A cocktail of opportunities and challenges.
- Exciting, weird, lost, fun, scary, adventurous.
- Mentally tough. Fascinating. Fractured and thrilling.
- Interesting. Lonely. Lovely. Frustrating. Never Boring.
- Steep learning curves with no comfort zone.
I went to the International Women’s Club (IWC) last night and was really amazed at the nations represented just in Clermont-Ferrand alone! Brazil, Vietnam, France, England, Ireland, India, Canada…along with a few Americans. Young, old, all over the spectrum. Their stories are fascinating – attending boarding schools as children, families of diplomats, living in the Orient for decades, raising children, missing families, and some living here after retirement – they just decided to stay!
There’s the British woman who married a Frenchman years ago and her mother still refuses to acknowledge him because he’s FRENCH – and Catholic. The Indian woman who lived in Thailand for years. The French woman who lived in an Iowa university town with her husband for a decade, LOVED it, and said it took years to readjust to living in France again – her home country!
Now – for comparison – the United States is vast as well as ethnically AND culturally diverse. Because of our beginnings as the land of opportunity, ‘the new world’, we continue to be the biggest melting pot! According to PewResearch.org, the United States leads the world in total immigrant population with more than 46 million immigrants, which is nearly 20% of the world’s total immigrant population.
Being an expat IS strange and different and unusual – compared to what I’m used to. Being American doesn’t mean a specific culture or ‘type.’ To say to an international group that you are an American is only part of the story. Your STORY is actually ‘I’m from the South, y’all,’ or ‘I’m from Nu’ Joi-see,’ or ‘hey, dude, I’m like from LA….,” or “Boomer Sooner!” 🙂 We eat Sushi and Tex-Mex. We have Indian casinos in the West, world leading aerospace industry in the Northeast, and world-class skiing in Colorado. We are the land of Las Vegas, Paula Dean, South by Southwest, Bassnectar, Silicon Valley, and the Pioneer Woman.
It’s a big world out there and we all have our stories to tell!
The store on the left here is owned by the Ponson family, cutlery artists for six unbroken generations. We had a nice conversation in French with the 5th generation father (artisan) and his wife (in charge of sales!). The short walk around town was fascinating, with many stores having active workshops inside to hand make custom pieces with elk horn, ivory, and exotic wood handles or engraved blades with ornate pictures. These pieces are gorgeous – and not inexpensive.
by men laying on their stomachs for 12-14 hours at a time, honing the blades in the water on grist wheels that were turned by the power of the current. The knife makers were frequently left crippled by the physical position they had to maintain in terrible conditions, and many died or were maimed due to the wheels breaking. 
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Produce from Spain
and France.
Fried pork fat.
Feet. Head cheese (a loaf made from the head and flesh of the animal. Really.) 
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