The thing about living in a foreign country is that most of the new friends you get in that country are foreigners themselves too. When we lived in the US, most of our friends were Dutch (which is actually horrible to admit) and many of them (including us, obviously) have in the meantime moved back to Holland or to other countries.
Here in France we found some great new friends and neighbors, a better mix of nationalities this time: German, Spanish, French, English, American and yes, a Dutch one too...
Our German neighbors moved into our apartment building a week after we did, a little over three years ago. We immediately got along very well - dinners, BBQ's, joint outings, etc. followed. We took care of mail and plants when either of us was on vacation, and I took care of their baby during work hours for the 6 week-period between the end of her maternity leave and the opening of their company's daycare center.
Today, they moved back to Germany. He got another position at his company. I'm sure we'll stay in touch, but it won't be the same. I hate to see them go, they are really great and very sweet people. A British friend also announced last week that she'll be leaving town, and moving to Luxembourg this summer...
Oh well, that's the expat life I guess... even though we're not real expats (not send by a company in our home country to work somewhere else for 3-5 years), since my hubby is on a local contract and so it's entirely up to us how long we stay in France. For the moment we have no intention of moving again any time soon and hopefully our remaining friends here will stick around a little longer too.
1 comment:
hoping more pals stick around, too.
And thanking you for your recent thoughts and well wishes. So appreciate them.
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