Curious relatives and friends back home would ask: Do you speak Hindu? (The language is Hindi.) Do you know snake charmers? (No, but we see many on the streets, and they perform at birthday parties along with other performers like dancing bears and flip-jumping monkeys.) Have you seen the Taj Mahal? (Yes, it’s hard to miss.) Have you ridden an elephant? (Yes, and camels too; but camels drool and growl.)

Americans weren’t the only ones brimming with questions. Whenever I returned from the States, Indian acquaintances asked: Where is New England? What religion are you? (My family is third-generation Unitarian.) Is your father rich? (This is complicated … by Maharajah standards? By slum standards? We were certainly privileged, but more so in terms of housing and travel than money.)

Seeming exotic to natives of both countries meant that I had a lot of time to think about what an American is, and how others see Americans. It readied me—and my parents—for a life of questions.

My dad and mom were adventuresome and curious. They first moved our family overseas in 1950 to France. My father was on a visiting professorship in Strasbourg through the Fulbright program, while my mother, my sister, and I lived in Paris due to political unrest in Strasbourg. My parents jumped at the chance to go to Madras (now known as Chennai) in 1952, when my father was offered a post as cultural affairs officer for the United States Information Service (USIS), an agency meant to introduce the U.S. to the host country. Two years later, we all moved to New Delhi when my father joined the Ford Foundation as an education specialist.

Our life in Delhi was normal to us, but hardly a normal American life. We had a houseful of servants, and others (a tailor, clothes washer, and night watchman) who came in to do their work on a regular basis. My mom—a trained ballet dancer—set up a dance school in New Delhi and served as hostess for hundreds of visitors a year: diplomats, artists, businessmen, and even athletes from around the world—and from the neighborhood.

I attended a Catholic day school in Madras, then went to the American International School in Delhi through ninth grade. While my older sister Betsy went to boarding school in the Himalayas, staying in the bustling city had great appeal since I was an avid dancer—trained by my mom and a Broadway show dancer, Richard, who took over her school in later years. I also studied Bharatnatyam (traditional Indian dance) at the well-known Treveni Kala Sangam arts center in Delhi.

The author’s passport

The American International School was housed in old Indian Army barracks and attracted not only American kids whose families spent two-year diplomatic stints in India, but also a mix of Indian, Canadian, Vietnamese, German, Swedish, British, and Dutch kids. From these classmates and my teachers, new words not often used in the American lexicon took their place in my speech: “lorries” for trucks, “frocks” for dresses, and “full-stops” for periods at the end of sentences. Instead of American history, we studied Asian and world history. We could draw any mountain range on the Asian, African, or European continents, but the Rockies or the Appalachians? Not so much.

I loved the stories from the more recent American arrivals about life back home—they regaled us with tales of Dairy Queens, sock hops, and basketball games (we simulated, at their direction, a cheerleading squad decked out with short swing skirts and pom-poms). To keep up with our beloved but not-so-well-known America, we listened obsessively to Voice of America radio transmissions and Radio Ceylon, which had a dedications show. Young lovers could profess their devotion by dedicating songs to each other by Ricky Nelson, Elvis, and others. And boy, did we make sure we knew how to twist.

My parents’ orbit not only drew us into embassy softball games; we also got a close-up view of presidential visits to India. My parents were on duty when Eisenhower, Nixon, and Kennedy came through. I remember bursting with pride as I waved “I like IKE” posters, and my heart pounded when we all recited the Pledge of Allegiance together, always ending with “and I pledge respect to the country of which I am a guest.” (I only found out when I returned to the U.S. that schoolchildren in America didn’t say this, too.)

My parents were fiercely loyal Americans, and they wanted us to display the kinds of American values they thought were truly important. The book The Ugly American was published while we were in India, propagating the notion of loud, bullying, materialistic, and power-obsessed Americans traipsing around the world. My parents felt the burden not to validate the stereotype. We were not to speak too loudly or run through airports and public spaces like hooligans. We absolutely were not to chew gum. We worked at being gracious hosts. We were not to be profligate or showy, but we were to be always well dressed and ready to perform as “little ambassadors.” My parents were pretty good models—honest, fair, welcoming of cultural differences; very flexible about trying new foods and unfamiliar modes of travel; and amused by the vagaries of schedule (“maybe tomorrow madam”) and climate (monsoons).

They patiently fielded a slew of questions about U.S. actions around the world, and the seeming contradictions of American beliefs at home in that historical moment. How could a country have such terrible race riots and visible class discrimination despite a Constitution professing liberty and equality?

We left India for good in 1963 and landed in New London, New Hampshire, just before my sophomore year of high school. I remember thinking everything was big: buildings, roads, cars, people. And everything worked—the post office, the bank, the phones, the coin-operated Coke machines. I was so excited to come “home” to America, but I was different, and as a teenager, it was painfully evident. I wore white loafers and thin cotton clothing that seemed foreign, and I did not know the first thing about skiing. I didn’t know quite what to say when a well-meaning geography teacher announced to the class that I must have meant Indiana when I said I had come from India. Luckily the high school was flexible enough to allow me to recalibrate—I was able to take advanced French with the juniors, not-so-advanced math with the freshmen, and to my great delight, my first in-school course in American history.

