Goodbye Paris

Seb and I just spent four days in Paris doing a cultural training for our move to Mexico which is aimed to help us adjust to our life as Mexpats. I made fun of the training before we left. "What can they possibly teach me about being an expat?" I scoffed. "I've lived in a foreign country over seven years now. It's so old hat I could teach it myself!" It wasn't all old hat though and I learned a lot from our training instructor, a facinating woman who has been doing this for years and has met every type of expat family you could imagine.

We studied Mexico, France and the USA and looked at all three cultures from every imaginable angle: --social, economic, religious, and even psychological. Some of the funnest parts of the training were comparing the French next to the Americans and saying "yes, yes; yes!" to a lot of the things it's taken me years to figure out about the French.

I think we even gave the training instructor a few new insights into Franco-American relationships just by telling her some of our experiences as a couple. I shared some of our funny stories like how on our recent trip through the US to Mexico Seb and I had a fight because he verbally attacked the customer service woman at the Continental Airlines desk in Houston. She of course shut down, wouldn't help us and and she even closed the door on him! That screaming stuff works in France and it's actually expected and respected but in the US you just look like an idiot if you do it. You definitely have to try a sort or smooth yet firm aggression coated with a little honey to get what you want from an American. I had such a hard time explaining this subtle art to Seb at the time because he couldn't understand how it could possibly work. How do you get any respect if you don't scream and say "oh la laaaa" after every indignation after all! "After I tell her I won't be walked all over she'll earn my respect and give me my justice!" I think he finally understood all this in the class when the trainer explained the differences between how French and Americans think in these sorts of situations and what tactics they use to get what they want from people. She also explained that he'd have to learn this for his problem solving in Mexico because a Mexican would never dream of getting hot headed over a such a common thing like a delay or missing paperwork. There were lots of situational examples over the two days and we were even lucky enough to meet and train under a few Mexican business women, expats of course, who explained all the ins and outs of making our way through this new cultural maze we're about to enter.

We stayed in Paris's latin quarter even though our training was way out in the suburbs an hour from the city. I adore l'eglise Notre Dame de Paris and Seb knows this so he booked us a hotel right by the church.It rained a lot but that just made it all prettier. It gave us a good backdrop for our weekend;-- eating in picturesque sidewalk cafés and having animated discussions about how much our life is about to change.