too; so me only knowing English is not very sought after. It’s also not easy finding a job when you only know you will be somewhere temporarily for a hockey season (typically August-April). In hockey, there’s a lot of unknown from season to season as most contracts are only 1 year. Each season when you pack up, you don’t know where you’ll be for the next season, which is exciting but can also be a stressor. It’s also a challenge trying to figure out public transportation, currency, and language barriers while trying to get acclimated to a new environment and country. That is something we had to be patient with ourselves on, do a lot of ChatGBT and research and some things we just had to figure out as we went. It also wasn’t easy being away from family during major holidays and big life events, like my sister having her first child while I was away. But, you learn to remind yourself this is very temporary and these months we get overseas are a once in a lifetime opportunity we will never get back, so make the most of it!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m working occasionally as nurse at a plastic surgery office this summer during the offseason. But, I’m mostly focusing on creating and sharing lifestyle and travel content with a glimpse into the overseas hockey world.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Things I’m still learning are to just be myself and not to be afraid to put myself out there in order to do something new. I’ve had to make myself get comfortable with being uncomfortable, which is something I use to hate. I’m starting to realize the more things I do that are out of my comfort zone, the stronger it makes me as a person and the more flexible I become. It’s okay to start something new that doesn’t necessarily align with your degree and it’s also okay to not know exactly what you are doing in life. It’s okay to have many interests, in fact it’s a good thing! I use to think I had to focus my attention on just 1 thing and I never could narrow down what I wanted, but for now I’m just trying to enjoy what I love and not make myself choose between them. Also, never forget about the connections you’ve made along the way. I’ve benefited from keeping in touch with people I’ve met along the journey whether it’s in Budapest or Greenville it’s amazing what can come from getting to know people and what unimaginable opportunities can arise from it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audrey_lynnn_
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@audreysadventures24
Image Credits
Sarah Guber Photography @sarahguberphotography on instagram https://www.instagram.com/sarahguberphotography?igsh=Y3J3a2FsZmlxeDY1
