How was your first experience in other country?

stumpy wrote:

My first experience was in Papua New Guinea surrounded by people in grass skirts with bones and feathers through their noses.

I didn't understand. Did you like this travel?

mal wrote:

My first experience was Thailand and it was awesome as it was my first flight. Inside plane I was praying to God sometimes.  As I do always, it was not a very much planned trip.  At the airport when came to know many people don't speak English I was lil frightened. as I had not a planned schedule, I had enough time to wander here and there, up & down in side airport.   Only I had few addresses and phone numbers of hotels. So I bought a sim for my phone and called those hotels.Then I selected a hotel room near Nana station but I was afraid to travel by train so decided to go by a taxi and the taxi driver also couldn't speak English. Hotel was good and expensive. When I was walking in the eve, I was wondering why those  beautiful girls were sitting in front of shops with a lot of makeups on their faces- but later realized!  I used to travel inside country and faced many interesting incidents later. I was amazed by the traffic-jam and always used to read the taxi meter but at last it wasn't much expensive. I liked various kinds of street foods and liked to speak with people who were running shops and restaurants. Many traders greeted me in Tamil, considering I was from India. I met a Thai salesman who could speak Sinhala (Sri Lankan) in a telephone shop! Later I was used to  sky trains so after my holidays I could go to the airport by train and I was sad to leave Thailand.

You said that the people in Thailand didn't speak english, but in my case was worse because I was in a country where the people speaks spanish and I don't speak spanish! And when I wan in the plane, I prayed too! 

mars attack wrote:

Mine is worst and horrible. My first out of the country was in Middle East and Oh my God, I can say expats have no rights. You can not do whatever you want because a lot of restrictions. Every laws were connected or linked to the local religion.

Oh! I'm sorry! What country did you visit?
I don't know very much about the Middle East, but I would love to know some cities like Jerusalem and Dubai.

wjwoodward wrote:

Hi Graci,

I'm sure you know a lot about your home country, so this will come as no surprise to you.

When I first came to Brazil (12 years ago now) I came to build a school for poor kids in the Amazon. Even though I had already learned the language, knew about the culture, the history, and the poverty that exists in this country I was not the least bit prepared for the magnitude of the poverty I would actually be seeing on a day-to-day basis. When I got to Manaus and saw the conditions these poor kids were living in I locked myself indoors and cried non-stop for three days. I had never been so sad in my entire life and had never seen anything that could prepare me for this type of poverty. I was happy that I was doing something to help change that sad situation.

Say hi to your dad for me OK sweetheart!!!

Um grande beijo no coração,
James

Sadly, what you said is the truth. But what is more sad is saw that is difficult to meet people like you, that see the things that happen and have initiative to stop this situation, because the brazilian's people and brazialian government hardly have done something to change the case of education and of the poor.

If would exist more people like you, I think that this country would be near to be a fair country.

Of corse that I will say!

For you too,
Graci

Graci2014 wrote:

stumpy wrote:

My first experience was in Papua New Guinea surrounded by people in grass skirts with bones and feathers through their noses.

I didn't understand. Did you like this travel?

I have been doing this for many many years as part of my work in different countries. I have actually worked in PNG on 7 different projects over the years.

John C. wrote:

How was your first experience in other country?

I always like to joke about this or that, but not this time.
For me it really was the hand of Destiny ... 

Tell us, what happened to you in Austria John. 

mal wrote:

John C. wrote:

How was your first experience in other country?

I always like to joke about this or that, but not this time.
For me it really was the hand of Destiny ... 

Tell us, what happened to you in Austria John. 

Ohh, my ...     "Tell us"???
Geez, how many of you are there? 

John C. wrote:

Ohh, my ...     "Tell us"???
Geez, how many of you are there? 

We means expat.blog, my dear.   we are a group here!

mal wrote:

John C. wrote:

Ohh, my ...     "Tell us"???
Geez, how many of you are there? 

We means expat.blog, my dear.   we are a group here!

Oh, my, for a moment I thought it was you at the computer and a group of Sri Lankans friends at your back watching over your shoulder for the news at this forum ...    Never mind.

My first contact was a series of surprises which all worked in my favor.  In my case, Destiny has spoken.
When I reached in Austria, I felt good and thought this is how Romania should have looked like to begin with.

Bond00Oz wrote:

My first experience was dubai and it was first a shocking hot weather for me

Wow! One of my dreams is to visit Dubai!! What did you do there?

Christine wrote:

Hello everyone > just to inform that some off topic posts have been removed from this thread. Thank you.

Hi Christine,
Not only did you remove posts from this thread  but also the "Apply for a loan" thread has been deleted completely.    Right when I was ready to apply ... 

Gordon Barlow wrote:

..... The residents of our flat were two Aussies, two South Africans, one New Zealander, and a floater.

Define floater please!

John C. wrote:

Define floater please!

Sorry, John. British slang, I guess. In my context, it meant that our sixth man was not always the same man. Somebody would come for a month or two and pay his one-sixth of the rent, then move on and some replacement would move in. It was a wonderfully irresponsible life for young people from "the colonies", away from their home countries for the first time.