Blogging and Life

A friend of mine who went to High School with me in Kuwait found my entry on Facebook and dropped me a line. We hadn't been in touch since we graduated in '94 so this was reason to celebrate. She's originally from Texas but could pass as Irish with red hair and very pale white skin. I mention her features because for the last 3 years she's been in China with her Spanish husband who's a flight instructor and she's been teaching English to flight students. Prior to that she was just next door to me in Toronoto and she's spent time in Austria, Spain, and elsewhere. I spent a lot time yesterday going over her blog in which she spells out a lot of cultural differences shes comes across. She's part of a community of American "nomads" for lack of a better term, that live overseas. Her perspective interests me because although I'm in Erie, PA now, in a way that very much like her being in Linyi, a small city on the East coast of China. The differences are obvious in that I was much more attuned to the US culture when I came here than she every was to the Chinese culture. The incidences of culture shock that I have are in much smaller doses than hers. She comments several times on the differences between life overseas and life and the US and I echo all her points in terms of the ease of communication, the ability to handle simple beauracratic matters with relative ease, the freedom and choice available here, the lack of diversity and depth of food and culture, etc. I read her blog and I wonder how different my life could have been with the choices that I might have made. I don't regret any of them but its an interesting contrast.