What I remember most about my introduction to American history was how long the teacher focused on the colonial period. When we finally “moved west,” the school year was almost over. It reinforced my notion of just how huge America was. I knew a lot more about World War I and World War II from studying overseas, but was shy to share much about Europe and Asia when I first arrived in New Hampshire.

My parents sensed how homesick I was for Delhi—partly because the climate was so cold that I could never warm up, and partly because I didn’t like being the “new kid” in a small town. Knowing I loved to dance, they went out to find just the right present that might help with the transition. They nailed it—a tiny manual record player with a short stack of 45s, one by Chubby Checker. I must have played “Twist Again” 3 million times, and I’m sure I danced up a sweat.

Living abroad made me a lifelong appreciative observer of American life, taking nothing for granted, admiring the country’s bedrock principles and wrestling with its inconsistencies and ambiguities when the American promise isn’t fulfilled. I remain a natural global nomad, still eager to learn about other lands, but nothing touches me more than when I come back and go through Customs and the officer says, “Welcome home.”

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A couple of years before I graduated from high school in Nairobi, Kenya, my parents, my sister, and I had no plans for Thanksgiving, even though November was fast approaching. Unless we wanted to spend a sad sack holiday with just our nuclear family, we needed to find ourselves a plan, and soon. So we ended up joining a ragtag band of expats (most of them mere acquaintances) who were renting the former Mount Kenya retreat of a Saudi billionaire. It was an unlikely setting with an unlikely cast of characters, but bizarre adventures were all part of the fun of living in Kenya.

Traveling with us were an elderly couple–let’s call them Phyllis and Flynn–and a work friend of my dad’s and his wife–they’ll be Charles and Rita. Phyllis was a teacher at the international school where I was matriculating, and she spent the majority of the long drive talking about how little she liked children after her many years of teaching them. I didn’t blame her. My sister Jennifer, who was wedged in next to me, should have listened. She would go on to spend four years as a teacher, hating every loving minute of it. Charles and Rita, who were in the car ahead of us, kicking up a smothering cloud of dust, were the parents of a classmate of mine whom I knew only by reputation, mainly because he’d been caught bringing a batch of pot brownies into school. In a high school of 200 students, this was big gossip.

Honestly speaking, these were not my kind of people. I didn’t expect to have an especially invigorating time. Or feel much like giving thanks. I suspected that the adults would all get a bit drunk together, and Jennifer and I would retreat to our room to read companionably.

By the time our long drive was through–several hours over bumpy, mostly unpaved roads in two ginormous SUVs, driven convoy-style–I was pretty exhausted. But not so exhausted that I didn’t immediately realize that we were somewhere special. The ranch house was huge and utterly opulent, with Mount Kenya rising regally above it. Outside of the house, antelopes and warthogs gallivanted around, pausing as if for photo opportunities. A red-roofed relic of colonialism, Ol Pejeta house had once belonged to infamous Saudi arms dealer and billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, who had used it to throw lavish, weeklong parties. His old bedroom was equipped with a ridiculous double king-sized bed that was so large it could easily fit eight people. I know this because we tested it to see if we would all fit, while trying very hard not to think about what it had once been used for. For one weekend, this place was, unfeasibly, ours, and for a fee that would have gotten us little more than a suite in a Holiday Inn in Manhattan.

At first it felt unbelievably awkward to be spending Thanksgiving with Phyllis, Flynn, Charles, and Rita, who–let’s be honest–we never would have spent the holiday with under other circumstances. But the house–and its strange and compelling history–broke the tension. Jokes about Khashoggi, and where he might have hidden a stash of jewels or dope, made all of us laugh ourselves dizzy. And it was impossible not to revel in the beauty and comfort, impossible not to feel grateful for being here, now. This was part of what made living abroad so special–the bizarre things we could see, the history we could learn, the new people we could meet.

Suddenly, these (mostly) strangers were friends. Suddenly, we were here to celebrate together. Though we sat around a chicken rather than a turkey, we had held the holiday sacred by coming together as friends–a family of misfits–and by being grateful for all of the unique experiences that living in this strange land had brought to us. We were missing out on the comforts of home, true, but we were also forming memories that would stay with us for the rest of our lives. For me, this would be one of them–and not just because staying in the Ol Pejeta House made me realize all that I was missing out on by not being a billionaire. The experience also reminded me of what happens when you judge people. I had immediately labeled our fellow travelers as fuddy duddies, and as it turned out, they were far from it. All of us share this human experience, in all its strangeness and beauty, and there’s no better time of the year than Thanksgiving to remember that, and be grateful.

My family has been back in the United States for years; our conundrums are now more standard (how many pies are too many; how many bottles of wine are too few). We’re going to go a little more traditional for Thanksgiving this week–just a small gathering of family around a roast turkey. The weather will be just right, and I’ll be spared awkward conversations with strangers. But we won’t get to lie on a giant bed or search for hidden jewels–and alas, I’m a vegetarian now.

