If someone asked me 30 years ago if I would want to live overseas I would have instantly said no. If someone asked me 20 years ago the same question after I had completed a one year tour in Okinawa with the Marines I still would have said no. If someone asked me 10 years ago after I had been to Okinawa a second time, I might have given it a second thought.
I don't think I just woke up one morning and decided I wanted to live overseas. It did start when I worked in Sarajevo. I saw a side of living overseas that I didn't see as a Marine. Travel, culture, befriend locals, it was very neat to say the least.
Then I started traveling all over the world and this more than ever had me thinking about living overseas.
I did go work in Baghdad, not sure if that really counts, but after that came Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). Saudi was a big plunge into expat life, but believe me that is one place that I can't even say it would be nice to visit, certainly not nice to live there.
Well you may or may not know the rest of the story, then came Montevideo and now Colombo.
Whats the best part about being an expat? Well I guess it all depends on your situation. I have to admit that I am pretty blessed with my job and perks. But for every good thing there is about living overseas to me all of that is pretty much nothing considering that I am away from family and friends in the States.
I know there is always Skype and email and video calls but nothing beats being home, which is why I always need my America break. That being I need to go back to the States at least once a year. Maybe that doesn't make me a true expat, probably, but that's just me.
Showing posts with label expat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expat. Show all posts
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Beautiful Beaches Around Sri Lanka
I stumbled on this forum with great pictures of some of the beaches here in Sri Lanka:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=48242413
Hope we get a chance to visit all of them during a time here.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=48242413
Hope we get a chance to visit all of them during a time here.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Hikkaduwa Mini-vacation
Beaches, palm trees and sunshine, well maybe too much sunshine. So was our weekend in Hikkaduwa. Hikkaduwa is about 2 hours south of Colombo by train, probably get there faster by car. It caters to two types of people, surfers first and foremost and then German's.
We were able to stay at a nice guest house that totally surpassed our expectations. Guest houses are a cross between a room for rent and a hotel. This one had just recently opened and everything was new to include a rain shower head in the bathroom, king sized four poster bed, hot water, a/c, free wifi and breakfast served on the beach all for a tidy sum of less than $34USD per night (Everything except for the breakfast is pretty much unheard of at most guest houses). Mind you this wasn't the Hilton and there is no TV, radio or carpet but its sole purpose is a place to crash after a day on the beach.
Thankfully our guest house was right on the beach, but just about all of them are. Hikkaduwa is one BIG guest house, they are there one after the other with colorful names, of course I can't
remember a one.
On our first morning out we walked along the road then went through a beach access road to the beach. While walking we came across some fishermen waiting by their big wooden boat.
They waved us over and asked us to help move it up the beach. So we both turned around
and grabbed the outriggers and lifted and pushed backwards when the shouts of the men
reached a crescendo. I wish I had pictures of the fishermen and their boat, but we didn't
take many or any photos. I was breathing rather hard when we finally got the boat to a point where it wouldn't move any further,
Aaah, the beach. After the tourist filled beaches of Berewula and the man crushing waves
of Matara we found the perfect medium. Long expanses of mostly uncrowded beaches as
all of the (German) tourists are hiding under shady cabanas.
My goal was to boogie board and there are two surf breaks, one was for the surfers as I found
out through much intimidation by one of them as I rode the waves (Tried to crash into me a few times on purpose) so I relegated myself to the other surf break where surfing lessons were being taught. Not as much fun as the other surf break but wasn't going to get clocked by a surfboard either.
We visited a rotti stand that there are many of here in Colombo but this one served banana chocolate and pineapple coconut rotti's. Would help is I had a picture but we didn't take any! DOH!
You know I couldn't find one picture of what we ate via Google, tag people, tag! LOL
We both enjoyed vegetable rottis and a desert rotti, Chris banana and chocolate, me the pineapple. With drinks it was all under $6USD. Great deal! And a yummy and filling one at that!
We enjoyed a long conversation with a Brit traveling through Sri Lanka while at the rotti stand.
Nights were punctuated with fireworks and star filled sky's with the occasional tourist bus driving dangerously fast down the narrow main road.
We returned on the 11:20 train to Colombo with many, many German tourists.
I should and will blog about the train ride.
We were able to stay at a nice guest house that totally surpassed our expectations. Guest houses are a cross between a room for rent and a hotel. This one had just recently opened and everything was new to include a rain shower head in the bathroom, king sized four poster bed, hot water, a/c, free wifi and breakfast served on the beach all for a tidy sum of less than $34USD per night (Everything except for the breakfast is pretty much unheard of at most guest houses). Mind you this wasn't the Hilton and there is no TV, radio or carpet but its sole purpose is a place to crash after a day on the beach.
