The Outsider

I have been feeling a little homesick and strange lately, and feeling more like a foreigner than ever. I think it is partly because now that I am working this is no longer an adventure - this is my life now. So I have been thinking alot about home, and about my life here and what I wanted it to be, and what it actually is turning out to be. It is also partly to do with the culture shock, which I have felt a lot more strongly at work than I did before. Even though I have several french friends here, all of them have lived overseas before and speak some english, but the people I work with are all very french and very different to what I am used to.

I am also finding the language barrier more and more frustrating. I guess now that I am working and living a "normal" life here I feel like I should be living a more french life, I should be able to speak better and have more french friends. I still find it very difficult to make friends if I speak only french, I don't feel like I am myself, I am not really able to be funny or subtle, and I speak slowly and often can't find the right word to describe what I want to say.

The weather has also been terrible here, it has rained almost every day for 2 weeks, and rarely gets above 20 degrees. Also Paris in august is very strange. All the french leave Paris and, apart from the centre and the very touristy areas, the entire city feels empty. Alot of the shops, bars and restuarants are closed for the whole of august. All my local boulangeries are shut and I have to buy bread from the supermarket!

But I am actually feeling alot better about it all now. On friday night I went out for a couple of drinks with Alison to an Irish bar in latin quatier. We ran into some people we knew and ended up staying until until 7am. It was the first really big night out I had had for ages and even though it was very unfrench I met alot of cool people and had a fun night.

Yesterday (afternoon, after we dragged ourselves out of bed) Alison and I decided I would feel better if I got to know some other parts of Paris so she took me to some areas I hadn't been to before, which were just gorgeous. We spent hours walking around the city and stopped at a bar for an apertif and dinner and then walked all the way back to the centre of town. Everything looked amazing, all the gorgeous buildings, the tree lined streets, and little shops and bars and I remembered why I came here.

Today I went to the musée d'art modern again (my favorite art gallery in Paris) to see a temporary exhibition (a retrospective of Dan Flavin) which was amazing. Afterwards I went for a walk around the 17th arrondissement which I don't know very well but is really french and quite cool and I stumbled across a really nice park with a lake full of ducks and black swans. Later I went to Cour Saint-Emilion, a very cute little stoney village like area with lots of trendy bars, not far from where I live.

So now I am loving Paris all over again, and am feeling alot better about living here. So in honour of my new french life, I am sitting here at my computer drinking a glass of bordeaux and eating warm goats cheese, and feeling quite french.