I Live Abroad

Ever since getting back from my Christmas vacation in Vietnam, I can't help but feel differently. It could be the malaria drugs we took, they're supposed to give you weird dreams and I can now say that is true, but I think it's more of a mindset type of thing.

For the first few months living here, I sort of felt like I was on vacation every day. Even working 50+ hours each week didn't drive home the fact that I was actually living somewhere other than the U.S, not just touring around Asia for a while. But ever since traveling here and then coming back to Taiwan, it has started to feel more real to me.

It feels good to be back in Taiwan and more importantly, I have stopped thinking about how many months I have until I go home for the summer and started to just appreciate my life here. Of course there are things I miss about home- heating in all houses, English being spoken in (almost) all situations, Target, Mike and Ike's, etc.- but I've started to think more about the pros and cons to living anywhere. For everything that I can think of that I miss about home, I can come up with at least one thing that I love about Taiwan that makes up for it. The only exception to this rule is my friends and family; I have yet to find Asian replacements for them...