
There's no place like home - yan
http://sivers.org/homeless
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fingerprinter
I'm an American living in Australia who spent time in France. I grew up in New
England and lived the majority of my adult life on the west coast of the US.

"home" is a concept that is easy for me to define: where my family is. When I
was younger that meant parents. In my early 20s, that was friends and some
closer family (brother). Now it is my wife and kids. With the Internet, skype,
email, facebook and everything else, I can really stay connected to people
around the world very easily so where I live is less and less important.

Goal of our family is actually to have a split life: Winters in Phoenix and
Winters in Auckland, NZ. "Home" in that situation will likely be wherever we
are sending the kids to school as that will probably be the majority time
country, but we have yet to work out all those details :)

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kalleboo
That doesn't really work for me - my parents left this country for Australia,
and I've visited them but it sure doesn't feel like "home", it feels a lot
more like home when they come visit me here in Sweden - so there's definitely
something to say for environment playing a role.

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corin_
Having lived in the same house all my life (21 years of it), it definitely
_is_ my home.

That said, it's not the place I feel most attached to. I'm currently flat-
hunting in a different city, and I don't think I'll particularly miss living
in Oxford, as much as I like it as a place.

I've spent time, from a couple of days up to a few weeks, in so many countries
(17 if my latest count is correct), and I don't ever actually remember a time
when I was at all homesick, or even missed being home.

And indeed, the places I feel most attached to are ones where I haven't spent
more than a couple of weeks. A small town near Copenhagen, downtown LA, a tiny
town in the south of France... I actually miss being in those places when I'm
at home, and if I didn't have a job then I'd move to one of them in a
heartbeat. Until then, I'll just keep counting down the days until work will
take me there next...

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demoo
I've lived most of my live in Belgium, with mum and dad living apart. Home was
the house I was living in that week.

I've also lived for longer periods of time (over a year) in Greece and Brazil.
At first, home is the place you've left behind and all the people that live
there. But then as you spend more time on your new location and get your life
sorted there (things like local friends, language, culture), it starts feeling
like home.

Leaving that place again is where it gets really hard. You leave your new home
and go back to your old one, which feels different.

But in the end you have familiar places and faces where ever you leave, a home
to come back to.

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vegasbrianc
No place like 127.0.0.1 :) I do agree having lived in quite a few cities and
now 2 different countries. I still call home where I was raised.

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OoTheNigerian
'Home' is where I have the most memories of my childhood. In my case it where
we lived between my ages 9-23. Everu once a while, I talke a drive there to
relive the home feeling.

I do not think I can experice that home feeling again until I have my own
family and we have our own experiences in a house long enough.

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cookiecaper
Definitely cool to live lots of places, but does Derek really learn all of
those different languages? If he lives in one place for a few years at a time
he has to pick up a decent amount, I'd guess. I'd be interested in hearing
about the language barriers and how one overcomes them -- my understanding is
that it's difficult to be totally fluent in more than a few different
languages.

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prawn
He'd get by with English in almost all of them. Not sure of, or no firsthand
experience in, Panama, Curitiba and Kyoto, but you'd get by easily with
English in the rest of those places. Just need to pick up some basic things
and make an effort in a few other places and that'd be appreciated without
absolutely needing to become fluent.

