Living in France

I still remember being about ten years old and telling my father that I never wanted to go abroad. We'd been discussing holidays. The family had always holidayed in the UK, mostly because I'm one of five children and we weren't rich, so I was explaining that I didn't mind: there was nothing special outside our country. Just a bunch of foreigners, that's all. So when I moved to Paris, some fifteen years or so later, we were both equally surprised.

I've always been a bit of a minimalist, so the practicalities of the move were fairly simple. I was headed to a job and to a woman (who is now my partner), so I had somewhere to stay until I found an apartment and a regular income for expenses. With two or three boxes of goods tucked neatly into my tiny little car, I headed off into the unknown.

Looking back, it's clear that the job and accommodation were a boon. The fact that I was working for an American company, for whom the standard business language was English, saved me having to jump in at the deep end with my schoolboy French. My then-girlfriend's home was nicely situated in the centre of the city and her knowledge of French bureaucracy and culture were invaluable during the first few months of my stay.

The most important decision to make when living in another country, in my opinion, is whether one wishes to submerge oneself in the culture or to construct (in my case) a 'little England' for a feeling of security. Personally, I went for total immersion - drinking coffee from a bowl, croissants for breakfast, baguettes, working long hours, enjoying the city and buying primarily French goods. I did, however, work with some people who chose the opposite and entering their homes was like stepping over the English Channel. Tea, crumpets, sliced bread and the BBC World Service. While they obviously felt reassured by all these familiar things, I think they lost out on a lot of rewarding experiences.

It took a while to pick up the language to an extent where I was reasonably comfortable conversing with colleagues and even longer for strangers. The trick is to never give up and always try one's best. Accompanying stuttered half-phrases with a big smile and a willingness to learn works wonders in most situations, especially if the French person involved is having an equally difficult time with piecemeal English. Hilarity often ensues, provided one doesn't take oneself too seriously: I have a wonderful memory of a night in a local restaurant where between my partner (French), the staff (Italian), a group of tourists (Spanish) and me (English), we managed to translate the menu so we all understood. All of us were in tears by the time we finished, we laughed so hard.

Of course, living in another country has a down-side as well. The French government at the time was socialist, which meant that taxes were horrific. Regular union strikes every year caused havoc with travel and most other public services. The bureaucratic red tape in the country is unbelievable: for someone arriving from either the UK or the USA, it is stunningly inefficient and feels like being dropped into a very bad movie from the 1950s. The police are much less personable than our English bobbies. Hospitals - despite being very modern - sometimes leave one feeling almost violated and abused, as the staff seem more like civil servants than civil human beings. Maybe I was just unlucky in some of my experiences. It's hard to tell.

On the whole, though, my stay of over seven years in Paris was an entirely positive event. I gained in confidence, learned to speak a language properly and - above all - had my eyes opened to an entirely new culture, complete with history, traditions and all the tra-la-la.

France is a special place. I hadn't gone there with expectations of a laid-back, provincial lifestyle; nor of sitting in sidewalk cafés, sipping coffee and discussing poetry and philosophy; nor of wearing Armani suits and power-walking through the great, gleaming financial buildings. I had no expectations other than to see what Paris was like, and I was not disappointed. It's a metropolis. It's cosmopolitan. It has huge tower blocks, often standing within a stone's throw of wide open, green spaces. It has more historic monuments than you can wave a stick at, usually beautifully showcased by surrounding landscaping work. It has people from innumerable countries living shoulder-to-shoulder. It has busy, rushing workers who won't stop to give the time of day and owners of little shops who stand in the doorway of their boutique and chat for fifteen minutes about life, love and literature as one passes by. It has violence, crime, passion, romance, humanity, beauty, ugliness and - as its popular name says - light. Seeing Paris at night is an experience in itself.

I think the best way to sum up how much I enjoyed living in France is to recount my one trip back there, a month or so after returning to the UK. I went into my local supermarket to pick up some food and to say hello to the cashiers (always be nice to cashiers in any country - it's a horrible job). As I came into the store, one of them saw me and shouted a "Bonjour!" - at which point every single cashier stopped working and all joined in, much to the confusion of their customers. They stopped serving for a good five minutes while they asked me what I'd been up to. I felt like a film star. That's the French for you: warm, emotional and impossible to forget.