Angela Polidoro is an editor at Ballantine Bantam Dell and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Read here for further Zócalo musings on Thanksgiving.

*Photo courtesy of Sum_of_Marc.

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When my husband got a transfer to Brussels and we packed up the family, I was scared but also excited. I found a job involving European Union public policy and started a fascinating new career. Our living costs declined and quality of life rose. (We found we were spending a third less than we used to, thanks largely to free education and cheap healthcare.) But our daughter’s English started to slip. She lost touch with American culture. Fearing she’d never feel at home in America if we didn’t go back, we left Brussels and returned to our previous home city of Chicago.

I expected the transition to be difficult, but I didn’t expect America to feel so foreign. These days, when looking at my neighborhood, I sometimes feel as if I’m surveying damage after a storm. “For Rent” signs are as numerous as “For Sale” signs used to be. My hairdresser says she’s “hanging in there” but has abandoned her dream of opening a shoe store. My dentist is still in business, but his office is now staffed by family. The gourmet food shop is gone, as is the pretentious French restaurant. Now there’s a weekly farmers market that accepts food stamps. Neighbors grow vegetables on their front lawn and keep chickens in the back. Cocky confidence has been replaced by a quiet hunkering down.

Only my daughter’s pediatrician seems to be prospering, but my impression may be due to the size of the staff her practice employs. “What on earth do all these people do?” I thought when I took my daughter there recently. One answer: make mistakes in the billing–mistakes that take additional time and staffers to undo. I was quickly knee-deep in health insurance red tape. In Belgium, which has a mixed public and private system, our doctor worked alone out of a simple home office. We paid her cash.

Minutes after my phone was installed, I received the first of a string of automated “welcoming” phone calls from companies, followed by an avalanche of personalized letters selling home security systems, duct cleaning, satellite TV, car insurance, restaurants, and food delivery services. Our phone would ring with scam calls about credit cards I don’t have, calls asking for donations to police officer funds, calls for credit repair services. I wanted to be a good citizen–the sort of person who has a neighborhood map, list of community activities, and instructions for proper recycling on the fridge. But I felt like my country just wanted me to be a good consumer.

When I actually am a consumer, I’m treated like a friend. Gone is “Hello, may I help you?” Now it’s “How are you?” At first, I wondered why these strangers cared and was too surprised to respond. After it happened numerous times, I asked store clerks why they were greeting me this way. The answer: “customer service training.” Waiters introduce themselves by their first names, break into conversations to ask how I’m doing, and sometimes comment on what I’ve left on my plate. Even my family isn’t that intrusive.

It’s not just customer service that’s strangely intimate. People I’ve never met before pepper me with so many questions I feel like I’m being frisked. How did my parents feel about our living in Europe? What do I do for a living? What does my husband do? Where does my daughter go to school? What’s my house like? I’ve wondered if I used to be this way, too. We go deep in our conversations, but without emotional investment. It’s like a conversational one-night stand. Now I understand what foreigners mean when they complain about that American who seemed so interested in learning all about them and then was never heard from again.

Maybe one reason for the rise of personal questions is that the range of neutral conversational topics has become so narrow. It’s as if certain subjects have turned into landmines that I obliviously trip off. When I’m asked what I miss most about Belgium and answer “free, high-quality healthcare and education,” some people take it as a political statement, as if I’m a socialist crusader. Or I’ll mention that I don’t plan to get a car, a statement that provokes, at best, incredulity. In Brussels, you felt guilty if your child went to school by car. At my daughter’s school in Chicago, administrators gave me a parking permit and couldn’t answer any questions about public transportation.

Mostly, though, everyone just seems tired and in need of a good rest. Even on Sundays, people are busy working or consuming: getting haircuts, buying electronics, carting around groceries. We’re a religious country, but we don’t pay much heed to the Sabbath. I’d gotten used to everything being closed on Sunday. We’d just relax and spend time with family and friends. Now, when I wake up Sunday morning, I pretend everything is closed.

I don’t mean to bellyache and find fault with everything. I love our superior public libraries. I love our public radio and television stations. I love our free public water fountains and restrooms. I love wandering around in grocery stores filled with giddy glee as I rediscover the foods of my childhood. Ooh, peanut butter! Wow, graham crackers! Yippee, marshmallows! And most of all I love seeing family and friends.

But I’m still bewildered, still trying to figure out how much America has changed, and how much I’ve changed. Sometimes, I feel like telling my friends to cut me a little slack. If I do something rude, it’s not on purpose. I’ve just forgotten how things work. And my thoughts, I admit, are often about how to hold onto some qualities of the life we had while overseas–the calm, the sense of community. Can any of those things become part of American life, too? The rest of the world has things to teach us, if we’ll let it. I don’t entirely remember what sort of American I was before I left, but perhaps that doesn’t matter so much. The real question is what sort of American I will be now.

Janice Thomson lives in Chicago.

*Photo courtesy of Trent Strohm.

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