As an expat there are a few questions that everyone asks you:

• How long is your contract?
• What is next?
• When are you planning on moving back?
• When are you going home next?

This is an odd one for me this year, I want to get back to Canada this summer to hang out with friends and family, and will deeply miss being up north with Narda’s parents and my brother/sister-in-law and their kids, but it isn’t going to happen.

As an expat, it is generally the working one who gets the short end of the stick on this one. You see, the family can travel back for an extended period and enjoy the summer, but the working one has a limited amount of vacation. So you must decide, do I take that time off and head back home or do I save that vacation to travel in Europe?

This year I will be away from my family for 3 times longer than I have ever been away from them – 3 weeks. The only upshot is that it is one of the busiest work times for me, with a week of business travel, so I will get a lot done. I also have all this old video I want to digitise and sort ….but it will be a weirdly quiet house.

And when I am in Canada and happen to land in an airport where a friend is, I will do my best to get my calendar straight so that we can have lunch …..I