Homesick in France! Help
Apr 28th 2008, 1:36 pm
#125
Just Joined
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 5
Re: Homesick in France! Help
Hi there Bec
We're just down the road from you in La Rochelle - couple in their 30s with a young daughter - 2. We've been here nearly 6 years, and our first year was very rocky. We nearly left many times!
Things are good, but we too miss friends of more or less our own age. Get in touch if you fancy a meet up!
Hope that things are better for you - it's amazing, as one previous respondant said, how good it is to make decent friends and share some laughs and glasses of wine.
We have some great French friends, but to be completely honest - as you have - we never feel completely 100% at ease with French people. Not because they aren't really kind, well-meaning, warm people, but because there are barriers that will always be there - the language is one (even if you speak French well, it is still an effort if it is your 2nd language) - and there tends to be a formality to French occasions that we don't encounter in England so much when we go back...even having an apero tends to be quite an involved experience where everyone has to greet everyone else in the official, appropriate way, then sit in front of their empty glass for however long it takes for all drinks to be poured (sometimes an hour or two) and everyone to be ready to "cheers" each other... Many would argue this is a lovely way to be, but to my own tastes, it is not quite as relaxed as I'd like to be with friends.
We have a great party at our house every summer and invite loads of friends - English, Irish, French - the lot. La Rochelle has quite a buzz about it, thanks partly to good old Corrigans Irish Pub where you can meet everyone else who is homesick!
Listen - take care, and get in touch if you want to.
Kindest regards
Jeremy and Lorraine Millington, and little Ciara (pronounced Keira)
We're just down the road from you in La Rochelle - couple in their 30s with a young daughter - 2. We've been here nearly 6 years, and our first year was very rocky. We nearly left many times!
Things are good, but we too miss friends of more or less our own age. Get in touch if you fancy a meet up!
Hope that things are better for you - it's amazing, as one previous respondant said, how good it is to make decent friends and share some laughs and glasses of wine.
We have some great French friends, but to be completely honest - as you have - we never feel completely 100% at ease with French people. Not because they aren't really kind, well-meaning, warm people, but because there are barriers that will always be there - the language is one (even if you speak French well, it is still an effort if it is your 2nd language) - and there tends to be a formality to French occasions that we don't encounter in England so much when we go back...even having an apero tends to be quite an involved experience where everyone has to greet everyone else in the official, appropriate way, then sit in front of their empty glass for however long it takes for all drinks to be poured (sometimes an hour or two) and everyone to be ready to "cheers" each other... Many would argue this is a lovely way to be, but to my own tastes, it is not quite as relaxed as I'd like to be with friends.
We have a great party at our house every summer and invite loads of friends - English, Irish, French - the lot. La Rochelle has quite a buzz about it, thanks partly to good old Corrigans Irish Pub where you can meet everyone else who is homesick!
Listen - take care, and get in touch if you want to.
Kindest regards
Jeremy and Lorraine Millington, and little Ciara (pronounced Keira)
