Expat Bubble

One thing I've not talked about so far is everyday life. Must be difficult adapting to a whole new way of life, right? *Shuffles feet, mumbles, looks at the floor.

My name's Pete and I'm an expat cliché.

Weeknights (when I read that back I read it as "wee knights" which is a reality TV show that will be with you by the time 2018 is out). Week nights I leave work and retreat to my little compound. That makes it sound like I have a far more active role in that process than I do. Week nights my driver ferries me from the door of work to the door of my apartment, making sure that my pretty, little Western sensibilities don't get damaged by the honking anarchy that is the Indian road network.

I retreat to my fitness prison where the gates keep any non-first world problems at bay, so rather than having to worry about where the next 100 rupee note is coming from (yep, still a problem), I have the rather less problematic problems of lift politics and the maid being rubbish.

Yes, that wasn't a typo, I have a maid. Not something I've needed before, but apparently it's the done thing here. I always assumed that having a maid would be sort of glamorous. It's not. It's marginally more hassle than not having a maid. You know how if you cook someone a meal, they might help clear up, and then you have a week-long period where you can't find the chopping board? Having a maid is like that every day.

And the lift. I'm not a fan of the lift, generally, but I live quite up in the sky and if I try and walk it it makes me pooped. My lofty status has made me a bit of a lift Nazi. I tend to glare at people from the lower floors if they stop me on my way down (the lazy so-and-sos) and then I remember that eight flights of stairs is actually quite a climb (but don't stop glaring, obviously).

So what do expat cliche do for a social life (apart from gym and Netflix)? Why they hang out at the foreign embassies of course. This weekend it was the turn of the German Embassy. Christmas markets. Turns out drinking glühwein when the temperature is in the mid-twenties doesn't actually feel that Christmassy.