All tagged expat living
In a serendipitous twist of fate, a dream from the past and a series of uncanny synchronicities lead Elyn Aviva and her husband, Gary, back to Girona, Spain. Amidst the charming medieval streets, they feel at home in ways they don’t quite understand. The journey rekindles Elyn's passion for a long-abandoned novel, and though it remains unfinished, they trust that life's purpose will be revealed.
Acquisition and release are a necessary part of moving. For Elyn Aviva, who, together with her husband Gary, has relocated from Iowa to Colorado. Colorado to New Mexico. New Mexico to Spain. Spain to Arizona. and now from Arizona to Portugal, the process of adaption has become an exercise akin to breathing: Breathe in, expand, acquire. Breathe out, contract, detach, release.
After eleven happy years as American expats in Spain, Elyn Aviva, and her husband Gary White, made the unexpected decision to return to the United States to make a new home in a new place.
If you travel to the Philippines, where singing is a national pastime, American expat B.J. Stolbov advises you to let go of inhibition and join the fun.
When American expat Elyn Aviva and her husband relocated to Asturias, Spain, after seven years in Catelonia, the safety net of knowing how to do things and where to go was suddenly gone and their spirits soon matched the region’s dismal winter weather.
For global nomad, Bhavana Gesota, the question “Where are you from?” is not an easy one to answer. Are people asking, she wonders, where she was born? Where she lives now? Or, are they asking which passport she carries? Is there a single answer to this single question? Read on…
Three weeks after the presidential election in Honduras, a winner had yet to be announced and tensions were high as the country plunged into political crisis. In this essay, expat Jill Dobbe reports on living in a country in chaos and what it means for the strong and resilient Hondurans who pray for peace.
When B.J. Stolbov left the United States to live abroad, he knew no one and no one knew him. He chose to view this as an opportunity to shed the masks and roles and expectations of his past and focused on becoming the person he wanted to be. The result is a life of unexpected joy.
Ellen Barone awakened in Medellin, Colombia, to the news that her dad, who lived in Utah, had fallen and broken his hip and hand. Soon afterward, he was cleared for immediate hip surgery, and from there, things escalated—and deteriorated—quickly.
Living in a foreign country is an opportunity to learn about a different culture, a different way of seeing and responding to the world. It provides an opportunity to immerse yourself in new customs and traditions, and to see what really matters and is important to people around the world. It is also an opportunity to examine, from a distance, your own customs and traditions and, most important, your own cultural assumptions.
“So, when exactly are you coming home?” my father asked.
“I don’t know, Dad. Our visas allow us to stay in Peru for at least three months, then we’re thinking of heading on to Argentina and Chile...”
The broken and sputtering magicJack connection at the South American Explorers Club in Cusco broadcasted about every third word of our conversation, but the message that traveled down the steep stone streets of the ancient Inca capital and across the continents to the lush green lawns of Newark, Delaware, the college town I’d grown up in and where my parents still live, was crystal clear: We weren’t coming “home”.
The truth was, my husband, Hank, and I had no idea when, or if, we were going home. We didn’t even know what “home” meant anymore. We’d been winging it, temporarily inhabiting Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Peru: itinerant and loose in the world in a manner that both worried and intrigued family and friends back home.
We were four thousand miles from our homeland, eleven thousand feet above sea level, south of the Equator where summer is winter, and living in a fourth-floor walkup without heat. Yet, life felt sweet and rich and fortunate.
