Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana

I lived in Asia (China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea) for the past 8 years as an American Elementary School Teacher. Around the Bloc is the most accurate attempt at explaining the emotion, trails, adventures, and growth that expats go through living overseas I have yet to find. I would highly recommend this book as "a coming of age book" along with those of Tania Aebi's and Jamie Zeppa. I didn't always agree with Stephanie Elizondo Griest's polictics or the conclusions that she came through, however I admire her for asking the questions and digging through the difficult that most expats ignore. It is a lot easier to travel and only see the glossy, simple face that these countries provide. It takes a lot of guts to really want to know the truth. This book is about the truth of China, Russia and Cuba. In addition, most travelogs are not very well written, this is a fine exception to that rule.

As someone who has always planned/thought/meant to travel and have lots of adventures of my own (but never actually had the means or time to travel), I can really appreciate all the detail and descriptions in Ms. Griest's Around the Bloc. I may not always agree with her conclusions, but I actually am grateful for them. I would so much rather hear opinions that cause me to think than feel affirmed or bored. It is almost as if she is an incredible, funny, and lively travel companion throughout this journey around the "Communist Bloc" and I get to hear her end-of-the-day assessment of her adventures and then begin to form my own. Her openness throughout the book about her experiences and mistakes help to endear and make her experiences much more "real" than a flat newspaper-style book. I have learned SO MUCH from this book about places that I will likely never visit and very much enjoyed having my eyes open to new perspectives on some very old issues.

I rarely buy into the "so good you can't put it down" rhetoric when talking about books to read. Stephanie Griest's Around the Bloc is an exception. Reminiscent of my favorite, Bill Bryson, she has an amazing combination of detail, brilliant humor, and historical research that both teaches and entertains. This is a book that can profoundly change the way young people look at foreign travel or foreign study. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to study abroad as a guidebook for how to truly capture the essense of cultural immersion. Griest's re-discovery of her own culture through learning about others is an inspiring gem of a lesson.

I loved this book for many reasons, including the fact that it is as much a travelogue as it is a memoir (and a "Communist 101" history lesson)! Griest is funny and candid about her own initial misconceptions and cultural misshaps (her account of the Chinese lunch with her new colleagues is priceless!), but she still manages to bring her stories to life, avoiding caricatures and cliches.Some of Griest's experiences resonated with me, like the challenges of settling into life in a foreign city. Although I have never traveled through China or Russia, her amazing gift for story-telling made the places and people in her book seem surprisingly familiar.I highly recommend "Around the Bloc"!!! And I can't wait to see where she travels to next!