Ann Aguirre Quotes

It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one's own.

We moved to Australia for two years though and that was a little bit tough trying to fit in.

To live abroad you have to grow up quickly.

I couldn't settle in Italy - it was like living in a foreign country.

I lived in England to learn English. When I went to England for the first time, it was like being on the Moon. I had no friends, I couldn't speak the language. I was very isolated.

Going through different places, I stopped through Dubai and stayed there overnight. There I had an ultra-culture shock.

Yeah, my dad was in the foreign service. We lived in India, Indonesia and Africa, and we traveled a lot from those places. I was 10 when we moved back, and I felt like the odd guy out. It wasn't until later that I appreciated it. But coming back I didn't know any TV shows or music, which was even worse.

When I came to America in 1978, I was a huge sports fan - the problem was, my sport was cricket. Shockingly enough, no one wanted to talk cricket with me!

My family is Chilean, and I was born there. By the time I was four, we were living in San Antonio, Texas, and I just remember picking a blue bonnet and getting yelled at by some guy with a sheriff hat and a badge. I was traumatized. He told me it was the state flower, and I wasn't supposed to be messin' with it.

Being an expatriate doesn't go down well in America.

It's been a bit of a struggle getting used to life in the States, adapting to a new lifestyle.

When I went to Germany, all I knew were German swear words.

People don't know what it's like being the foreigner until they are one.

I take great pride in the fact that I have lived in a Spanish-speaking country.

While I was in London it was completely upside-down. I got a whole new life and it was a challenge to keep in touch with my life in Ireland, but it was great fun. Now though, I've been back home since November and gradually all connections with my HP life have been fading.

When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men.

I was fortunate to live for 3 years in another country, and although we lived in an American compound, still as a young adolescent I did venture into the world of the Japanese with great interest and enjoyment. But many Americans never left that safe and familiar life among their own people.

When I was 18, I left Dublin and moved to Paris. I didn't speak French. I didn't know anyone. I felt like a fish out of water.

Everyone thinks England and America are the same, as we have the same language, but I felt like an alien as an English person living in America.

I have been to Turkey almost every summer holiday of my life and pretty much only on summer holidays, which makes me a very shallow Turk indeed.

I do think New York prepares you for the crossection of personalities and realities on display when you leave the country, and I'd live somewhere else if I had a reason or burning-the-the-point-of-discomfort desire to do so.

I always heard that immigrants had a really hard life when they came to America.

I'm very comfortable in the U.S. and Europe, but I feel completely out of place in the rest of the world, mostly because I never spent time outside the U.S. and Europe until I was in my 30s.

It's hard when you are trying to ingratiate yourself in a completely foreign world. It takes a long time.

As an immigrant, I learned by watching other people.