Decades ago a company in my town with a lot of British expats set up a schedule so that the summer vacations would be staggered – only a few members of expat staff could be gone at the same time. The person in charge came up with a plan with one set leaving June 1 – July 1, the next set left June 15 – July 15, through to the last set: August 1 to Sept. 1. And being British, the schedules were labeled “hols 1” [meaning June 1 – July 1], “hols 2” [June 15 – July 15], etc. so everyone used those terms for explaining their summer plans by saying things like, “We’re hols 3, but poor Eustacina got hols 5 this year, the worst, and it means we won’t see her for 2 months.”
Now all of this was bewildering for newbies, but they quickly learned to get with the program and, in time, people left that company and moved to other places. Which is why you can still meet older expats who refer to the month of July as “hols 3,” to the confusion of everyone else.
I love this story as it is a good example of how hyper-local knowledge is – I think the sooner you realize that you will seldom understand what is going on around you, the better. And you need to know as that as soon as you start to ‘get’ how to behave, you will end up someplace new with entirely different rules.
Every time I go “home” I am lost – what is this with the putting honey in coffee? And why is everyone taking gummy vitamins? In 2021, the strictest Covid protocols were in place and in 2022, all the protocols were gone.
The two most unrealistic parts of Ted Lasso, season 2, are that falling in a canal will get you fished out by a handsome airline pilot and Ted fitting right back in when he returned home. Falling in a canal will get you a severe cold, if not severe diseases, and going home is always difficult.
At home, I once asked a nurse for a blanket while I was sitting in the waiting room because I was cold and was amazed that she refused. No blankets? But of course there are blankets! Another time, as the nurse was filling out the in-take form, I said where I worked and how long I had worked there, then I said my marital status and place of birth. The nurse looked at me and said, “We don’t need to know that.” Astounding – overseas nurses always have blankets on hand and want to know every detail of my life.
Being at home is the surprise of realizing you understand the conversation at the next table, and that the waiter understands you. It means having the right kind of mustard appear by magic and getting your hamburger cooked exactly the way you want it.
But it means an eerie sci-fi movie feeling when walking through a city: everyone looks the same, everyone dresses the same, everyone speaks the same language, no one makes eye contact.
There’s freedom in wearing short skirts and fear in remembering that I need to keep my purse closed and next to me at all times – freedom in messy hair and worry about walking alone at night. I am happy to be (at last!) in a good bakery and I worry about how my house and garden are doing.
Darling, one has to enjoy (and cope with) what’s in front of you, as you will never get all the parts to fit into a cohesive, magical whole. I will never be able to have a proper viennoiserie in my tropical garden and will never be able to have a four-hour chat over coffee at home.
(Speaking of which darling, when you are in France, go to a bakery and ask for a ‘Napoleon,” the French hate that their beloved mille-feuille has a nickname in English and, whatever else is going on in the world, it is always fun and fair to tease the French.)
Bon voyage!
How To Behave - Etiquette Central 