3 awesome things in your expatriate experience

The other day I was listening to my local NPR station and heard an interview with an author of “The Book of Awesome”, Neil Pasricha. And while I am not a big fan of the word awesome I thought Neil’s idea of “awesome things” is a powerful insight into a human experience and a great resource for gratitude.

For those of you who have not heard of the book or the idea, it all started with Neil’s blog where he set out to list Protected content things that happen to all of us. An awesome thing can be defined as something that, albeit for a moment, makes us happy, giddy, excited, relieved, etc, etc, etc. Awesome things are different for all of us and those that might be awesome for me may not be awesome for you.

And so I thought that those of us who have lived abroad and been expatriates probably have our own collection of awesome in our lives. What are they for you? What have been the awesome experiences and things for you in your journey of expatriation?

I want to invite you to play a game with me. Name 3 of your awesome things in comments. I’ll start:

* sharing my experiences with my visitors
* the first moment of landing in a new country
* finding a grocery item I want when supplies have been erratic

What are yours?

(Original blog post on the subject here: Protected content