Filed under: USA
Dear friends,
Last year I was in Thailand and with a group of U.S. students, and for Halloween we dressed up and went out in Bangkok, Thailand, which ended up being a nice replacement. For Thanksgiving we ordered Thanksgiving meals from a restaurant and all went over to an expat’s house in Chiang Mai for dinner.
This year I am alone in Paraguay, and there is no Halloween here. It’s hard on days like these to not miss the United States. I am reading friends status updates about what they are dressing up as- tomorrow I will see pictures of them all over facebook in their crazy get-ups at parties they’ve gone to- and it’s a bit hard to not feel slightly depressed about the fact that all I’m doing is studying tonight. I can love traveling all I want, but I am still American. I may be constantly surrounded by different ideas, I may have a Tibetan boyfriend and family who also have a very different culture than mine, and while I fully embrace all of these differences that bring a lot of joy to my life, I am still American. I still have American ideals, values, beliefs, an American family, and I am rooted in American culture. Today I miss the United States, and I know that I’ll miss it even more when instead of eating Turkey on Thanksgiving, I’ll be on an airplane. You could say that traveling doesn’t just teach you about other cultures, but it also teaches you about your own. While at times I feel frustrated with the United States because I have had the opportunity to step outside of it and see it from another perspective, at the end of the day, it is still my country. I feel that traveling has actually taught me nationalism, if more than anything.
Have fun trick-or-treating today fellow Americans,
Much love,
Brittany
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Dont worry Brit, It was freezing out!!! Hardly anyone out!!!! But I did save you a bag of halloween treats!!!Hang in there!! Love you..Auntie Deb
Comment by Auntie Debbie November 3, 2009 @ 9:22 pm