I love Paris in the Fall

I have returned from my third ever weekend trip to Paris, all of which have taken place in either October or November. Just the way things have been. I would like to go in the springtime, but so far it just hasn’t happened.

But ah, Paris. What a great place to spend a weekend. First of all, you can take the Eurostar from London, and there’s nothing better about living in England than being able to take a train to France. Especially given how painful flying has become. And how much I have no choice but to fly to places like America and Australia for which trains aren’t an option. But the best thing about Paris isn’t Paris per se. One of my good friends lives there. My only expat friend who I knew back in the states. We moved abroad about 18 months apart, first me to England, then her to Paris. And in both cases, we were doing something that seems relatively unusual in the expat community: we moved as single women, solely for the purpose of jobs. We weren’t going to meet up with British men and live happily ever after. We weren’t moving with American partners to keep us company abroad. We are both living in 1BR apartments alone, working too much, and experiencing a slightly different sort of expat life.

I arrived at her metro stop in the 16e at 6 pm Friday, and we stayed up until 6 am talking. We did stop off at the Halloween party at the Australian embassy, but we only stayed for two drinks and then went to find food. The Aussies were only offering up sausages, and neither of us eat sausages (I’m a pescetarian and she’s a Muslim). So no go on the sausages. We ended up at an Italian place run by a Sri Lankan in St. Michel. And then back to her house for wine and gossip.

Saturday we rolled out of bed at about noon and got ready for ahem brunch, which ended up being coffee and omelets at a cafe at about 3 pm. We wandered through the Jardin des Tuileries, which was full of fall colors and I was a sleep-deprived idiot who had left my camera back at the apartment. Next we were off to the Louvre, where instead of going to the museum, we went to the museum shop and the other shops in the adjacent mall. This is part of our typical style; when she came to visit me in England, we got as far as Pizza Express and John Lewis. The point of these weekends is for us to talk, not for us to be tourists. Saturday night we walked up the steps at Sacre Coeur and then sampled some food and drink on the way back down. Again back to her place for more wine and gabbing. Again past 6 am. We really outdid ourselves this trip, 5 am had been our previous record.

After sleeping in again, Sunday noonish we did exactly what we had done the last time I was in Paris, and ran out to the market in Passy for fresh bread and cheese for brunch. I had to take the train out at 5 something, so it was one last trip on the metro before checking in for the Eurostar.

It was an amazing weekend for many reasons. We had so much fun talking about our expat existence. It was great for me to see and discuss with her the pros and cons of our very simple apartments. While she has a shower, I have an oven. She’s just in the process of getting a toaster oven-like thing that apparently is about the best that can be done in her kitchen. We both have washers but not driers, and we discussed the fact that after some time abroad, we are nesting and buying nice things to make our homes feel more like home. We’ve both been buying artwork. But the basics of the expat life are the same. We have to both do our jobs and enjoy our surroundings. As she said, “I may have to pick up my dry cleaning today, but I get to pick up my dry cleaning IN PARIS!” It was a good reminder of the things that expat life can hold. Admittedly she has it spectacularly well, her office has a picture window looking out on la Tour Eiffel.

The other funny thing that happened, and that was a big difference from my last visit to Paris a year ago, is that her French has become really proficient. Whereas last time we were two clearly American girls in Paris, this time she was a local. Her confidence had increased to the point that she spoke en Francais all the time, and even asked to speak in French when waiters or store clerks did switch over to English after hearing us chatting. She kept doing the “J’habite ici” thing, which then had a funny side-effect. I started listening to the French, and suddenly a few years worth of high school French kicked in. I really did not realize how much I had picked up, and never used, after so many years away. I laughed at a waiter’s joke without thinking. I chimed in with “moi aussi” (me too) at one point. Baby steps, for certain. But really, really fun. So I have a new expat life resolution: to start working on my French, so that the next time I get to visit my dear friend in Paris, I’ll be able to play along.

