It's a small world

A space-filler due to almost zero advertising copy. Thank god for the internet as i didn't have to pay 50kcs for this drivel.

"Yet, as Adam Mickiewicz put it in the national poem of Poland, Pan Tadeusz: "Oh, Lithuania, like good health, one misses you only when you are gone." "

Though nowadays Poland and Lithuania are known as two separate countries they still have a history and if you dig into the history you would understand why in the Polish national poem is said "oh, Lithuania". I though this writing gave a wrong impressions of the true meaning.

and the point?
Lame!

i'm interested that you still define yourself as an expatriate - it seems inconsistent with the rest of your article. I've lived in 3 countries for extremely long periods of time and never felt like I was an ex-anything :)
The perception of others, it is true, was sometimes different..
Forgot being accepted as English, or even British if you weren't born in Blighty - even if you moved there at the age of 4 with yr English mother..
And yes, in the land of my birth, the former Czechoslovakia, I have been asked many times when I'm going "home". If I'm anywhere other than in the small town where I live my response is something like "I haven't looked at my train-schedule yet". This being a small town and the fact that I have a function and some visibility here and that I've been here for 12 years or so does make me part of the scenery. The fact that i go out of my way to help lost tourists as they stand outside the pub next door gazing in befuddlement at their maps does admittedly make me a very strange Czech indeed but I've never been worried about being taken for a stranger in any place where I felt at home..
Enjoyed yr article though, and as the father - basically a single Dad - of a now big daughter who dealt with the CR brilliantly as a young and older child - to the point of parlaying her eccentric education into a place and later a scholarship at Oxford, I wish you the best. If you'd enjoy a visit to my extremely scenic small town, a bare 60km's from Prague, I'll be happy to share the best information re the sights and the 1 fantastic cafe, etc..

Ah .... Kde Domov Muj.

Prosim malo strana 60km Praha jiri?

"If you'd enjoy a visit to my extremely scenic small town, a bare 60km's from Prague, I'll be happy to share the best information re the sights and the 1 fantastic cafe, etc.."

Why don't you give us the name of this town?
Maybe I know it.

A song only three decades old, but now firmly part of the canon of Australian national songs:

I Still Call Australia Home

I've been to cities that never close down,
from New York to Rio and old London town,
but no matter how far or how wide I roam,
I still call Australia home.

I'm always travelIing, I love being free,
and so I keep leaving the sun and the sea,
but my heart lies waiting over the foam,
I still call Australia home.

All the sons and daughters spinning 'round the world,
away from their family and friends,
but as the world gets older and colder,
it's good to know where your journey ends.
Someday we'll all be together once more,
when all of the ships come back to the shore,
Ill realise something I've always known,
I still call Australia home.

but no matter how far or wide I roam,
I still call Australia, I still call Australia, I still call Australia home.
but no matter how far or wide I roam,
I still call Australia, I still call Australia, I still call Australia home