On Being A Fish Out of Water

I love this blog entry, from petiteanglaise (pictured above, presumably).

Here is a sample, that I can personally relate to as an anglo-Quebecer:

I love speaking this language every day. The way I pout slightly when I do. My ‘French’ voice. The slightly different way my mind works, when I think in French.

I love the food, and the rituals which surround eating, making it a quasi-religious experience just to dip a pain au chocolat in a bowl of milky coffee. I love sitting on a terrasse and watching the world go by. France, to me, is about simple pleasures, and knowing how to appreciate them to the full.

I love the challenge of being a fish out of water – even if, nowadays, I am arguably more out of my element when I visit the UK. I may not get any genders wrong (although I might if there were any to get wrong), but I feel slightly out of step with British life. A decade behind, to be precise. I still walk into shops expecting things to cost what they did in 1995. I can’t work British payphones any more. And what on earth is BBC3?