Wordle

I stumbled on this fantastic website, wordle that makes up to the minute text clouds based on the words you are using most often. I tried it for this blog and was delighted and not surprised to see the huge word “coffee” along with all the others… try it yourself. It’s fun

Robert Frost

When I was on my extended trip to the US, I got to go to New Hampshire for the first time. On driving back towards Boston after the conference, I saw a sign for the Robert Frost farm, and I exclaimed, “Ah, Robert Frost” at which point my young colleague asked, “Who is that?” Frost is, in fact, my very favorite poet, mostly because I’m one of those old-school people who think poems should rhyme and Frost write beautifully lyrical poetry where the rhyming schemes are often quite complicated and interesting. While many people love and admire “The Road Not Taken” or “Acquainted with the Night” (which appears in the Amanda Palmer song Astronaut, making her even more my hero than she already was) my personal favorite has always been “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I can recite it by heart, in part because the cleverness of the rhyme helps one to remember which section comes next. So imagine my amusement when I was reading a “Get Fuzzy” anthology later in this same American trip and I came across Darby Conley’s take on it, as narrated by Bucky Katt. (Apologies for the random spam comments after the poem in that link; I simply cannot figure out a way to search for the original comic on the official Get Fuzzy archives website so this is taken from a blog!) Rhyming scheme maintained, but an, ahem, slightly different flavor to the whole thing. Regardless, it remains true, I must leave this blog and get back to work, there are plenty of “reptiles to throw before I sleep”…

Just an ordinary day

I had one of those wonderful days today, when a person can forget that they are living abroad and just work and live. I spent more than two hours with my (?current pc-terminology?) PA/secretary filing things in my office, trying to get the piles of paper down to a manageable level. I don’t think much of what I did today translated into cross-cultural distinctions, and for that I was glad. Some days I’m quite happy to live my life without a constant burden of expat-ness. It’s the funny thing that happens after one has been abroad for a period of time. I guess we adjust and start to see the world differently but don’t notice it as much.

The most shocking part of my day was in going out for dinner (too over-worked to be bothered with cooking) and finding myself seated next to a table of American tourists. I stopped at a restaurant on my way home from work, a place that I have been to on more than one occasion but perhaps not frequently. My overheard conversations from the Americans were telling, “We went to Windsor today,” and perhaps the most important part of this is the fact that I do not feel myself a tourist in my town. I bristle at the American accents a bit, especially when the holders feel the need to pontificate on the royals. It’s a phenomenon that I never saw coming, my needing to fit in gaged against the American tourists visiting. I want to dissociate myself from them regardless of our shared accent. I see now why some of my fellow expats have adopted a middle-of-the-road accent. I have no idea how conscious this decision was, but it is certainly true that my American friends in the UK sound intermediate. I wonder how I sound now too. I had been convinced that any perceived accent I had acquired (supposedly) was the view of my family and friends back home, but now I wonder if I’m actually changing the way I deal with language, and in the accent and not just the word choice (as I have previously claimed). Have I actually started to change my vowels to fit with the local accent? Only those around me can tell. But how do I perceive such a change in myself? Only time will tell. I’m starting to suspect that my defense of “word choice only has changed” is falling on deaf ears and for good reason.

Keep calm and carry on

The title of this post is a classic British-ism, and I think it’s one that is particularly good when it comes to advice to expats. If I had to summarize my experiences as a nearly 3-year resident of Britain, particularly as concerns my job, it would be this, to note this difference in attitude between my British work colleagues and American colleagues in previous jobs. I have mentioned before that the locals do not seem to have any experience in the American art of “venting“. I have been surprised on a number of occasions how the things I’ve said when “venting” have come back to me, perhaps not to “haunt” me per se, but certainly to make me aware that my toss-aside comments have been taken seriously and noted in some large record of my time spent working in England. And I’m not sure how to fix this one. I would never advise a young colleague not to “vent” about their frustrations and experiences, but I would certainly advise him or her that these “vents” will remain on their record and be taken seriously in a way that I would not have expected based on my prior work experiences in America.

