Expat Life Through Rose Tinted Glasses

Rose tinted glasses soften and morph reality.  When it comes to expat life, from the outside our life may look perfect, but expectation and reality rarely tally.

I didn’t have actual rose tinted glass or lenses to use in my photographs, so in true expat style improvised with rosé filled ones.

Yes, a certain amount of rosé was consumed during the staging of the photos for this post.

Yes, it might have been even more fun to use actual human friends and share the wine, but it was tricky enough seeing tiny Lego people through a wine glass, so there we go.

This is what people back home often think expat life is like all the time.

Big house, flash car and time and money to fritter.

 

..and yes, sometimes expat life is just like that.  You lol around the pool with a glass of wine and everything is just peachy, or should I say rosy.

On a good day we row our expat boats merrily down the stream.

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily, expat life’s a dream.

…but then some days everything goes wrong and we end up way, way up sh*t creek.  We’ll laugh about it eventually…probably…but it’s not funny at the time.

Row row row your boat living the expat dream.  When you’re up sh*t creek with a crocodile, don’t forget to scream!

I know, I know, you think we’re always swilling gin or sipping champagne, but sometimes the drink is just a prop in an awkward new social setting.

The drink in hand is just a social oxygen tank.

Yes, that is a tiny oxygen tank borrowed from a tiny Lego astronaut – he makes an appearance later in the post.

Maybe you see your expat friend sporting a flash new diamond/car/other desirable item.  But is it a glamorous bonus to their amazing expat life, or is it a sweetener to compensate for a void left by leaving behind a career, family or friends?  Who knows.

Sometimes everyone back home thinks you slot right in.  Sometimes you do, but sometimes you feel like an astronaut who has landed on a foreign planet.

Expats often see their home country in a favourable and rosy light, we feel nostalgic and tend to selectively remember only the best of home, especially on the ‘up sh*t creek days’.

My home country through a rose tinted glass.

So it can be a shock when we realise that reality back home isn’t always quite so rosy.

Yeah, maybe not looking quite so rosy….

I could give you more examples, but I ran out of wine and got fed up hunting through our giant Lego box for illustrative figurines and accessories, but you get the picture.  Expat life can indeed be rosy, but the reality isn’t always quite so cut and dried.

Expat life through rose tinted glasses.

Expat life through rosé tinted glasses.

Cheers.