An expatriate fourth of July...

Is it possible to be a patriotic expatriate? I think so after an amazing Forth of July last Saturday.
The festivites began early with 18 holes of golf just across the state border in Tamil Nadu. Elder Fairbanks, Brother Welch, and I a marvelous time. I ended up with two bogeys and a very defined sunburn on the back of my legs. Later in the day Carter, and I accepted and invitation to attend a BBQ at Brother Welch's house. We filled ourselves with the goodness from the grill and chatted while we waited for BBQ number two at the senior missionaries' house.
Brother Welch has worked in the ex-pat admin field for something like eleven years. We couldn't resist picking his brain. Here are some of the things I learned:

• The word expatriate is very different from ex-patriot. I am an expatriate because I am living out of (ex) my fatherland (patria), but I am still a patriot (one who loves his country)
• For a company to put someone on an ex-pat package usually costs approximately 5X that employee's annual salary
• Cost of living adjustment is the difference paid to employees to maintain the same standard of living abroad
  
• Hypothetical tax is usually taken from the expatriates as if they were paying tax in their home country... This might seem unfair since you wouldn't even need to pay Uncle Sam on the first $92,000 you earned outside the U.S., but it is all part of the package.
  
• The company usually will pay for the employees kids to attend school abroad (~$18,000/year in Bangalore before grossing up)
  
• Despite the costs and the complexity, it can still be in a companies best interest to send employees on expatriate assignments, especially to transfer company culture.
  
• Employees returning home is called repatriation.

Our conversation really got the wheels turning in my head. What an experience it would be to take my future family to another culture...