God, Grant me the Serenity

While chatting the other day with new friend Evin, a conversation was had that I hope will stick with me while we are living abroad.  To simplify it to it's most basic terms it is that ex-patriots tend to be a bit ethnocentric.  To lump all ex-pats in with that statement is not fair, because in fact my new friend seems to be just the opposite.  She came here and fully embraced the culture.  She almost seems to live life by the serenity prayer in a way. You know the prayer I'm talking about right?  If not here it is:

God, grant me the serenity

 to accept the things I cannot change,

 Courage to change the things I can,

 And wisdom to know the difference.

We should all try and live our lives with that in mind.  What I really take away from that, as well as Evin's outlook is that I live here now, not in the United States of America.  Some things are going to be different, and I can't change that. What I can do is embrace the differences rather than complain about them.  Nobody likes to listen to someone complain, so why would anyone want to read someone's complaints.  So I will do my best to keep that in mind while blogging, but I'm not making any promises.  In fact I have an upcoming post on apartment hunting and there may be a little frustration tucked in here and there!