“The other day, after I’d spent six hours in a one-on-one Russian lesson, tussling with verb conjugations and other grammatical madness, the phone rang. On the line was a woman with a thick New York accent, wanting to know if I wanted my chimney cleaned.The woman was calling from Brooklyn and assumed that she had reached Brooklyn. For a moment, I considered whether it might be a good idea to get my chimney cleaned before I realized that I no longer had a chimney.”

Such is the light hearted lament of this expatriate in Russia. He ruminates on the efficacy of a global network that will allow him to retain his old New York phone number, via Vonage, as he lives and works all over the world, proposing that such electronic wizardry, while belaying the onset of home sickness, may deny an American expat the true experience of immersing themselves into the subtleties of their foreign experience.

“In the past, cut off from your old life, you might have tried harder to immerse yourself in your new one. That was part of the allure of being an expatriate: learning a new language, overcoming isolation by trying to cultivate friends among the locals, making daily discoveries about another part of the world.”

In bygone days, the American abroad had only the rare phone conversation and an occasional letter by which to maintain ties to home, leaving him little choice but to become more invested in the country and people around him. Now, for better or worse, living abroad includes instant communication with the homeland, even down to the pesky telemarketer.

“A nearly-foolproof way to get rid of telemarketers is to interrupt the beginning of their riff by announcing, “You know, you’ve reached me in Russia.” Most of the time, they get so befuddled that they just hang up.”
(source)