born in the usa

"Why are you at work?" many co-workers asked yesterday

Er, because I live here now, and we don't get the 4th of July off ...

Driving home I listened to Radio 2 and in honor of Merka's Independence Day, they took requests for American songs. One woman recommended "Born in the USA," which is kind of an anti-American song, if you really listen to it. But it was nice to hear Bruce just the same.

I will confess to being a wee bit homesick and I did have a strong hankering for a big old nasty hot dog. So I did the next best thing: I hung out tonight with my American friends, also expats who are here on assignment with [the company we work for]. It was very nice -- we had a nice dinner in suburban Holywood and compared notes on our respective times here (I've been here 5 months, one just completed 16 months and the other is coming up on 21 months).There is often some caution about hanging out with other American expats because if they're unhappy, they can drag you down. Fortunately, we all love it here. We whined a little bit about customer service and bad haircuts, and we made fun of each other when we said "pants" instead of "trousers." And we critiqued each other's use of "aye."

It was grand, so it was. And kind of nice to be around something familiar on a Saturday night.