Expat Meme
I found this meme on Avoiding Crisis: 210 Days of Self-Exploration.
Name five things you love in your new country
- My Friends
- No coffee to go
- More cultural events than you can wave a stick at
- How technology hasn’t completely isolated people
- Late nights
Name four things you miss from your native country
- My family and friends
- My sense of balance and stablity
- My ability to communicate
- Neighborhood restaurants with spicy “international” food (mexican, thai, indian, etc.)
Name three things that annoy you in your new country
- No bike lanes
- Relative expense of technology
- The garantia system of renting apartments
Name two things that surprise you (or surprised you when you arrived) in your new country
- Everyone has little dogs
- The fashion
Name one thing you would miss in your new country if you had to leave
- Kissing on the cheek
Jen said,
July 17, 2007 @ 12:44 pm
I echo these sentiments. Funny, not too long ago I had a dream where I was “back” in the States and kissed my friends who were shocked and didn´t know how to respond. heehee.
(psst, you only named four out of five things you love about Argentina, there´s one more, right?
exnat said,
July 17, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
Oh right… it goes 5,4,3,2,1. Little slow, eh…
pipinthecity said,
July 17, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
lol cool meme, I particularly liked the comment about “garantías”, someone is a little bit obsessed.
And I hear you about the price of technology, it just pains me to pay twice as much just because. About kisses on the cheek, you´d flip out in Italy with the double kissing thing… though i think to remember they start from the other side, which made for a very weird situation with my great uncle, ugh!
exnat said,
July 17, 2007 @ 4:30 pm
obsessed? i only put it once…
Frank Almeida said,
July 18, 2007 @ 9:53 am
However, you wrote about it in another post (garantía).
I also like your list.
Francisco from Seattle said,
July 18, 2007 @ 12:29 pm
Hi Nat!
DeLaRua Tryied tu push those bike lanes years ago, in Barracas!
exnat said,
July 18, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
Hey Francisco,
It’s funny cause there are bike lanes but people just park in them or there’s construction or the road is broken there… it’s just totally absurd. On the other hand people tend to be a lot more understanding of why you’re biking in the middle of the road than in the States…
Mary said,
July 18, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
Great list, although I really do miss to go coffee (I guess you can take the girl out of San Francisco, but you can´t completly eradicate fast-paced neurosis from the girl?)
Cherie said,
July 19, 2007 @ 11:34 am
Oh Nat, I also miss the variety and quality of food i was used to in California. (Sometimes I dream of Trader Joe’s!)
But more practically I miss the assumption that I can go to an ATM and take out money from my account. AND I really miss not having to pay an 8% fee to do so–when I can find an ATM with cash, that is. (And don’t get me started on the garantia!!)
hijo de thor, sobrino de messner said,
July 26, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
como bien dicen, hay carriles para las bicis pero nadie los respeta, siempre hay autos estacionados. eso nos da a los ciclistas enajenados la libertad de pedalear como sicoticos por todos lados. con el tiempo uno desarrolla una especie de deformacion mental en la que la bicicleta se transforma en una especie de auto muy pequeño. personalmente yo pedaleo como su estuviese en un tanque. los autos son mis enemigos y si me muestro fragil no me respetaran. pero si en cambio actuo de ua manera mas prepotente, los automovilistas se hacen a un lado. no estana costumbrados a que se los maltrate en bicicleta y si a eso le sumamos cara de loco a las 715 de la mañana y mis casi 100 kilos, funciona.
en brasil hay zonas en las que te saludan hasta con tres besos y eso si que es complicado.
a los que no me conocen: espero no molestar comentando en español, es solo que el ingles para mi es oral, escribirlo ya me cuesta demasiado por falta de practica.