Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

One of the best parts about world travel is growing to appreciate home even more.  If you ever need to be reminded of how much you love your home just move away for a while.  You will meet all kinds of interesting people while you travel.  If there is one thing that all travelers seem have in common it is that they all love their homeland.  This may seem odd knowing how much planning and sometimes expense has gone into leaving home behind.

Since we’ve arrived in South Korea I have listened to more Canadian music than I normally would, my 8GB iPhone is completely full of Canadian music.  I have also tried to keep up with Canadian news more than usual too.  Conversations inevitably move to lightly bragging about your country and comparing everything you experience to your now Utopian ideas of home.  This is not to say that you do not grow to appreciate other people’s homelands and cultures as well but you take it all in as a comparison whether you feel it is better or worse than what you know.

Canadians are generally respected worldwide.  It’s hard not to be proud of being from a country that has earned so much respect.  You will notice it as soon as you step through the into the customs line and through the gates, usually no special visas are required and you feel trusted as a visitor.  When your cab driver finds out you’re from Canada he will rhyme off the 3 Canadian cities he knows and be very excited when you tell him you recognize the names.

If you want to show off Canadian achievements you can just direct your friends to the Canadian history minutes commercials.  You can find them here.  There are many things to be proud of including to name a few popular surprises:

• Superman
• Winnie the Pooh
• Basketball
• Timezones
• The telephone

While at home in Canada you may not feel like wearing Canadian t-shirts, hats and flags but while traveling for some reason this changes.  Soon after we arrived here we were disappointed to see how few Canadian items we had with us.  Our first ‘care package’ from home will contain a Canadian flag to fly from the balcony of our apartment among other things.  When we went to the international archery tournament we were pleased to pick up a small flag to hang in the window by our front door.  I think when we get home we will be more inclined to fly a flag from our house as well.  Americans do it to show their pride at home – then so can Canadians.

Buy a flag, get a flagpole, be proudly Canadian.  You have more than enough reasons to be proud.