Thankfully our guest house was right on the beach, but just about all of them are. Hikkaduwa is one BIG guest house, they are there one after the other with colorful names, of course I can't
remember a one.
On our first morning out we walked along the road then went through a beach access road to the beach. While walking we came across some fishermen waiting by their big wooden boat.
They waved us over and asked us to help move it up the beach. So we both turned around
and grabbed the outriggers and lifted and pushed backwards when the shouts of the men
reached a crescendo. I wish I had pictures of the fishermen and their boat, but we didn't
take many or any photos. I was breathing rather hard when we finally got the boat to a point where it wouldn't move any further,
Aaah, the beach. After the tourist filled beaches of Berewula and the man crushing waves
of Matara we found the perfect medium. Long expanses of mostly uncrowded beaches as
all of the (German) tourists are hiding under shady cabanas.
My goal was to boogie board and there are two surf breaks, one was for the surfers as I found
out through much intimidation by one of them as I rode the waves (Tried to crash into me a few times on purpose) so I relegated myself to the other surf break where surfing lessons were being taught. Not as much fun as the other surf break but wasn't going to get clocked by a surfboard either.
We visited a rotti stand that there are many of here in Colombo but this one served banana chocolate and pineapple coconut rotti's. Would help is I had a picture but we didn't take any! DOH!
You know I couldn't find one picture of what we ate via Google, tag people, tag! LOL
We both enjoyed vegetable rottis and a desert rotti, Chris banana and chocolate, me the pineapple. With drinks it was all under $6USD. Great deal! And a yummy and filling one at that!
We enjoyed a long conversation with a Brit traveling through Sri Lanka while at the rotti stand.
Nights were punctuated with fireworks and star filled sky's with the occasional tourist bus driving dangerously fast down the narrow main road.
We returned on the 11:20 train to Colombo with many, many German tourists.
I should and will blog about the train ride.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Kandy Visit
Greetings from Kandy, Sri Lanka! Where? It's in the interior of the country, used to be the old capitol when the country still had a king.
Let early Monday morning with an overly ambitious driver that got me here in what must have been record time. It was very neat to see the landscape change so much, especially to see the presence of mountains.
The company put me up in one of the older colonial era hotels here, The Hotel Suisse. The room is somewhat locked in the 70's, it even has an rotary dial phone!
I am working at a trade show of sorts. I was told 4 million people would pass through and judging by the crowds I certainly believe it. The line of people entering and leaving stretches for what seems like miles, although I'm sure it's not.
I am working the evening shift and after our first night we went to a hole in the wall restaurant for traditional Sri Lankan fair, egg hoppers, rotti and of course curry. It was SO spicy and good!
There was a TV in the corner and I saw people get up and pay attention to something being said on the TV. The general who was opposing the president in the recent election had been arrested.
I won't make any comments about that.
Today the driver took me to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth which is probably the most famous thing here in Kandy. Basically it is a huge temple that holds what is supposed to be a tooth of Buddah. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_the_Tooth
it's a pretty big deal here as people from all over the world come to the temple for all sorts of things, mostly healing. There are Buddhist monks everywhere.
I'll post more about the visit soon. I have one more night here.
Let early Monday morning with an overly ambitious driver that got me here in what must have been record time. It was very neat to see the landscape change so much, especially to see the presence of mountains.
The company put me up in one of the older colonial era hotels here, The Hotel Suisse. The room is somewhat locked in the 70's, it even has an rotary dial phone!
I am working at a trade show of sorts. I was told 4 million people would pass through and judging by the crowds I certainly believe it. The line of people entering and leaving stretches for what seems like miles, although I'm sure it's not.
I am working the evening shift and after our first night we went to a hole in the wall restaurant for traditional Sri Lankan fair, egg hoppers, rotti and of course curry. It was SO spicy and good!
There was a TV in the corner and I saw people get up and pay attention to something being said on the TV. The general who was opposing the president in the recent election had been arrested.
I won't make any comments about that.
Today the driver took me to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth which is probably the most famous thing here in Kandy. Basically it is a huge temple that holds what is supposed to be a tooth of Buddah. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_the_Tooth
it's a pretty big deal here as people from all over the world come to the temple for all sorts of things, mostly healing. There are Buddhist monks everywhere.
