My visa was approved!

I often forget how not normal my life actually is. Working in a University in Europe, it’s easy to think that everybody moves around to different countries, learns new languages and deals with immigration hassles on a somewhat regular basis. After all, most of my current colleagues and many of my friends are living immigrant lives, just like me. Being in the capital of Europe, with the Parliament, where hundreds of people from every European nation work every day, literally right in front of my living room window, probably only enables my “my x-pat life is totally normal” perspective. But every once in a while something throws a reality check my way, and I realize that I’m not really all that normal after all. This week’s reality check: Only 30% of Americans have a passport.

Let’s put things in perspective.

If less than 1 in 3 Americans actually have a passport, and an estimated 50% of those were only obtained after 2007 when a passport became necessary for travel to Canada and Mexico, that means that less than 15% of Americans are traveling to another continent. And of the people who travel to Europe, I would assume that most only come here for a vacation. Then I begin to wonder how many Americans are actually living, long-term, over here, and I’m not talking about just a semester or a year abroad for school. If I think about it that way, I realize that although I consider myself nothing but American, I’m definitely not living a typical American life.

In Brussels it’s easy to not feel foreign. Everybody here is foreign. Going back to Italy is going to throw me back into the role of the crazy foreign girl. I always liked that role. Things are about to get fun again!