OT: Homesick

[spdrun]

Bet the French won’t miss an American company with slave-driving work ethic.

[Coronita]

[quote=spdrun]Bet the French won’t miss an American company with slave-driving work ethic.[/quote]

Actually, considering it’s high tech and provided doors into businesses in Asia and Europe, I think you would be wrong.

And I think the other offices that opened elsewhere in Europe were pretty happy about the increased headcount.

[spdrun]

.

[spdrun]

Sounds like the American firm will miss its office more than the French will — unless they can live without the connections that it supposedly provided. Good riddance.

[Thibault]

flu, I agree.

I am not saying that everything is better in France. France has so many social problems. It’s not by accident that French are the #1 consumers of anti-depressants in the world.

But there’s just something about living there that is really special. Most of the people in my country don’t realize it because that’s all they know. But if you travel and live oversea for a long period of time, that’s when you realize that France is not that bad after all… Great lifestyle, great food, a country with over 1,500 years of history, free education, free healthcare, a minimum of 5 weeks of paid-time off plus 35 hour work week or more time-off if you work extra hours… And Paris, I have yet to find a city that can compare to Paris…

A government job or a teaching job could work.
Being a teacher would give me a solid 2 months of time-off every summer.

[Thibault]

[quote=spdrun]What are customs duties and what would be infrastructural costs to distribute the pants?[/quote]

12% Duty rate plus 20.6% VAT.

[scaredyclassic]

Ola Thibault.

I can’t help but read your post with a heavy french accent. A mournful soft tone, tinged with Gaulouise smoke, i think i hear the tinkle of ice in your Pernod, a world weary glance to the heavens as you smack me on the face with your rolled up Le Monde. Tais toi, stupid scaredy! My heart is breaking, and you make stupid jokes?
I love France, too.

I moimeme was an au pair in the ville of vincennes for one year after finishing college in the 80s. Just part of my floating around epriod, which ended about 7 years after that. To me, the France, she is awesome, but your homesickness is beyond France.

If you relocated to France, you’d still feel something is missing.

Basically, I am a firm believer in “wherever you go, there you are”. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work less. Just that France is a state of mind. It’s not even a place. In fact, everyone knows this is nowhere. and the nowehere you find yourself at this moment is actually in the middle of a middleage crisis. Fortunately for yu, i am here to come to your aid.

Don’t freak out; although it doesn’t sound like you are freaking out. Just feeling empty, lonely, and kind of dead inside. Perhaps watching Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday will cheer you up until you can rearrange your affairs.

Any chance you could persuade your exfrancophile wife that moving to France is for the good of all involved? Perhaps you could throw ina free beeret.

I did my 7 year floating around period in the 80s when i was young. maybe you should do yours now.

[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.

[spdrun]

I’m honestly surprised by your description. I’m from the East Coast of the US (NY and NJ), and I did find Southern Californians to be somewhat suspicious by nature. However, last year, I bought a rental apartment in San Diego in a very socially mixed (in a good way, in my book) apartment complex. I spent a few weeks renovating it, cleaning it up, and getting it ready for tenants.

I found that the neighbors were actually a pretty talkative bunch — I got to talk to quite a few of them, even got invited to a barbecue by one of them. This despite the strange noises going on inside the apartment and the fact that I was wearing different shades of wall paint on various parts of me for a week…

Maybe it’s more neighborhood-by-neighborhood. What area of town are you in? Perhaps everyone is so busy working that they don’t have time or energy to talk.

Maybe you would prefer a more urban area (not urban in the sense of NY or Paris, but with small bungalows like parts of North Park, Golden Hill, or even the more poorer/working-class parts of the city).

[Thibault]

[quote=spdrun] What area of town are you in? [/quote]

I live in Carmel Valley just off the 56 freeway.
It’s nice and clean but overall very sterile.

[spdrun]

Yeah, I’d imagine there are a lot of moldy married suburbanites out there … could you sublet your house and rent an apartment in a more urban area to try things out a bit? Then sell the house and buy a condo or small house if you like it in town.

[Coronita]

[quote=spdrun]Sounds like the American firm will miss its office more than the French will — unless they can live without the connections that it supposedly provided. Good riddance.[/quote]

No, they just decided to stage the industry out of an adjoining country with less taxes and more competitive cost…. Flight time to customers in Europe is pretty much the same.

[scaredyclassic]

[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]

wait, you are correct. France is an actual place. Perhaps I was thinking of myself. I often make loud exclamations in the home, when the family is around, just loud outbursts, and one of the most frequent is ‘I WANT TO GO HOME!” out of nowhere. i say that in a very loud voice. now, perhaps in other families, they might t have the pere examined by a medical professional, but my maison is a bit more freewwheeling than average…. it is not so…bizarre. the children have accomodated, they understand that i do not ltierally want to go home. that would be terrible indeed, to be in the actual home. No, i want to go home. the home where i am at home. the chez moi of the soul.

That unfortunately, does not exist.

Jamais! we are born to be flung into the wilderness to wander the earth, rootless, wait. maybe that was the Jews…….the french were actually supposed to stay in france. you were very bad, very bad indeed for going astray. I am so glad I did not impregnate anyone abroad… i did try my best though…

well, anyway, i may have been confusing your situation for mine. maybe it would actually be better in france.

but no, I am afraid that will never be the case…

perhaps you will make some friends, get to the seaside , but all you’d talk about is how much you miss your petite gosse and weep into your admittedly good wine. perhaps it is true that you do not smoke now, but soon you will be so depressed you will berolling cigarettes upon awakening, missing your little girl. for now, it appears, home is in the united states. san diego may Gd have mercy our your soul. you may have dual citizenship, but we have you by the gosses.

i think you need to stay right where you are and completely change everything.

of course, i might also now be talking about myself as well.

i think i had a tremendous advantage by being a virtual hobo during my 20s. now I am completely comfortable with never going anywhere or doing anything adventurous ever again. I just want to go home.

I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!!

[Coronita]

[quote=spdrun]Yeah, I’d imagine there are a lot of moldy married suburbanites out there … could you sublet your house and rent an apartment in a more urban area to try things out a bit? Then sell the house and buy a condo or small house if you like it in town.[/quote]

Lol.. This is coming from someone from Jersey? Seriously????

🙂

[spdrun]

Grew up there, haven’t lived there in years. But my experience of NJ wasn’t of anonymity or unfriendliness, quite the contrary. I knew all of my neighbors for better or for worse, had dinner with them quite a few times (even after one moved away), took care of another’s kids when mom’s water broke at 4 am and dad was traveling on business.

[Author]

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