It's a Small World After All

I was driving my newly-minted ten-year-old daughter and three of her friends home from her birthday party at Europa Park, a very cool amusement park just over the border from Switzerland, in Germany.

We were waved through by the stern border patrol and were back in our 'home' country. As I handed my daughter her friends’ passports to give back to them, I noticed that no two were from the same country. They were Russian, Japanese, British and American.

I chuckled to myself. I mean, I grew up in Ohio, in the same town that my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents grew up. It was foreign to come from the south side of our suburb (not even city, but small suburb of the city). To have a play-date with someone from ‘south of Lane’ was really pushing the envelope.

I like a lot of things about being an expat (not all things, but most). The fact that my kids have made friends with children from about 25 different countries, is by far my favorite thing.