I’m not quite sure what the problem is. I don’t know if my colleagues bristle at the implied criticism at the way things are done here, or if my speaking up is generally considered to be “too much” … I do know that as a personal foible I tend to relate too much detail about things when confronted with general assemblies, but I am interested in the fact that these details are apparently retained in some master list of things I have said. Regardless, it does create a situation where I try to watch every word I utter, sometimes with great personal difficulty as my typical “get it out there” behavior is suppressed. It’s one of the many and varied, albeit interesting, culture differences that I could only define as “subtle” and not something I expected to experience on my transition from US to UK life.

Britishisms on signs v1

I’ve been long meaning to take photos of some interesting grammatical constructions that I’ve seen on British signs, and this one was a perfect place to start. Whereas an American might have said “no open flames” the sign reads “no naked lights” next to a cage of gas canisters. It’s too bad it did not read “no naked flames” or I could have made a witty comment about keeping Bettie Page-like burlesque performers at a safe distance…

The local lingo

There have been a number of times when I realize that the most common “Britishisms” around are not the ones everyone talks about (lift, knickers etc.) The one driving me crazy this week is “instore” … most often in the context of the shop window sign “Sale continues instore.” So you get the meaning (inside the store) but you wonder why the need for the contraction.

Language and place

I saw this amusing anecdote on American Bedu, and it reminded me of my own adventure with my sister. We were in Washington DC, headed from her apartment in Georgetown to the more tourist-friendly region in the center of town (probably going to a museum, I don’t quite remember). A Chinese man came up to us and asked a question in Chinese; my sister, of course fluent, answered him in Chinese (I believe he was just lost and looking for directions) and he walked off. We cracked up, Mer noting that he’s going to walk a few blocks before he stops in wonder and thinks, wait a minute, that shouldn’t have happened, why was that American girl able to answer me in Chinese? (Although knowing my sis, she probably said something much more funny, you get the drift.) Some days I’m really happy that my expat experience does not involve more than trying to work out bizarre (to my ears) euphemistic turns of phrase like “wedding tackle” or the near constant fights with spelling centre vs center, colour vs color, etc. Other days I’m really annoyed that my greatest linguistic achievements are in British versus American English, and I dream of taking a job in Paris or Barcelona and thus abandoning my status as a hopeless monoglot. My sister definitely kicks my ass/arse on this one!

Britishisms

In the last few days, I’ve spelled things in British English instead of American while iChatting with my sister (repeatedly, even though she kept calling me on it) and used “Cheers” to end a phone call with another UK-based American colleague. I’m so confused!

News Headlines and Punctuation

I would love it if someone could explain British punctuation to me; emails, which I have written about before in noting that they contain hardly any punctuation where I expect there to be some:

Dear Martha

Happy New Year

(content of the note) blah blah blah

Best wishes

Roger

My response would look likely look more like this:

Dear Roger,

Happy New Year to you too!

(content of the response) blah blah blah.

Best wishes,

Martha

Although it’s perhaps not a fair comparison, as my American email would more likely read

Roger–Happy new year! blah, blah, blah, Best regards, Martha

thus saving space in cyberspace and doing away with letter-style formality for a quick note.

In contrast to emails, British headlines seem to me to have waaaaaay too much punctuation. Example headlines from the BBC today:

• Sea rescue beacons ‘a priority’
• China ‘to act over jail deaths’
• Economy ‘no longer in free fall’
• Cancer brake ‘could halt disease’
• Teachers ’script GCSE oral exams’
• ‘Green Nobel’ for forest champion

The only top stories headline on Yahoo! news that used quotes was referring to a movie, otherwise the headlines were quote-free:

• Efron turns ‘17 Again’ into No. 1 hit with $24M
• Police plan to charge driver in fatal accident
• Diabetes? Some beat it, but are they cured?
• US boycotting, Iran starring, at UN racism meeting
• Exxon Mobil overtakes Wal-Mart to top Fortune 500
• Chavez’s gift to Obama swiftly becomes best-seller
• Yao has 24 points, Rockets beat Blazers 108-81

Now I buy books in both countries and have learned to read them without noticing the single-versus-double quote anomaly, but this one has me perplexed. Lots of quotes in headlines, no punctuation in emails… anyone???