Homesick?

For people like me that leave their home country to settle far away, there always seems to be a good reason to feel homesick at one time or another. For the first 27 years or so, I was traveling extensively between Europe and the USA and had plenty of time to get an overdose of my hometown; after a few days – what am I saying, a few hours - in my old surroundings, it was the same old thing and I was ready to move on or go home. I remembered the experience, and more often than not, it never quite measured with my memories; in fact, it felt as if I had outgrown the persona that I once had in that particular setting. Before cheap telecommunications and the internet, it was in fact hard, if not impossible, to remain culturally current with the “old country.” Nowadays, with satellite TV, streaming audio, Skype, web-cams and instant messages, the world has shrunk in ways that once were unimaginable. Do I still feel homesick? Not really; there's always a European friend or a sight of Haute-Savoie at my fingertips, and if I travel over there only every year or so, that's enough to update my curiosity and refresh my collection of mental pictures!