1.You can honestly say you have friends from all around the world
Going through my Facebook friends like is pretty much like taking an around the globe trip. Twice.
2. You start getting birthday wishes several hours before your birthday, from your friends farther east than you.
Seeing as I’m originally from Australia but am currently living in England birthday wishes start pretty early, and by having friends in america, they end pretty late too. Which isn’t such a bad thing, who doesn’t want a 24 hour birthday?
3. To everyone’s confusion, your accent changes depending on who you’re talking to.
Usually my accent is a nice mixture of Aussie, Canadian, American and a little sprinkle of Private School English…
4. You’re really good at calculating time differences, because you have to do it every time you call your parents.
With my mum being in Hong Kong the best time for her is anytime up to about 1 p.m… But that doesn’t last long because within the next two days she’ll be in some other south east asian country on business because she doesn’t like staying still… which is why I guess my family is an expat family.
5. You have a love-hate relationship with the question “Where are you from?”
Just yesterday I had to fill out a form stating my place of residency, which ultimately resulted in a half an hour phone call with both parents trying to figure it out.
6. Acting as an ‘official’ ambassador of your culture can be exhausting.
Everyone seems to love an Aussie, but not many people seem to know an Aussie, so that always makes things interesting. To be fair most people don’t believe that I am in fact Australian because of my oh so interesting accent.
7. Your passport looks like it’s been through hell and back.
And so do I in my passport photo, but it’s been like that since day one.
8. You’ve spent an absurd and probably unhealthy amount of time on airplanes.
At least I now have the skill of being able to sleep in pretty much any position, even next to a fat snoring man. Trust me, it is a SKILL!
9. You definitely know your way around jet-lag recovery.
Once you fly 24 hours each way for a 4 day holiday, you kind of have to figure it out.
10. If you do finally return home, everything seems different from how you remembered it.
I leave Hong Kong for a month and when I go back there has been an infestation of umbrellas and a weird yet very amusing giant rubber duck in the harbor.
11. Your life story contains a LOT of “then we moved to”.
At 2 years old I moved to Tokyo. Isn’t that interesting enough in itself? You know it is 🙂
12. Your circle of best friends is as politically, racially, and religiously diverse as the United Nations.
Just my corridor at school consists of an Aussie, a Thai, 2 Hong Kongers, a Kenyan, a Nigerian, A Polish and 3 Brits.
13. At some point in your education you took part in Model United Nations.
Or in my case you ran it at your school. No shame.
14. You’re a food snob because you’ve sampled the best and most authentic of every possible cuisine.
Lets be honest, once you’ve had sushi that’s so fresh its practically still moving, you don’t just settle for Yo Sushi.
15. The end of the school year was always bittersweet because so many people moved away.
This is more of a truth for anyone that has gone to an international school, which is most expat kids. If I’m being honest, I’m usually the person moving away at the end of the year. So its much more bitter than it is sweet.
I Won't Take The Easy Road 