So Dave and I are sitting here side by side on our tiny little desk in our miniscule little apartment in Lyon, and he is laughing at me!!! I've been actually trying to post things on our blog for the last hour but my darn internet connection is making this so difficult. I tried to put up a picture, and it took 45 minutes. Then all I wanted to do was cut and paste a blog I wrote in Word, and here I am 20 minutes later still trying to get this paste thing to work in blogspot. It wasn't even giving me a box to put my blog INTO until just a minute ago. Oh yes, and did I mention all my menus have now switched to French somehow! And Dave mocks me. He says smirking, this never happens to me! I don't know why this keeps happening to you. I think I want to wring his neck....or someone's neck anyways! But, as I have heard so many times over the last month, "Welcome to France." Even the French know, you can pay for services, buy whatever you want, make as many phone calls pleading for help as you have the time for, but nothing ever really works quite right here in France. It's a good thing the French have such intellectual dispositions. Otherwise, the rest of us in the world would have to watch out. They'd be in a raging rampage all the time.
I had an epiphany this weekend. A girlfriend of mine from England came down to visit and we were showing her around. We took her to our favorite little creperie, and then to our favorite little cafe, and we walked around the adorable cobblestoned streets of old Lyon, and we strolled along the river Rhone. And it suddenly occurred to me...I live here! This is my little town to show my friend. I'm not just visiting. I know these streets. I have favorite haunts. I can read all the signs!!!! OMG, I actually live here. I think I'm a bit slow on the uptake. I think Dave figured that whole thing out about a month ago. But I guess it's better to realize these things later rather than never.
And so I've spent the last week feeling "at home." Doing things like, having breakfast in with my sweet hubby. Taking bus rides where I know I'll get lost so I can discover a new part of town. And getting mad as H**l at Swisscom for not being able to get my internet connection to work for 6 weeks now!!!! First there was no connection. Swisscom kept telling us help was on the way, but I think their guy got trapped in the Alps. He must have gotten brainfreeze up there too, because he fixed the connection so poorly, that no one in the apartment building can actually use the new connection with any success yet. There has to be a better way to get online! Okay, I'm worn out from all that energetic writing after struggling with our internet connection for an hour, so I'm going to bed. I'll post more pictures and stories later.
1 comment:
Monica, that's wonderful!!! :) All things take time to adjust and you are doing better than most people living in a foreign country.
I had the same "OMG, I live here now" moment back when I first came to the US. I was sitting in my junior high classroom one day, just a month after my arrival, something hit me that I was not visiting, but living here for the rest of my life. I panicked and thought "damn, I better learn English!" :) See, you are already further along in your settling. :)
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