Blog of the month - January 2009
Petite Anglaise
My name is Catherine. I'm British and I moved to Paris back in 1995. Like many Paris expats, I came here originally for just one year, and somehow never left. Now I’m married to a Frenchman and I have a half French daughter (fathered by another Frenchman, long story…)
I live in Belleville, which is in North East Paris, a fifteen minute metro ride from the centre of the city. It’s an interesting area, a bit of a cultural melting pot really, but also filled with artists’ ateliers and slowly becoming gentrified as the bourgeois bohemians (like me) are taking it over. Belleville is a patchwork, there are ugly high-rise apartment buildings, but also quiet cobbled streets which have a villagey feel to them. I love living here. It’s down to earth and far more interesting than the beaux quartiers.
Have you ever lived abroad before?
As part of my university studies, I had to spend time in both France and Germany. I taught English in Normandy, then worked in a hotel in Lindau, on lake Constance in Germany. That was an experience. I left my appendix in a German hospital while I was there.
Why did you choose to live in Paris?
France was an obsession of mine from a young age. I fell in love with the French language when I began lessons at school at the age of 11 and fantasized about going there from that moment on. It’s not exactly far from the UK, but it took me several years to get myself there, as my family didn’t go abroad much.
I finally visited Lyon to stay with a pen friend when I was 17, and luckily the experience lived up to my very high expectations! Three years later, I spent a teaching year in Rouen, Normandy on the third year of my language degree.
But Paris was the destination I fantasized about most, and after visiting the city for a few days while living in Rouen, I was adamant I would make it my home as soon as I finished university.
How is the cultural shock?
I think I suffer from culture shock more when I go back to the UK now. I’ve spent my whole adult working life here, and I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable returning to my native land. It took me several years to find my niche and make French friends, but on the whole, I feel more at home here than anywhere else nowadays.
Do you miss anything from your homeland?
Family – who would love to see more of my daughter as she grows up, but have to settle for a long weekend every two or three months.
Food I rue the day that Marks and Spencer closed down their Paris branches. Now I have to go without my baked beans and I rarely find a good mature Cheddar cheese or any Branston pickle.
When did you start your blog?
I started an anonymous blog in July 2004, setting out to write an account of my day to day life as a Brit in Paris as a hobby really as I was bored in my secretarial job and spending a lot of evenings home alone. It’s evolved a lot over the years. In 2006, my employer fired me for allegedly blogging on the job, and after the story traveled around the world, I was asked to write a book based on my blog, which has been published in several countries and languages. It’s been harder to continue writing it now that I’m no longer anonymous, but it’s still very much a part of my life.
Did you make new friends with your blog?
Lots of friends. One of the unexpected upsides to blogging was that I quickly made contact with a whole host of other blogging expats. A group of anglo-americans started meeting in bars and organizing picnics, and today I’d say the majority of people I socialize with I met through my blog. At one point, I had an ill-advised relationship with a guy I met in the comments box, too. It’s cheaper than using an online dating site!
When did you register on expat-blog.com?
I just had a look through my gmail and apparently I registered back in 2005, just after Julien set up his new project. I thought it was a great idea. So many of the people who write personal blogs do so because they are using them as a forum to explore their feelings about a new home country and share their experiences with their distant families. It makes a lot of sense to bring these people together.
Any 'memories of an expat' you would like to share with other bloggers?
My favourite subjects on the blog often involve my daughter, who I refer to as Tadpole. Watching her grow up and learn how to master both French and English is a constant source of amusing material. I don’t think I can pull one standout expat memory out of the air out of five years of posts, though! Too difficult! Read the archives, instead ;-)
