When moving, I was particularly sad about leaving our friends. But they’re making it easy on me: I guess I started a trend or something, because two of my best and oldest friends in the area are now both moving away themselves. To Ohio, coincidentally. It makes me feel better about going away and not seeing them anymore since now I wouldn’t be seeing them anyway.
In related news, I have realized that I also know two people who live in Qatar of all places. That’s kinda weird, isn’t it? One from college, one from grad school.
My Swedish relatives like to comment on how Americans move around so much. They think it’s rather remarkable, and are faintly disapproving. But I believe there are two kinds of Swedish people: the kind that stay in their hometown forever and never even visit abroad, and the kind you meet in hostels all over the planet. Most Americans seem to fall in the middle. We’re more like serial monogamists when it come to geography.
What about you? Where are some exotic places people you know have gotten off to? And you?
18 August 2009 at 11:27 am
I have a friend that took his wife and 2 kids to Dubai. Most of my friends are far more pedestrian, but several people from my high school class are living overseas (Japan, Guam, etc). The farthest I’ve lived is Denver. That’s not the farthest I’ve travelled, though – that title goes to Italy.
18 August 2009 at 5:41 pm
I’ve only ever lived in California–about 9 years down south, the rest up north. The farthest we’ve traveled is Italy, but we’ve also been to France, Belgium, and Costa Rica. We’ve had friends relocate to Italy and Iowa.
18 August 2009 at 7:56 pm
Ummmm…everyone I know still lives in the US. Most of them still live in Kentucky. And I’ve never traveled anywhere. I AM POOR!
19 August 2009 at 10:31 am
Most of my friends from childhood have moved away from my hometown. One is in Switzerland, several in Chicago, Florida, California, New Orleans, here in Virginia…
19 August 2009 at 11:49 am
I grew up in Wisconsin, and after finishing school in Minnesota and Illinois, I moved to San Diego. I got fed up with the short summers and LONG winters… Other than that, I’ve been to Canada, Mexico, Italy and France. None of that was very recent, though. Many of my hometown friends stayed in Wisconsin, and most of my grad school friends moved to San Diego. I do have one friend from grad school who is now living in Singapore, though.
19 August 2009 at 11:42 pm
I wish I moved less frequently…
20 August 2009 at 2:48 pm
Hmm – I went to a school with an international flavour and ditto university so I am awash with people in foreign places. None in either Sweden or Qatar though.
20 August 2009 at 5:57 pm
Headed for Southern France tomorrow, with my boys (husband will follow in a week). We are going to visit aunts and Grandma for a month and are thrilled yet (I am) a bit nervous to travel alone with kids. Travelling more is my biggest unfulfilled dream. I hope to visit a friend & colleague who took a TEFL job in Istanbul next year.
23 August 2009 at 4:00 pm
Well, we are still working on the “nomad” lifestyle as a friend of mine called it. Though really, we’d just like to be able to spend some of our time in the U.S. and some of our time in Japan. Trying to figure out how to juggle it all isn’t easy, but there have been some wonderful discoveries along the way. For example, it turns out that we don’t need or use probably 1/2 the stuff at our house in the U.S. Our house isn’t all that big and I didn’t think we really had that much stuff. But apparently we did.
I think your observation about your friends moving away is a great one. I always try to remember that even were we to stay in one place (with the hope of being surrounded by friends and family) there’s no guarantee that will happen since we can’t force everyone else to stay with us!