Recently I received an email from Americans in Toulouse promoting an upcoming happy hour for their members. Jean-Jacques and I had joined about 6 months ago because their website was a good source of info regarding moving to France and in particular the Toulouse area. I am not a big fan of these kinds of expat get togethers but since we don’t know a lot of people here in Toulouse we decided to go.
It was held at the Crown Plaza Hotel bar right on the Place du Capitole. Nice location but I was leary of going to a hotel bar. I mean when you are in a city like Toulouse and there are many cute bars, cafes, and brasseries why go to a hotel bar?
Try to be positive anyway. Well we walked through the door and went back towards the bar. It looked like any crappy hotel bar you might find in Cleveland or Topeka except that here we were in France.
You are just here to meet a few people, speak a little English, and maybe network a little, don’t over process the whole thing. Too late, I think. First of all, it was louder than any bar or cafe than I had been in since being in France. Why are Americans so loud? Dorothy, are we back in Philadelphia. Relax, the drinks are half price 6:30-8:30 everything can’t be perfect.
I ordered both of us a drink and the total was 15€. I had Jean-Jacques check with the bartender, was that really half price? Would the drinks have otherwise cost 30€? No, the drinks are normally 9€ but today for the FEU club meeting, it was not an AIT event, they were 7,25€. Okay, so the email said half price and I was counting on half price so I was disappointed but negativity hadn’t crept in yet, sort of.
The club throwing the happy hour party was actually France Etats Unis, FEU, and not AIT. Not that I really care. I don’t know one from the other. I was just hoping to meet some of the people I had emailed and spoken to on the phone. We settled at the bar to savor our overpriced drinks, I was thinking of drinking mine with an eyedropper just to make it last.
Watching the scene unfold in front of us was like seeing a standard scene in a movie where the characters, weary traveling businessmen usually, gather round a hotel bar schmoozing. An ugly hotel bar though, how can this be the interior of one of the buildings lining the Place? I couldn’t help but think why anyone would come to France to live exactly the way they lived back in the States. I thought, who likes things like this? I guess a lot of people because they all seemed to be having fun. Always an outsider looking in.
This is not my tribe. I came with an open mind but left disappointed. I don’t care where you went to school, what you do, how long you have lived in Toulouse or when you are going home. I want to know what kind of a person my friends are. I want to know what makes you tick, how you have fun, provocative things about you, your contradictions, your fears, etc.
I’m sure we’ll find our tribe, as Alejandro and Viviana say, but I think it won’t be this way. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
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I but I think that you found better than AIT which is mainly “family” oriented.
My main objection was that the evening was geared towards networking. Maybe I should try to do such things but when I go out I want to have fun not schmooze. Live and learn
We were introduced to some people from our local chapter of FEU when we moved here. They were actually French people that are Americanophiles. We begged off going to events and meetings because they’re 45 minutes away (in Blois) and because we’re not really joiners.
Hanging out with fellow expats is not why we moved to France. While it can be fun once in a while, we did not want to fall into an American ghetto. We want to live in France, not an American enclave.
Sounds like you’ve got the right attitude.
I mean if we left left the US because we became unhappy with it why would we spend so much time recreating an American enclave? Once in a while I’m sure I will want to do it but not very often.
I contacted AIT after reading some of the very information on their website. But the first thing they asked was for me to send them money to join their “club”. Then, after investigating their information further, I found that a lot of it wasn’t all that accurate. Like you, I believe it’s mainly an “I’m an American, you’re an American, we should hang out together” kind of thing. And it’s definitely geared to straights. Needless to say, we did NOT contact them when we were in Toulouse.
Oops, put a “good” between ‘very’ and ‘information.’
You can read it without the good and it makes sense too.
I do get the feeling it is geared towards “families” but we’ll see. We have been invited to an evening of board games. Once in a while I don’t mind. I love playing pictionary with people from all over the world because you never know what their drawings are going to look like. It can be very funny and amusing. I hope it is not just a bunch of Americans.
I found their info a little out of date myself. There is a link in the blogs I read section to samdebretagne.blogspot.com and she seems to know everything there is about getting VISA’s and all the administrative requirements. If you have any need I would look at her blog and even ask her questions.
another interesting blog to read is the link for Lost in France. He publishes gay guides for the Toulouse region. He is far more knowledgeable than I for what is happening around Toulouse.
I’ve been told that many people who join AIT work for Airbus, since Airbus is the equivalent of Lockheed Martin in the US, I can only imagine how I wouldn’t see eye to eye with some of these people. I can really get along with people who have different views than I but I can’t see spending too much time at the moment cultivating relationships.
Anyway, I’m open to a lot of things and we need to make some more friends so I am game. I think I will spend more effort making friends with the people in my French classes. Brazil, China, Spain, Venezuela, Panama, Australia, Russia, Germany, Colombia, all the countries represented in the class, it reminds me much more of the Bay Area where we lived before our horrible experience in Philadelphia.
There are alot of Americans here from the food/agriculture industry as well. Some of them are very conservative.
I find the people at FEU more openminded.
As to Walt’s comment, I suppose the concern is not as great for those of us in Franco-American couples.
I guess there really is no substitute for having friendships develop organically over time. You can never rush or force things like that.
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