Author Archives: Virginia Proud
Home is a Foreign Country
When I was younger, I didn’t mind that Australia was at the opposite end of the world to nearly everywhere else. It merely confirmed that whenever I arrived at a new destination, I’d be walking off the plane into an adventure. It’s quite a different thing I’ve found, to fly for a full day, enduring […]
Short Autobiography of a Writer
Something about this bleak winter morning makes me reflect. From my window, I watch the snow fall, softening the stark, leaf abandoned branches. The road is a patchwork; memories of cars departed hours earlier as I lay in bed, curled tight under the down, cringing at the harsh scraping as my neighbours carved ice from […]
Individual Kulture Extermination Authority
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a property will eventually visit IKEA. Whether you’re trying to furnish a whole house or just organize your sock drawer, eventually you will, out of sheer curiosity, ‘just pop in’. And once inside that big blue and yellow magical kingdom, hope fills your […]
Considering Expatria? Five Questions!
A few weeks ago, a fellow Australian contacted me with a question; he’s thinking about retiring and fancies moving a bit closer to the rest of the world. How should he choose where to live? I pondered. Budapest, Paris and Istanbul are the only places I really chose, without any particular push from study, work […]
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: A New York Comedy
Finding a local hairdresser can induce anxiety in even the most hardened expat. All you can do is cross your fingers, because there are no guarantees – not sharing a common language, not being in a big city and certainly not the fanciness of the salon. In fact, those very ‘reassurances’ can be misleading. Of […]
Expatria Changed My Life
Essential to happiness in Expatria, is your willingness to adapt. I was never one of those expats who railed against the cultural norms of wherever they found themselves, associating only with their similarly disenfranchised compatriots while they waited out their corporate contracts. But even though I was pretty good at the whole travel the world […]
