Travel Abroad vs. Living Abroad

While intellectually I knew they were different, I'm starting to learn from experience that traveling abroad and living abroad are not the same animal. Sure there are some similarities. I still had the jet lag. I'm learning about India at a greater depth than I ever thought I'd care about in my younger years. We struggled with a two-year old who got his days and nights mixed up. (You can't explain time to the Little Guy, let alone time zones and jet lag.) We went endless rounds of "Finding Nemo", "Blues Clues", and "Curious George" thanks to our portable DVD player. You get all of that when you travel long distances with a young child.

The major difference between the two, is that living abroad isn't a vacation, it's living. It's moving on a grander scale, complete with culture shock. With a vacation, you don't sweat the details too much because you know you'll be home in a week or two, if that. When you move abroad, you are home. There's no butler service at our flat like there is at the Taj hotel that you can call in case anything goes wrong. I have to figure out how to set up our flat in a place where the rules are all different. I think I'm playing Monopoly while everyone else is playing the Mad Magazine Game. Plus, Hubby is off to another city on a business trip, so it's all on me.

I'm not saying it's all bad. It's just harder our honeymoon we took in Ipanema.

The Little Guy did have some fun this morning. We were waiting to meet some people on Chowringhee Road when some teenage boys walked by. One of them was carrying a soccer ball. Well, the Little Guy loves soccer, and is pretty good at it, too. He decided he wanted to play a little ball, right there on the sidewalk. Of course, those boys couldn't resist a fair-haired toddler, especially if he could kick a ball, and were happy to oblige. Suddenly, a huge crowd gathered around to watch those boys playing ball with the Little Guy. It all went great until some salesperson tried to sell the Little Guy a soccer ball, and the Little Guy threw a tantrum over it. Still, he had fun while it lasted.