De Tessan - Expat: womens true tales of life abroad

Edited by Christina Henry de Tessan

Seal Press

EXPAT

WOMENS TRUE TALES OF LIFE ABROAD

Seal Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
1700 Fourth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710

Copyright 2002 by Christina Henry de Tessan

First Seal Press edition 2002

Interior design by Sue Canavan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without witten permission from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

De Tessan, Christina Henry.

Expat : womens true tales of life abroad / by Christina Henry de Tessan.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-58005-520-8

1. Women travelers--Anecdotes. 2. Voyages and travels--Anecdotes. 3. AmericansForeign countries--Anecdotes. 4. Travelers writings, American. I. Title.

G465.E96 2002

910.40922--dc21

2002510343

9 8 7

Contents

Gina Hyams

Tonya Ward Singer

Rhiannon Paine

Deryn P. Verity

Leza Lowitz

Emily Wise Miller

Mandy Dowd

Angeli Primlani

Laura Fokkena

Karen Rosenberg

Stephanie Loleng

Meg Wirth

Juleigh Howard-Hobson

Kate Baldus

Emmeline Chang

Eliza Bonner

Marci Laughlin

Christina Henry de Tessan

Lesley-Ann Brown

Erica Jacobs

Sadie Ackerman

Julie van Arcken

Acknowledgments

An anthology is a true collaborative effort. First and foremost, I want to thank the contributors for their spirited stories, as well as their endless patience and goodwill, even as I asked for just one more round of revisions. This book would very simply not exist without them. This collection also benefited greatly from the shrewd guidance of my editor and friend Leslie Miller. Many thanks to my family, for nurturing the travel bug in me, to Ninive and Elizabeth, for believing I could do it, and of course, to Rick, for just about everything, but especially, for taking a leap of faith and running away to Paris with me and for keeping the home fires burning (quite literally) as I put this collection together.

Better be imprudent movables than prudent fixtures.

Keats

To Rick, my very favorite imprudent movable

My mother was born on a ranch in the Arizona desert. She loves France. My father was born in Paris and fell in love with the Wild West. While my dad loves nothing more than galloping around on horseback in search of stray cattle, Mom loves getting to know the cheese man in her neighborhood when she visits Paris. So although life at home in San Francisco was always a very fine thing, I was raised on the idea that foreign places were the stuff of real magic. Travel somehow allowed room for a fantasy that real life did not leave much time for, and my parents adventures always seemed wonderfully romantic. They sheltered themselves from tropical storms in Guatemala with sombrilla de pobre leaves (poor mans umbrellas), sampled guinea pig in Peru, raced across potholed roads through Portugals groves of cork trees, picked up hitchhikers swathed in flowing robes and adorned with curved daggers in Morocco. Their photos told tales of fantastically different-looking places: Dad playing checkers with the local villagers in Senegal, Mom climbing to the top of Tiqual, Pragues Charles Bridge on a snowy evening. The unknown (and the more obscure the better) had a mystique all its own, and I couldnt help but get swept up in the fervor of it. I, too, became addicted to stepping out of the rut of day-to-day life and testing myself far from the familiar and comfortable routines of home. But even as I strayed further off the beaten track, I always returned home to the States after a few adventurous weeks. It was never enough. Eventually, I began to wonder what it would be like to take travel to its furthest extremeand move someplace to live. After all, if one loves to travel, then isnt living abroad a natural extension of that passion?

So I went to Parisand lived in poorly insulated, renovated maids quarters on the ninth floor of an ancient building overlooking the chimneys and rooftops for over a year. I befriended the local merchants, learned to cope with French colleagues and became a regular in obscure North African restaurants. I sighed impatiently when the tourists descended upon the city in the spring. I explored beyond the glittering surface and became a local, commuting to a nine-to-five job in the icy northern European rain and reveling in the now-familiar signs of spring as the chestnuts along the Seine released their pale green leaves. All of this was heady stuff, and I loved it. But I also learned there was an unexpected dimension to living abroad that I hadnt considered before going, one my parents hadnt taught me and that I had to discover on my own. I hadnt given more than a fleeting thought to the good old-fashioned loneliness that cropped up. I no longer had the familiar clutch of friends to call and debrief with at the end of a long day. Accustomed to being efficient, competent, articulate, and able to navigate the various logistics of American life, in Paris I was often flummoxed: by doctors, medical insurance, renters taxes, voice mail, the laundromat and that wretched foreign keyboard which turned all my letters to gibberish.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. Was it what Id expected? Not always. Living overseas, I learned, was not the same as traveling there. And so, I became curious: how did others fare when they left to make their home in a different country? What was it like to try to gain a foothold in a foreign place, and why did they want to? And finally, how did the dream match up to the reality for them?