The Move

Well, it’s finally official, I’ve managed to weasel a job offer out of a company located in France and I’ll be moving there next month.

Let’s just get this out of the way… Yes, it’s a good thing, and No, I won’t be leaving the blog.

The last few months have been stressful and exciting all at the same time while I tried to finalize all the various aspects of my job and life. The to-do list has been immense and included such wonderful objectives as: sell a house, get a new house (in a new country), learn French, teach the kids French, pack up a house, sell a car, buy a car, (in a new country), to name a few. Inbetween all that excitement I was doing my regular job and somewhat contributing the blog.

What have I learned so far…

The French language is ridiculously complicated. I’m lucky in the fact that the letters and numbers are the same as English symbols and not far eastern glyphs. But after that, it’s a maze of pronunciation, punctuation, and new thought processes.

French houses are much smaller than American houses. This should have been obvious from the start but you can’t imagine how much smaller until you go there. I was actually very, very lucky and got a house… but it still doesn’t have a single closet. Or shower curtain… but that’s another story.

Finally, it’s amazing how narrow minded people on both sides of the pond really are. I cannot even begin to tell you how many have asked me, “So, are they making you go to France?”

Seriously, why would that question even occur to you? I live by the old adage, if I say one of my brilliant ideas out loud and it sounds bad, then it most likely is. Sports teams and fraternities provide the best examples of this theory. Example #1, a football coach: Little Bobby claims to be hurt. I think he’s faking it. It’s 100 degrees outside but we’ll toughen him up by putting him in the electrical closet at the stadium. Say that out loud. “Put him in an electrical closet.” Sound bad? Yeah it does so it’s probably a bad idea.

So, if I announce, with a smile on my face, that I am moving to France, your first response should not be… “Really. Wow I’m sorry to hear that. Who did you piss off?” It should be “Congratuations!”… then you may ask if I drank to much wine when I accepted the offer.