I’m rather more free than the previous six degreers, Nosemonkey and Phil, in that I am not tied to starting from my own blog. I thought that today we’d explore the virtual world thematically and introduce you, dear readers, to the wonderful weirdness of the expat blog.

As a recently returned expat from first America and then France, I can tell you that blogging makes life a lot easier for those of us lucky to live abroad. It’s an easy way to share news and photos with family and friends, and a good forum in which to air our frustrations with our adopted nation without unduly offending the natives. Expat bloggers are generally also trying to get to grips with the peculiarities of culture and politics of their environment.

Some infamous bloggers are expats: Tim Ireland’s an Aussie and Armin Grewe’s from Germany but they blog from and about England. The limeys abroad are pretty good too: Tim Worstall in Portugal, Zoe in Belgium, Third Avenue in New York, Neil in Germany, Francis in France. Expats can make the best bloggers, because they spend their lives comparing and analysing cultures and sometimes this yields extraordinary insights.

Since expat bloggers tend to link to and mention bloggers in their host country, I thought we’d get around the world a little faster if we relied upon the nifty little flags next to blogs on Armin Grewe’s webring for expat bloggers, The Ministry of Propaganda. I am going to hop around my six blogs via the novel method of choosing a blogger based on the host nation of the previous blogger. It’s like the Kevin Bacon game.
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