1. Well, boudin aux pommes works nicely... Also, knowing to how work the place. Being instinctively familiar with all those things you have to research living somewhere else - rental law, employment law, driving regulations, what will get overlooked and what you can't finesse. What kind of tone to use with different people to make them like you (essential as a journalist, but also with a plumber!)
And of course I would need to make five times as much practically anywhere else to have the comfortable standard of living I enjoy in Paris.
2. How resistant to change everyone is; how hard it is to get a decision on anything; how difficult it is to simply get PAID. And how political every organisation is. Yes, there are politics everywhere, but 70%, of the energy expended at work in a French outfit is on sterile, mean-minded politics.
3. Oh, it makes me a different person altogether; I have no idea what monolingual Shezan would be like. I constantly adapt my thought processes to three cultures, sometimes more (aspects of German, Israeli, Japanese, depending on where I am staying for a bit at the time, in addition to French-English-American, which are constants.) I'm always aware that there is a world elsewhere, thinking differently. One of the consequences is that I am always a bit of a tourist everywhere, even in France.
One practical consequence is that I've never stayed with expat communities when living abroad; I go native instantly and durably.
4. Chile. That was my great discovery when living in New York, where for some reason the French wines I bought (nice ones too! Gruand Larose! Beychevelle! etc.!) tasted blah. (Dunno if the travel/warehousing killed them, or if they were plain fakes.) But there were very nice, not massively expensively-priced Chilean ones I bought. (Admittedly made by a Rothschild property, Los Vascos...)
5. I enjoy swimming, but I don't have that fish-like ability to glide through the water, getting the breathing and emerging elegantly synchronised just so; I'd like that. One sport I gave up on years ago (it would result in broken bones today) I would have loved to be good at, skiing.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-10-03 02:12 pm (UTC)And of course I would need to make five times as much practically anywhere else to have the comfortable standard of living I enjoy in Paris.
2. How resistant to change everyone is; how hard it is to get a decision on anything; how difficult it is to simply get PAID. And how political every organisation is. Yes, there are politics everywhere, but 70%, of the energy expended at work in a French outfit is on sterile, mean-minded politics.
3. Oh, it makes me a different person altogether; I have no idea what monolingual Shezan would be like. I constantly adapt my thought processes to three cultures, sometimes more (aspects of German, Israeli, Japanese, depending on where I am staying for a bit at the time, in addition to French-English-American, which are constants.) I'm always aware that there is a world elsewhere, thinking differently. One of the consequences is that I am always a bit of a tourist everywhere, even in France.
One practical consequence is that I've never stayed with expat communities when living abroad; I go native instantly and durably.
4. Chile. That was my great discovery when living in New York, where for some reason the French wines I bought (nice ones too! Gruand Larose! Beychevelle! etc.!) tasted blah. (Dunno if the travel/warehousing killed them, or if they were plain fakes.) But there were very nice, not massively expensively-priced Chilean ones I bought. (Admittedly made by a Rothschild property, Los Vascos...)
5. I enjoy swimming, but I don't have that fish-like ability to glide through the water, getting the breathing and emerging elegantly synchronised just so; I'd like that. One sport I gave up on years ago (it would result in broken bones today) I would have loved to be good at, skiing.