homesickness

This is a topic I had left for a while and I'd like to write it in english because I think it's a topic that concerns all of us, international travelers and specially the latin people, which usually come from a very warm hearted people and have to face a "not so warm hearted" reality.

Homesickness happens when you have been living in a place for a long time and suddenly you have to relocate temporally or permanently. This doesn't happens to the people who go on vacation, because vacation is like a stop from regular life to relax and have fun, and you usually have everything arranged for you. Homesickness is not only, as you may think, missing the people you love, but also missing the customs of your country, the way they are done where you live, even the problems you have on a daily basis.

When you are away from all that you have to learn to live in a different environment and to live with a different set of rules than the ones you were used to. The symptoms that you have are usually depression, the felling that you don't want to do anything, some discomfort with everything and a general feeling of loneliness. You may also feel that you want to go to the airport and catch the first plane you have to go back home and be in the environment you know.

You'd say, how can somebody live with homesickness? Well they can't, but what happens is that after a short time living in the new environment you are facing, everything will begin to be more common for you and will start felling comfortable with your surroundings and homesickness will disappear.

That's what happened to me, that after two weeks in the United states felling awful because I had no job, was loosing money really fast and things were getting every time more difficult (I also got close to the airport to buy the return ticket), suddenly one day my brain responded and said "what the heck", and Frank Sinatra's New York, New York started sounding in my head telling me if I can make it here, I'll make it anywhere. I had to be in my best mood and get a job. In that week I got my first job and earned my first US$100 in the United States.