Why soooooo seeeerious?

Great episode ladies! You talked about a lot of great stuff and it was nice to hear you address this topic. Loved it!

My name is Justin and I am an expat. ;-)

I would think an expat is one who moves to another country with no intention of returning to their original country. Migrants would be the short-term mover; i.e. migrant workers. The difference between moving to another country and across-country is the cultural differences. California might be a little different than Kentucky, but they are basically the same culture. The number one reason people don't adjust to another country is the cultural differences.

Me! me! me!

I want to join the conversation too! I wanna talk about the exact same topic next time I'm on the show if I'm ever invited again. I took too many notes while listening to episode to say anything now or it would take too long. Loved the episode! Loved it! More more more!

Me! me! me!

I'm with K'frog's! It was an awesome topic!

I like it when you guys get serious sometimes...really really interesting!

agreed with the others, very interesting topic! i consider myself an expat, though i guess technically i'm probably an immigrant.

and we went to finland a lot when i was young, and i credit that with planting the seed for my love of travel. so i'm definitely a proponent of traveling with kids - it definitely made me a lot more open to trying new things and to meeting people from different backgrounds.

i also agree with katia about traveling once you actually live somewhere - there's so much i want to see in france/europe, but i've been fairly lazy about actually planning anything because "it will always be there".

according to me: expat - someone living abroad indefinitely (could be the rest of your life). immigrant - someone who moves to another country with intention of staying there permanently. migrant - someone wandering from country to country, picking fruit, pockets, whatever ...

Yep, I still consider myself to be an immigrant. We did have the opportunity to move back - when my father died, we inherited his house and we even talked to county school district about the possibility of us both teaching. In the end, we decided not to for a variety of reasons I won't go into here.

I guess I'm with Vinny, for me an ex-pat is out of the country indefinitely, but probably not permanently. A big reason is this: in the States, what do we call people from other countries that move to America, get jobs, raise families, etc.? I've always called them immigrants. Well that's what I've done, so that's what I am. :)