Across cultures

Carrie: “living abroad opens up my view of the world and exposes me to new ways of thinking”

Carrie is our People of the World editor and has just moved from Bali, Indonesia to Mendoza, Argentina. In this interview she tells us about living and running a business abroad and how she and her family are adapting to life in Argentina.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I am an American, currently living in Mendoza, Argentina. I love travelling and seeing the world and learning about new cultures- my goal is to see as much of the world as possible. I am also an entrepreneur/small business owner and mom to a two and a half year old boy with another baby on the way in July, so I keep busy!

Where do you live? Where are you from? If those are different, can you tell us a little about what inspired your move?

We just moved to Mendoza, Argentina about a month and a half ago from Bali, Indonesia. My husband and I are from New York, but have lived abroad since 2002. We started out in Barcelona, then London, then got more adventurous and lived in Rio and Montevideo for a brief while before moving over to Bali. Our first move abroad was to go to IESE business school in Barcelona, and then we fell in love with the life abroad. One of our goals is to teach our son Spanish and we love Argentina, so that is what prompted this most recent move. We do miss being home and seeing family, and one of the benefits of being in South American rather than Asia is the time zone (no more 13 hour jet lags!!) and ability to get home more frequently.
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A German/Mexican Couple and a English Baby Happily Living in the UK

Gabi and Till are a Mexican/German couple, living in London with their son Axel. Today, Gabi tells us all about her life in the UK, how different her life would be if she was in Mexico, and how wonderful the English labour laws are (one year maternity leaves!).

 Gabi, please tell us a bit about yourself and your family.

I am Mexican, married to a German and gave birth to an English baby Axel in 2011. I work in banking and at the moment I am off on maternity for…. a year – thanks to the English labour laws!!
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Aisha Ashraf, a British expat in Canada

Aisha Ashraf is originally from Ireland, then moved to Britain and she now lives in Canada with her Pakistani husband and their three children. If you would like to know more about Aisha, read her blog Expatlogue.

How would your friends or family describe you?

I’m enthusiastic, determined and a little too empathetic for my own good! My husband says I’m kind and according to my four-year-old son, I give good cuddles.

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French Royal Mistresses

Valentine’s Day is over.  But let’s still celebrate Love by talking of the royal mistresses who often influenced the fate of France.

The Royal Mistress, a vast and controversial topic that makes us either smile or shy away!

Were they exceptionally attractive?

Not always but they were undoubtedly more attractive than the average women of their time when hygiene was questionable, when teeth started to decay in teenage, when women’s life expectancy was so short, when they had reached their “shelf-life” by the age of 30, if they had had the extreme luck of surviving until such an “advanced age” despite the multiple births and epidemics.

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Mike: “Anywhere you go in the World, you will see Children Smile”

Mike is a retired engineer currently living in Okinawa, Japan, and also one of our regional contributors here at Pocket Cultures. Mike would describe himself not as an “expat” but as a “transplant”. In today’s interview, Mike tells us about his experiences travelling the world and getting to know other cultures and specifically his insight for how to blend and avoid behaving like a “high and mighty foreigner.” And above all, the best advice: listen to Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World.”

Photo credit: Luis Sanchez

Here is Mike’s story, in his words:

At age 17, after graduating high school, I left the farm in upstate New York to travel the world.  My first taste of culture shock came soon afterwards.  People, even in the USA, didn’t know someone from New York could be a farmer. People around the world, at least back in the 60′s, thought everyone from New York lived in a big city!  Hopefully the internet has changed all that.

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Shop signs, a tradition that goes back to the 13th century

In France shop signs served as house numbers until the French Revolution. The first signs appeared in the early 13th century and were coat of arms. Carved above the main entrance door, they indicated private houses or mansions.

Inns and hostels soon followed the example so that their provincial and foreign customers could find them easily. The use of signs increased during the 14th century to become common a century later when every house, inn, restaurant, hostel and shop had its own.

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