Here I am, at the Geneva airport, waiting to board my flight home to Montreal. My first trip of 2017: done.
A last minute request from head office brought me to Paris for work. I never knew it was possible to love a job/career/company as much as I do mine. Sure, there are aspects of it that drive me nuts, definitely there are some tasks that numb my soul, but what job doesn’t include that? Overall, I believe in what I do, respect my company, am thrilled by the coworkers I am meeting. This is good stuff.
I love work trips because they allow me to see past the perfect veil of tourist traveling. My favorite part is listening to my French coworkers as they sit for their déjeuner at the company cantine – their expressions, their topics of conversation, their customs, the nuances between France French and Québec French. Noticing the tiny differences between our cultures. I’m aware of how they differ from us, from all my interactions with the French immigrant population in Montreal – it’s the topics of memes and endless jokes. But it is jolting to become aware of how they deem that I (we) are different from them, when I am on their land.
My love affair with France grows stronger with each visit. And with the backdrop of American turmoil shedding gloom over the world (I won’t even attempt to describe the pervasive mépris the French feel for Americans & American politics right now), walking the streets of Paris, seeing everywhere the juxtaposition of past and present, the scars of battles won and lost on buildings that are older than the entire North American continent (as per Western historical chronology) continues to make me feel that weird mix of sorrow and joy – I feel alive. This post from my trip in June resonates again and again.
I took the TGV Friday after work to go visit my friend in Lausanne for a mini weekend getaway. She is Canadian and was my coworker back in my audit days: I worked with her on several of my most intense mandates. I always admired her for her intelligence, beauty, drive and efficiency. 4.5 years ago, she moved to Switzerland to marry her Swiss-Canadian boyfriend; they now have a beautiful toddler, live in a house with a view of Lake Geneva and radiate happiness. While her first years in Switzerland were filled with homesickness, she now loves it. The fresh air, the quality of life, the absence of all the North American noise and consumerism. She says she has time to breathe and look around her.
And boy, oh boy, is there ever a lot to see.
With every visit to Europe, my Dream grows stronger: I will live here one day. I must. My soul demands it.
Discovering ratchet 
Europe sounds like a dream come true, though I guess the thought of having people sit over there and judge us American’s based on our politics, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. My husband’s mothers side of his family are all living in Hungry, and we want to travel there so badly … but I’ll be damned if I’m going to travel to Europe and be disrespected because of my American breeding.
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Hahhaa, well then you will never go. They have had that contempt since the dawn of time… les “nouveaux-riches” and all that.
Tho, specifically now, the contempt is because of the President, and a collective judgment against the population for allowing their democracy to be compromised. Which… as opposed to the more general snobby tendencies they have is at least an opinion that is more easily defended.
(Doesnt mean they aren’t hypocrites seeing as several of their countries no longer meet the definition of “fully democratic” by the EIU, but such is human nature, right? Judge others, but not oneself…)
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