Soon 2 years in Europe!!

I started my European discovery in August 2006, and soon it s gonna be the anniversary.

I want to summarise my 2 years' life here..... but, where to start?

Given up my MD job, came here to start new life. My adjustment has been quite smooth, for this, I have to thank thousand times my other half, and also my buddy who stays here for nearly 20 years. It was their explanations and advices that I got to enter the French world. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I am still far from being integrated. To me, I don't have to live like a French, but I should at least make an effort to really know the French.

Too much to say and it's getting late... I will do my best to continue my stories and updates from time to time.

Bonne nuit!!

1st August 2008:

To live in a foreign country, I find that the hardest is to make friends with the locals.

Sometimes, I try to strike a conversation with people: lining up to pay at the counter is the best occasion. Somehow it never works out well for me, the conversation comes very soon to an end. Perhaps I still do not express myself well enough in French and thus they feel tiring to continue a conversation after a while as I speak slower and probably not clear enough:p C'est loin d'etre gangé (still a long way to go)!

So, I have not made any new French friends here. My french friends remain those I had met in Malaysia, or friends of my boyfriend. I don't know if I should see this as a "failure", but I don't think that friendship should come along after a hard try..... That's not friendship anyway.

So, I make friends with foreigners in France. It works out extremely well! I hang out quite often with friends from Germany, Canada, USA, Malaysia, Vietnam, China etc... From a relational point of view, I am a fairly opened and easy going person, and try to make the person to whom I speak to at ease. Just a little hard to go about with the locals. It's a shame, I admit it. I would really treasure if I could have a couple of good local friends to exchange our viewpoints nad chill out from time to time.. but well, see what luck will bring me then!

What about colleagues? Oh French colleagues will remain "colleagues". A drink after work, well.... not in their tradition.... unless we change the working company. A different culture certainly.

Work wise.

The European work attitudes are generally: stand on your own feet. Whenever a task is being delivered to me, they would expect me to figure it out on my own. They welcome intelligent questions, that's clear. Well, I think that I was not used to search for answers myself as most of the time, those more experienced colleagues in Malaysia would come to my rescue when I get doubts. Here, I see no one to back me up. Moreover, due to my foreign worker status, I have to proof really hard that I am capable to deliver twice the work quality. Such a drastic change put me at times a great deal stress.

I guess I should talk about other experiences in separate posts, eg: travels, foods.....

Till then, happy reading!