Everyone seems to ask me the same question since I’ve moved far from home. My students, my colleagues, my Chilean friends and ex-pat friends and college friends, the guy I buy fruit from on the corner, my current roommates and former roommates, the receptionists at companies where I teach and the lady who once died my hair.

So what is this special question that so many are ever-so curious to know the response?

“What do you miss about the United States?”

Although living in Chile surely comes with the sacrifice of missing many comforts from home — this country also comes with benefits I’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere. So … I usually dodge the question and instead focus on the latter.

But given that today is the Fourth of July and so many people are dying to know, I really pondered what it is I miss about the United States. Here’s my list in no particular order:

I miss breakfast.
24-hour stores.
Baseball.
I miss juicy hamburgers and crisp bacon.
Level sidewalks and my car.
Air-conditioning, indoor heating.
Drive-thrus.
I miss reading the print newspaper in my native tongue. And listening to the radio.
I miss laws that forbid smoking indoors and ones that protect the people’s right to assemble.
I miss the First Amendment.
Independent media.
Journalistic standards the public can trust.
I miss good cake.
Ice cubes, cheap electronics and good headphones.
I miss big kitchens.
Having a bank account.
And eavesdropping.
I miss a diverse population, the melting pot or salad bowl.
I miss grammar rules that put punctuation inside quotation marks.
I miss dark denim.
Drivers who respect pedestrians.
Bicycle lanes.
I miss wearing high heels, coffee shops that serve soy milk and used bookstores.
And if you took the time to read this far, I likely miss you, too!

—JDF