So, today, I grumble and whine.

Well, I can't download the pictures of my beautiful new wall from my camera, because somewhere between the hotel, the many bags, and the move to the new empty apartment, I seem to have lost or displaced the necessary cable. And so, today, I will rant.

My husband is in India. He had to go back there for some final debriefing. They have a big country meeting, and he will see his colleagues from Hyderabad, and those from Delhi and all over India, some of whom have become good friends.

Last night, at the dinner table, my daughters commented on the fact that it was not fair that he could go to India ; they also wanted to go, see their friends, familiar faces and places.

Brace yourselves, for here come the grumbling and whining. I know this is a new adventure, bla bla bla. I'm the first one to constantly clamor that we are so very lucky to have this kind of life - traveling the world, living in different countries, discovering and sampling new cultures, forever broadening our horizons.

But you know what? Some days, it's bloody difficulty. Especially at the beginning. Or rather, after the very beginning.

When we are no longer in the hotel, and having to learn the daily ways of our new host country.

When I discover that in order for me to do any kind of shopping, I basically need to give up half a day, and out of that half day, a good two hours (sometimes more) will be spent in the car, fighting maddening traffic jams.

When I start the day thinking that I need to work, but after an hour or two seating in the very uncomfortable forty-seventh-hand couch that we bought with the option of reselling it again as soon as we receive our personal effects, my back hurts like hell, and now, what do I do? The apartment is empty. Go out? Where? To get stuck in more traffic? And anyway, kids will be back in an hour or so, which means I don't even have time to go anywhere.

When I miss my friends back in Hyderabad.

And where is my husband, who is the person whom we are trailing? In India, working, yes, but he gets to see familiar faces, and to go back to a place that feels familiar, because that's where our home was for the past few years. Even at work, here, in Bangladesh, he's met up with colleagues, friends he already knew from New York, or elsewhere, people he's worked with before. He doesn't get to start all over in quite the same way.

Do we, expat, trailing spouses and children get any credit for this? We should.