[quote=Thibault]Great post scaredy, even though I have never smoked and I despise Le Monde.

When I first came here, my plan was never to stay in the US forever. I just got stuck in a situation I couldn’t get out of.
The first few years in San Diego were exciting. It was a period of discovery and fun: the nice weather, the beaches, the desert… everything was new to me.
Now I look back and ask myself: what did I do in the past 10 years? All I can see work. Long days at work. Nights at work, too many weekends at work. When I don’t work on the weekends, I just try to recover from exhaustion.

To me France is a real place. It’s the place where my family lives. It’s the place where all by best friends live. In 15 years in San Diego, I have never been invited once by my neighbors. I don’t even know them to tell you the truth. I can count on my 2 hands the number of times I was invited for a dinner by some friends. I might be wrong or out of touch but it’s almost like what is really missing here (and I don’t know if it’s specific to Southern CA) is the fact that most people are not interested in strong and long-lasting relationships. I feel like people don’t need to have friends. They do just fine by themselves. Human relation don’t motivate them that much.
It’s what I miss about France. Being able to sit at a table with a good friend and a nice bottle of wine and talk all night about anything.

It will be hard to convince my ex-wife to move back to France. But I can give it a try.[/quote]

You probably don’t *have* to work long nights if you’re willing to cut down on your expenses somewhat…Don’t worry, when you get older like me, you begin to care less about working…sort of…