living in France

So when I moved to England 8 years ago (was it really that long ago) the UNM group that organized my exchange told me that I will experience very high highs and very low lows.  And they were right.  I did, but in the end I had a great time made great friends and in general had a great experience.  This time around I thought I was ready because I had lived in England and because I wanted to learn the language.  Wow - how wrong I was.  This time around is much much harder and I go through phases of depression that make it hard to do things.  Between this and the fact that doing anything in french (especially the first time) at least 10x harder it  can be very hard to be motivated to do things.  Of course all this is effected by the fact that I have been married for 3 months and have yet to live with my wife (aside from our ~3 week honey moon and a couple trips to see each other).

However, I am making friends and doing exciting things.  I have a couple groups of friends I like to hangout with. (Actually I need to give a couple of them a call today).  I have been to Paris 3 or 4 times, been to London, and Berlin,  went to a workship in Swisserland,  been climbing in the Alps, canoed down the Ardeche (sp) river, and am returning to Hambourg for the second time next week.  Not to mention that my french is getting better.  When I have the energy (aka not depressed or sick or too lonely  for my wife) I can talk a slow pretty broken French - enough to open up a bank account.  So there are the highs that make up for the lows.

Beth (my wife) and have talked about this acclimation to living in a new place.  Even if it is just across the country it takes time to get comfortable and make friends and adjust.  Of course I do think that living internationally speeds up the process a little bit which is good, but of course does make it a bit more painful.
 So while I think it is a little tough sometimes (mixed in with the good times) I think when I leave I will miss it and will want to stay.  Of course the whole bit about getting comfortable in France will get a lot easier when I finally move in with my lovely, smart, funny, beautiful, caring, prankster of a wife.

So this is just me just downloading some thoughts I have been having  - almost blog like if you will - sorta to clear the attic and so I am not tagging anyone but if you read it i hope you keep that in mind.  - Have a nice day!

(And this is the last (actually it was posted first) post copied from Facebook - it had some good comments too but alas I was too lazy to transfer them)