1. You learn to plan your calls around your parents' time schedule.
When you are faced with a significant time difference, you figure out the couple hours when your schedule overlaps with theirs. Until it becomes a routine, it is definitely a frustrating transition.
2. Going "home" is no longer a car ride away.
Unlike your friends at school, you don't have the option of going home for the weekend or even for Thanksgiving break. In your case, you are packing your big suitcase and hopping on a transatlantic flight to see your folks during winter or summer breaks.
3. When you don't have the option of going home, you learn how to be homeless.
When your parents are abroad you start to fear long weekends when most everyone goes home. You don't want to stay on an empty college campus, so you are forced to make other arrangements. Whether you are couch surfing or living out of your car, when you don't have the option of going home, your life is pretty much in shambles.
4. But, when you are home, you get to enjoy the perks of being abroad.
This is one of the perks of having worldly parents. Wherever they are overseas, it goes without saying that it is probably more fun than your college town. On your breaks you get to know the place you are living and make memories in a place most don't get to visit.
5. You learn to take care of yourself.
Because you only have a brief window of time when you can actually contact your parents, you learn to be extremely independent. You learn what is best for you and make the majority of your decisions solo.
6. With your parents that far away, when you mess up, you deal with it.
Yet, some of these decisions we make might be questionable. We all screw up, but with parents overseas we don't have the option of having them hop in the car to come help us figure it out. This is when you suck it up and deal with the consequences without someone holding your hand through the process.
All in all, I can't complain about having parents that are far away. Although it seems like more of a rootless lifestyle, you learn that home is not a place, it's the people you surround yourself with. There are pros and cons to everyone's lifestyle so it's important to appreciate what you have.