I'll post more about the visit soon. I have one more night here.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Elephants on the Beach aka Sri Lankan Vacation
Where to begin? Well transportation. I had called our driver and negotiated a price and pick up time. He arrived much to my horror, initially, in a trishaw. Wasn't my idea of a two hour trip. I envisioned watching a movie on my netbook in air conditioned surroundings. Being that we hardly went any faster than 35mph or so it really didn't matter. We loaded up his trishaw and hit the road south.
It was interesting to see the landscape change the further south we went. We passed many towns with tsunami damage and both remnants of buildings and homes and shacks that people were still living in.
Another thing was the number of cows walking along the road, many of them. They are considered sacred by the Hindu's.
Our driver pulled off the road at a king coconut stand and treated us to coconuts to drink, very delicious and refreshing. The vendor then chopped the coconut in half and made a small spoon out of the coconut to scrape the meat with. We jumped back in the trishaw for the rest of the trip.
We arrived at Jetwing Tropical Villas right on time. At check in papaya juice was brought to us and our driver. The hotel staff gave us the hard sell for a $50 per person New Years Eve buffet, we passed.
Our room was of decent size, but sparsely furnished, make that not furnished? There was a closet but that's about it.
I won't go on about the hotel, everything else was booked up and they had rooms for only $60 per night with breakfast so we shouldn't complain. On the other hand we won't go back either.
My mission was to spend lots of time riding the waves on my boogie board, that turned out to be disappointing as the waves closed very quickly so what rides I did get were short lived.
The beach itself was nice, the atmosphere wasn't. You had vendors approaching you every few minutes being your sitting on a blanket or walking. They were easy enough to dismiss with a wave or “No thanks”, but the beggars sometimes tended to be a little bit more in your face.
We did get to enjoy a candlelit dinner on the beach, complete with mosquito bites every couple of minutes. The atmosphere was nice, but the menu's were pretty much all the same and lackluster wherever we went and the food overall was bland.
Oh, the elephant on the beach. Yes there was a man who offered elephant rides on the beach, also a guy with a horse, a guy who offered to take pictures with his monkey and or python snake. Pictures with the dogs were free.
We were glad to go on our last day. I settled the room service bill, not bad, around $38, considering $11 was for a dinner buffet I had (And wish I hadn't).
Opening the door the apartment and feeling the air conditioning was the best part of the trip.
It was interesting to see the landscape change the further south we went. We passed many towns with tsunami damage and both remnants of buildings and homes and shacks that people were still living in.
Another thing was the number of cows walking along the road, many of them. They are considered sacred by the Hindu's.
Our driver pulled off the road at a king coconut stand and treated us to coconuts to drink, very delicious and refreshing. The vendor then chopped the coconut in half and made a small spoon out of the coconut to scrape the meat with. We jumped back in the trishaw for the rest of the trip.
We arrived at Jetwing Tropical Villas right on time. At check in papaya juice was brought to us and our driver. The hotel staff gave us the hard sell for a $50 per person New Years Eve buffet, we passed.
Our room was of decent size, but sparsely furnished, make that not furnished? There was a closet but that's about it.
I won't go on about the hotel, everything else was booked up and they had rooms for only $60 per night with breakfast so we shouldn't complain. On the other hand we won't go back either.
My mission was to spend lots of time riding the waves on my boogie board, that turned out to be disappointing as the waves closed very quickly so what rides I did get were short lived.
The beach itself was nice, the atmosphere wasn't. You had vendors approaching you every few minutes being your sitting on a blanket or walking. They were easy enough to dismiss with a wave or “No thanks”, but the beggars sometimes tended to be a little bit more in your face.
We did get to enjoy a candlelit dinner on the beach, complete with mosquito bites every couple of minutes. The atmosphere was nice, but the menu's were pretty much all the same and lackluster wherever we went and the food overall was bland.
Oh, the elephant on the beach. Yes there was a man who offered elephant rides on the beach, also a guy with a horse, a guy who offered to take pictures with his monkey and or python snake. Pictures with the dogs were free.
We were glad to go on our last day. I settled the room service bill, not bad, around $38, considering $11 was for a dinner buffet I had (And wish I hadn't).
Opening the door the apartment and feeling the air conditioning was the best part of the trip.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Absentee Voting
I mailed my absentee ballot the other day, hopefully my write in for Ralph Nader will get him elected, I'm kidding!
Honestly it feels good to take part in the elections even though I am far away.
Honestly it feels good to take part in the elections even though I am far away.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
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