Short and sweet?

Let me reiterate a general belief: Living abroad for work or for studies has its pros, and cons too. The  fact of being in a foreign land doesn't sound all that appealing especially when you understand the difference between just visiting a new country and actually living there. Though my friends and I, we consider that I am one of the luckiest persons (hah!) in the world to get to travel so much at such a young age, I would like to confess that at times it's a malediction... 

First of all, you have to be away from your beloved home and family and friends. Though with time I have trained myself to be strong and not get involved beyond a certain extent, at times it is just not possible! There are moments where you need your best friend next to you; not by the phone or on the other side of the screen. You get angry at the engineers for not yet having developed the technology where we could cross the computer screens whenever needed. There are one of those days when you are so sick of your own cooking and crave for even the simplest dish from your mom's kitchen. Plus obviously no Starbucks nor Costa nor any other fancy coffee shop can ever replace one 'coffee in glass' of Roopali and chats around that coffee... You feel like having your bike right there when you are waiting for a bus for hours or stuck in a horrible traffic jam or just tired of walking those last two minutes from the bus stop to your house. You do get bored of 'discovering the new city' and playing your Japanese. You just want to sit at home in front of the TV zapping channels with a bowl of Maggi. But oh wait, there's no TV neither Maggi! You see photos of your friends on Facebook having awesome get-togethers at farm houses or them getting married and what not... You do miss out on a hell lot of things and it is not always possible to deal with this pang of sorrow alone... 

This is when you start questioning your decision of coming so far away to enrich your CV!! But in these low times, if you are lucky like me, you have your newly-formed-age-old-friendships to cheer you up and boost your spirits! Because these are the people who know exactly how you feel as they have 'been there and done that'! They are the ones who can take you out from that momentary frustration and give you hope that things will eventually be just fine! The evening walks, the world-cuisine dinners, the bar hoppings, the general gossiping about the known and unknown people, the giggling on stupid things, the cribbing about how inefficient a city can be and what not give you an assurance that finally you are not really alone in your adventures. They inspire you by their journeys so far and it gives you moral to continue! They sympathize with you in your 'poverty' because they are not any different! 'Let's be poor together' is the best motto! Believe me, it's one of its kind of experience to be the 'first world poor'!! Not really funny but at time amusing and can teach you a great deal about life! However the problem of such friendships is that even if you wanted to, cannot last forever. Well, of course, you do keep in touch through emails and other social networking sites, you promise to visit each other in any corner of the world, but that's not the same, right? 

This is the only part of this whole new-city-new-people adventure I don't quite like. Every time you are on the move, you have to start afresh. You have to find your comfort zones, get used to the different rhythm of life, fight the jet lag, and what not! The only metaphor I can use here is a table from IKEA; You bring the pieces and built it so that it can stand on its feet and serve you. That's exactly what you have to do you every time you are in a new city, new country and are surrounded by unknown people. You have to build yourself with moral, confidence, money, open mind and optimistic attitude so that you can be out there and help yourself survive. But when these things start to get on your nerves and you kind of start losing the balance, it's these new friendships help you to get on with things and in extreme cases prevent your break-down!!

The 'short and sweet' so does suit these wonderful relations.

I really wish there was a world metro which would take you to desired city in 5 mins to make a 'short and sweet' visit to your global friends...