July 2020

The French are quite formal at work, unless they really are with close workmates who they have worked with a long time or are super stressed.

“Nous sommes obligés de reformer tout le monde” “We need to retrain everyone,” said one of the senior managers, conversationally as I arrived back at work, my first day after some holidays. Retrain everyone meant retrain 2000 people.

“Tu te fous de ma gueule?!” I blurted out without thinking.

He seemed a little taken aback. Rightly, as it turned out.

“Je vois que tu as enrichi ton vocabulaire pendant tes congés” “I see you have enriched your vocabulary on your holidays.”

I quickly corrected myself. “Uhhhhh tu te fous de moi? Tu te moque de moi?”

“Non. Je ne te moque pas.”

I’d just blurted out the equivalent of “Are you f***ing kidding me ?” To a senior manager. instead of the more sedate “Are you kidding me? You’re making fun of me?”

I got him back though. He went on leave for a while. We were working together on our laptops in a meeting room when he, speaking perfect English with his lovely French accent, stared at his screen and blurted out loudly:

“Ferking ‘ell!”

Quick as a flash I couldn’t help but jump in with “I see you have enriched your English vocabulary on your holidays.” Fortunately this didn’t turn out to be a career limiting move and he laughed.

Hard to believe it’s been nearly four months since COVID19 hit Europe but there it is. I’ve been enjoying the renewed sense of freedom that has come with, first, the opening of France to itself and then the opening of the Schengen borders as of 22 June. France opened its borders to 14 countries without the need for quarantine – including New Zealand. So guys, you can come visit me so long as you’re prepared to do two weeks’ quarantine back in NZ afterwards. I will need to accept that I’ll be taking an extra two week’s unpaid leave when I come to NZ to visit. If I can even get through any transit borders.

There’s been a flurry of annual leave requests for summer, boosted by the fact that it’s actually illegal not to take two weeks’ leave in one block if you have it, between 31 May and 31 October. Plus another two weeks to be taken in the same time period as you wish. Summer holidays are taken very seriously here.

They’ll be summer holidays with a difference. It’s my personal opinion that Covid is here to stay until there is a vaccine. It is simply something we live alongside now. Travel will look very different from now on. It’ll be more expensive for a while as transporters try to recover their costs and maintain distancing rules. Tourist attractions will be online booking only, with obligatory masks and hand sanitiser. In fact, masks and hand sanitiser will remain compulsory in any enclosed space, railway stations, airports, restaurants, and the like. There’ll be very little paper to touch (few restaurant menus) – good for the environment – and lots of social distancing at work. No handshakes, bisous (kisses), hugs (the french aren’t big huggers anyway, but I am) except with your “proches” – your friends and family. In some ways it is nice not to have my precious personal space invaded on public transport but I do miss touch.

We live in fear of the dreaded second wave which we see unfolding before us in some countries in the world. But it seems a second wave will be more like cluster management with targeted lockdowns to prevent the bigger second wave predicted for September/October.

Now it’s time to enjoy the first week of my summer holidays when I go exploring in Austria. It’s a great time to be exploring your own country/continent with no real crowds. I’ve washed plenty of masks to pack and have refilled my stock of hand sanitiser. This is the new normal.

So it’s time to sign off from these COVID updates and switch to what this blog really was about – the path that led an empty nester to pack up and move overseas to live the expat life. There’s the culture cock-ups made, the discoveries of unknown villages that turn out to be a complete delight, and of course the food.

You’ll meet various people along the way , some who I treasure, some I don’t. They all have a story, sometimes blessed, other times just plain hard and you can see the remnants of it in their eyes and in their beer glass at 10:30am on a Sunday morning. The online expat community – people you’ve never actually met but if you were having such a rough time that you needed to, the FB message tree would be working overtime and someone would come to you. That and all the hilarious memes they post that keep you sane.

It seems to others that this is a glamorous life and I know I won’t get any sympathy from NZers if I start complaining that the three hour journey between two European cities really is the pits. But it’s not all its cracked up to be. Things that were simple to do in NZ are twenty times harder because you are relearning how to do everything. Everything. Living with anxiety and perimenopausal hormones doesn’t help but it does make for some light entertainment every now and then.

You are torn in different directions mentally. On the one hand, there’s the reality slap of knowing your “home” country, beautiful though it is, isn’t really a place you enjoy living with its extreme weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, and quiet life. On the other, there’s the fact that you miss the familiarity of life there and your family and friends so much you are actually in physical and emotional pain on a fairly regular basis.

No, it is not for the faint-hearted (which I discovered I had – that’s a story for another time) but being a bit of a free spirit who loves adventures, opening up the world to others, meeting people of different cultures, and exploring – wanderlusting – for now this is the life I choose to lead. Future Me will thank me for it.

Learn the polite way to be cross

Four months on: The End…for now