I came across this Buzzfeed article and I felt like commenting my own experience about the subject. The article is titled 31 signs you're a third culture kid.
1. You can curse convincingly in at least five languages.
I don't think I can curse in at least five languages BUT I do know how to say cheers in MORE than five languages. It's more useful I think since I'm more of a drinking person than a violent person.
2. To everyone's confusion, your accent changes depending on who you're talking to.
Not sure about this one. Although, once I was talking to an Irish couple when suddenly the boyfriend interrupted me and asked me if I was from France. I said no. He then asked if I was from Spain. I said no. He finished with "you have to be from somewhere around Europe"...
3. And you often slip foreign slang into your English by mistake, which makes you unintelligible to most people.
A few years ago my friend told me that I was hanging out with too many British people. But I guess this one was made for English speakers, anyway this happens to me while speaking Spanish. I used Spanish, Argentinian, some times Mexican (which is very close to Guatemalan) slang.
4. You're really good at calculating time differences, because you have to it every time you call your parents.
I was. Now I have a mobile phone that allows me to show two different time zones in the screen. I don't have to do any more calculations anymore. I just open the phone and that's it, I either call or not.
5. But you also have your computer programmed to help you out when your math fails.
Or when my phone fails.
6. You start getting birthday wishes several hours before your birthday, from your friends farther east than you.
Or west. Well, actually this starting happening before I started traveling because I know many people East of Guatemala. Now my network grew a bit bigger that I get the birthday wishes earlier or later. Don't you love time differences.
7. Your passport looks like it's been through hell and back.
Not yet, but getting there.
8. You have a love-hate relationship with the question "where are you from?".
More of a hate than love. Someone asked that not long ago. I told him where I was from. I asked is he had been to Guatemala. The answer... "I've never been to Asia". I think I learnt the lesson of not asking that fucking question again.
9. You run into elementary school friends in unlikely countries at unlikely times.
No. I don't have friends back home.
10. You've spent an absurd and probably unhealthy amount of time on airplanes.
No. I hitchhike everywhere. The only times I fly is between Europe and Latin America. I've never taken a plane inside Europe. I hope I never will.
11. And you definitely know your way around jet-lag recovery.
I will never be able to do this. I'm just not capable. I was skyping with this girl I had a thing with a few years ago, I went to bed before her. It was an 8 hour difference...
12. Your list of significant others' nationalities reads like a (I have to change this from the original title) football World Cup bracket.
eeeeerrrrr
13. And you're circle of best friends is as politically, racially, and religiously diverse as the UN.
Yes, but this was also like this before I started traveling.
14. Which is great, except that you "hang out" more online than in real life.
mmm. Maybe.
15. So when you see your best friends, you lose it a little.
Read above.
16. You've had the most rigorous sensitivity training of all: real life.
I've learnt more in these almost four years of traveling than all of my life before traveling.
17. You get nervous whenever a form needs you to enter a "permanent address".
Not really, I learnt how to deal this with giving my mum's address.
18. You know that McDonald's tastes dractically different from country to country.
Thank God I don't!
19. You're a food snob because you've sampled the best and most authentic of every possible cuisine.
Unfortunately not. I wish I was but I don't have that luxury given my sensitive stomach.
20. You convert any price to two different currencies before making significant purchases.
I don't do significant purchases and I always convert anything to Euro.
21. You don't call it "home". You call it "passport country".
I call it, the place that has this beautiful lake that Aldus Huxley said it was the most beautiful lake in the whole fucking world. Besides. "home is where the heart is"...
22. You often find yourself singing along to songs in languages you don't speak or understand.
Yup. Actually some of my favorite bands don't sing in English.
23. You miss BBM, but Viber and Whatsapp will do for now.
First of all, what the hell is BBM. Secondly, I don't have a smart phone. I still have the tablet my brother gave me but I couldn't get Viber or Whatsapp to work. Now I have a laptop and my phone is not a smartphone.
24. You're the token exotic friend in your non-TCK crew.
Yes. I. Am.
25. Love it or hate it, you have a strong and well-informed opinion on the I.B. system.
I have no idea what I.B. and I sometimes forget what it's inside my bagpack.
26. The end of the school year was always bittersweet because so many people moved away.
Nope
27. And, no matter how many you say, good-byes never gets easier.
They actually get harder and harder to say.
28. But the constant flow of new friends more than made up for it.
But then I have to say good-bye to these new friends. But Johnny Cash said "we'll meet again (...) in some sunny place"
29. Now you feel incredibly lucky to have loved ones and memories scattered all over the globe.
I feel like the luckiest bastard on earth because of this.
30. You know better than anyone else that "home" isn't a place, it's the people in it.
I feel like the luckiest bastard on earth because of this. This is the main reason I travel, for the people, for my friends.
31. And you can't wait to see where is your life adventures takes you next.
True, but read above, people is more important than places...
