Normal....what is normal? Saying goodbye is just another piece of the "normal life" as an ex-pat.
Normal....what is normal? Daily life in Portland Oregon is so drastically different than my life in China is hard to explain. Some of my "China normal" daily, weekly or monthly...
- fruit and vegetable market (usually twice a week because the produce doesn't last too long, it is so fresh!)
- butcher- my favorite one is clean! (they keep meat in the refrigerator and the floor doesn't have blood and guts)
- bakeries (usually two or three different ones)-good variety but need to go around town to get our favorite whole wheat bread, baguettes, hamburger buns, and dinner rolls. Of course different bakeries are best at different things.
- Deli - sandwich meat and cheese
- import store for specialty food
- Chinese grocery store for flour
- relax, read, study or talk on the phone sitting in the car being driven (company pays for car and driver for our family)
We head back to America for a month vacation soon. My "normal" has changed a bit....I will soon:
- drive myself in my own car on safe roads to a store for "one stop shopping" where sometimes people even bag your groceries
- appreciate public bathrooms with toilet paper
- enjoy the quiet, lack of fire-crackers, constant honking of horns
- smell the clean air and not miss the sewer, fish, stinky tofu and pollution smell here
- go back to cleaning my toilets, floors, kitchen and washing laundry again
Summer vacation is almost here and we will miss school, especially fun days like "Crazy Hair Day". (this is not Nicole and Trejan's "normal")
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1 comment:
Both normals are good, but it is so hard to say goodbye.
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