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Huuuuh.....only place I've been out of the U.S. is the Bahamas. That was nice. But I got dehydrated and drank a huge liter of water afterward. Needless to say I didn't stay on the island for too long but it felt long. hehe

I love the U.S. and I love Cali. Can't imagine living anywhere else really. Hollywood is right over there....BEACH! HEAT! All the things I love. Well, maybe not Hollywood but at least they have some good live showings (Like Conan O' Brien ftw!) Plus Vegas is right over there. And my new favorite place is Solvang. Nice people. I dunno.

Too bad the tax and the prices are horrible! 9.75%?! WTF!!

I've heard Australia is awesome and they have really nice people too!

Once upon a time my family lived all within California but now I have family in New York (Bronx), Texas (near Dallas), and Pennsylvania but my dad's family has always lived in Pennsylvania. It's where he is now. It's an awesome state! Why is everything so cheap back there?! *cries* Plus FIREFLIES!

What's great about California is the amount of diverse ethnicities that we have. So much so that I've never really had any bad grudges against anyone of different color or religion etc. (I use to have Muslim friends in High School before September 11th. They were also threatened on school campus as well and it was a really terrifying time after the attacks but that was the only bad part.) And LA has an incredible amount of mixed races and cultures that they all kinda blend in. (I don't live in LA but I am in LA county).

So yeah. Hard to hate Cali for me. 3nodding

My dad wants to take a cross country trip around Canada. surprised I hope it's fun!

my whole family has remained in the Netherlands for at least 4 generations, possibly longer. I don't know if I want to specifically live in one country. The life of an expat sounds pretty cool. I think the Netherlands is a pretty great country, so I see little reason to leave, it's not like I have anything to flee from. Just, if I have the money and stuff I wouldn't mind living in some other places. Hungary, Barcalona area, San Fransisco and Ottowa spring to mind.

i haven't lived at home (either in my parents' house or in my hometown) for more than 6 months at a time since i was 18. which is... 9 years ago now. geez. and the 6-month stretch in question was just after college.

i want to move back someday, but i love boston right now. i mean, sure, the weather sucks hardcore for at least half the year, and there's some degree of flag-wavy lunacy to contend with (less than in other parts of the country, though), but there's a lot of good, too.

i used to want to move to new zealand. i still wouldn't kick new zealand out of bed. i'd move to ireland (specifically cork) in a heartbeat too.

right now, though, i'd rather travel widely than move to lots of places. this is the opposite of my previous life plan. maybe it means i'm getting old.

p.s. to aldo, ottawa? SNORESVILLE. unless you have friends to visit there, i can't see how it's worth more than a couple days. you know that expression about new york, that it's a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there? the reverse is true of ottawa. it might be a nice place to live (raise your kids, go to work, have a nice barbeque in your back yard...) but you wouldn't want to visit there. because it is boring.

Ehehe, we don't really need to hear my answers to these questions... but here goes anyway.

Where does your families reside? - California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Washington, New York, Germany, France, Vietnam, Philippines

Have you moved into a new country, away from one you considered "home"? - Thailand (home being the USA)

Experiences? Expectations? Cultural differences? - ...This is a big set of questions that demands a long answer. But, to be brief, I think living in a different country and/or traveling gives you a lot of perspective on your life. It helps you realize what's "good" and "bad" about your home city/country, and exposes you to new ideas and values. Traveling in general forces you to compromise a lot of your comforts, and you end up discovering that you can live without a lot of things in the long run.

What country do you WANT to live in? Why? =D - I like the USA. The San Francisco Bay Area in particular, which is where I live now. It's incredibly diverse, exciting, beautiful, liberal and awesome. Haven't picked out a favorite city in the bay yet... I also feel like I could live in Davis, the peaceful city where I went to college.

Though, I just got back from a road trip to Portland and must admit, I could live in Oregon. It's a nice place. Pretty, lots of trees, as the license plates suggest. Attendants fill up your gas for you when you pull into a station. And what's this about sales tax, things actually cost as much as the price tag claims?!

...To be perfectly honest, the thought of settling down in one place scares me. How do you pick the right location? I hear about how people have lived in the same house for their whole lives and it fascinates me. I have never lived in one house for more than 4 years... maybe that's made me afraid of geographical commitment.

Anyway, moving that far from home is a major decision. Congratulations and best of luck to you and your fiance.

I don't even remember what I said about commercials, haha... that seems like such a minor detail from so long ago. I was probably a kid when I said that?

I feel like there are too many "differences" I could name to really describe in a post. And it's all relative anyway. Different compared to the USA? Or different compared to other places?

There are petty differences between the places I've had the chance to travel to, like types of toilets, how standard bed sizes and plate sizes are different, or what side of the road you drive on. Cutesy things like how on the streets in Thailand, you can buy soda in a ziplock bag with a straw. Or how in the Germany countryside, there's a key for every door inside my aunt's house and she leaves them IN the doors, for easy locking/unlocking (like in the bathroom). Then there are most interesting things about lifestyle, like how in the Philippines there are AMAZING live gigging musicians everywhere (seriously puts the USA to shame) or how in Tokyo there are fewer public trash cans but it is WAY clean because people make less trash. The standards of beauty differ from place to place, too, so while I may have felt "attractive" once in awhile in the USA, I deeeefinitely felt like an eyesore in other places. At some street vendors I went to in Italy and Thailand, I had to haggle or be taken advantage of. In the Philippines, however, some of the street vendors actually got offended when I tried.

Another cool thing I noticed is how different places accent things in different languages to accommodate their demographics. For example, here in the states, things are written in English and underneath is often a Spanish translation. In Germany, there were a couple of translations other than English but what stood out to me was Japanese.

Then you could move onto values... for instance, in the states it's rude to not finish the food on your plate, because it's an insult to the cook. Whereas in Thailand, it's rude to FINISH the food on your plate, because it means there wasn't enough.

Stuff like that. Sorry for my vagueness... I'd be glad to share my experiences if you wanna know something specific... it's just hard to pick things out. I think I'm pretty easy-going about adapting to new things, so they might not jump out immediately as "weird."

Yeah, I'm in that neck of the woods too, just across the bridge from Newport News in a nice little county called Isle of Wight, where Michael Vick got arrested for dogfighting about a block or so from where I work on the horse farm.

Needless to say, I have lots of family roots in Texas, but the longest place I live, and what I consider the closest place to home is Annapolis, MD. Went to school there, and briefly college. St. John's College, to be precise. We got a good croquet team.