Bonjhola

EP 80: French Weddings, Spanish Scouts, and Easy Buttons Like Printers

• Rebecca West

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Welcome to Bon Jola, a podcast about two women, Amy and Rebecca, who each move from the United States to Europe to become expats. Amy to Spain and Rebecca to France. We're here to share the highs, the lows, and the logistics of this adventure. Encourage you to follow your own, move abroad dreams, and remind you that you're not alone when the going gets tough. Enjoy.

Aimee:

Rebecca,

Rebecca:

Angela, Amy,

Aimee:

I wanna hear all about the wedding you went to.

Rebecca:

I know I finally got to go to a normal French thing, although ironically it was a British friend marrying a French guy, so it was only half French, but it was so cool. Um, should I just dive into the story or

Aimee:

yeah. This is the woman that you went to the Hamam with a while ago, right.

Rebecca:

Yes, and she and I have been to the Hamam three times, the last of which was for her bachelorette celebration.

Aimee:

Nice.

Rebecca:

okay, where do we begin? So the, I guess the main interesting first fact is that in order to get married in France, you get married at the city hall. You are not picking up a license. You get married at the city hall. I assume that there are some people who also have a big fancy church wedding or something, but France is a very, what's the word? When it's not religious, secular,

Aimee:

Secular. Mm-hmm.

Rebecca:

a very secular society. So my impression is people just get married at city Hall and you're done, and then you have a dinner or whatever for friends. But I didn't know anything other than it will be at the city hall. I didn't know what to wear, what to expect or anything. So here is

Aimee:

So anyone who's invited to the wedding is basically invited to go down to City Hall to watch the bureaucratic process take place.

Rebecca:

that's what it sounds like in your head, doesn't it? Because city halls in the states are, you know, just barely one notch less sad than the DMV.

Aimee:

Right.

Rebecca:

Yeah, well, no, we're in Paris folks. So the first thing is, of course, as you're walking up to the city hall, each adi, each neighborhood has its own. This was in the 10th or the 11th. Can't remember. But you're walking up to this gorgeous building. This one was built in 1896, and it's gorgeous. Just like I just said, I mean, you know, you are just walking up to this monumental thing that inspires you to feel like you're going somewhere important. That's, that's what architecture can do when it's done well. And so you walk in through a little bit of normal security, like at any city hall, and I was a bit nervous and confused. And so they said one word to my confused, obviously not French face, which was, and then I took like three seconds to register the word and then I went,'Oui!', and they're like, yes. And shoved me along. So I walk into this great big building with lofted ceilings and skylights. There's just light that floods into the space. I mean, I picture like a, a really pretty train station. That's probably the best an American can do if they haven't experienced this. Um, and then because I'm an American, I was a hundred percent. Five minutes early and about 25 minutes earlier than anybody else. So the invite said to show up or to congregate in the lobby of city Hall at three 10, that the ceremony would take place at I think, three 40, that the ceremony would run 15 to 20 minutes, and that we would all then go have champagne at a cafe down the street after. So I didn't wanna be late, so I was early and that's fine. So I just sat on the steps inside the lobby waiting for everybody and we obviously weren't the only wedding happening, so there were people dressed up in basically like nice church clothing, like if you're going to church, but it's for a, a special event at church. And it was nice to see that people definitely were dressing for the wedding, just like you normally would. slowly the guests trickled in and I had met some of them at the Hamam, so I had some friends to chat with who were English speaking, which was also nice. And then everybody, including the grooms, just milling about in the lobby. We saw the bride outside and it was like 90 degrees outside. So I was so worried about her melting. She wore a really pretty full length pink. Gown with a tiered skirt, kind of like a wedding cake. Oh, so pretty. And this gal, she's a musician. She is like six feet tall, very tall,

Aimee:

Oh

Rebecca:

pale as can possibly be, and she has her hair dyed a platinum blonde, short, short, pixie cut, platinum blonde. So she's just statuesque in this gorgeous dress. Hanging out outside city hall waiting for the bureaucracy to do its thing, which in our last episode we all know doesn't move at a fast rate. So maybe 10 minutes later than expected, somebody was told something by some bureaucrat and we all sort sort of start walking up the grand staircase. Um. And I'm assuming the bride came in after us, right? She didn't come in while we were there. We walk up this grand staircase to the second level, um, and into this room that feels like a very fancy courtroom in a movie, right? Like maybe something out of midnight in Paris where there's just sort of a romance to it. There's this huge. Sculpture coming outta the wall, behind the, what do they call it? It's not a pulpit, but the place where

Aimee:

the judge sits? Yeah.

Rebecca:

Tell a religious upbringing. Um, so behind that is this sculpture that must be 12, 14 feet tall, and it's like a relief freeze of these bodies coming outta the wall of two men grasping each other in an embrace, and then all this family around them. And yeah, it's like monumental. And then behind me is just as big a monumental painting that looks like it might be Renoir. It has that sort of pixelated dot thing going on. And then one whole wall is windows with leaded glass, dividers. So the lights flooding in the pew. They're not pews, the benches. A royal blue velvet, and then they're, and these, this is stuff from 1896, the stuff is old,

Aimee:

Yeah.

Rebecca:

and then there's two like throne chairs set, set up at the front row where the bride and groom, or prince and princess, if you will, will be sitting. Um, and so that's what we walk into. And we're all like, Ooh, pretty. And by the way, brilliant move on the brides part. She forbid us from taking photos. I did sneak a couple, which I'll be sharing on Instagram soon, but she wanted the wedding photographer to get photos without everybody holding up their phones the whole time.

Aimee:

Oh my gosh. Yeah, for sure.

Rebecca:

So smart.

Aimee:

For sure.

Rebecca:

So we're actually present in the moment. Crazy. And then, um, they do a little music. There's some clerk just up at the front wearing normal clerk clothes, just, you know, like a jersey top and some slacks. The bride comes in and sits next to her groom, on her throne. It's not a throne, it's just a chair, but it has a throne esque feel. And then we wait a little bit longer, kind of like an awkward pause between the music and what's gonna happen. And then the app,

Aimee:

there was music when she came in.

Rebecca:

yes.

Aimee:

Was it the same kind of music that we would have at an American wedding?

Rebecca:

No, but that's because of the bride. So she plays metal music as a musician. Yeah,

Aimee:

is that what she came down to the aisle with? Was heavy metal.

Rebecca:

it was, no, it was more like a ballad, but in that genre. Yeah.

Aimee:

Okay. Soft Bon Jovi. That's, that's the kind of feel I'm giving

Rebecca:

I'm not musicy enough to be able to give you a better description than that. but it was definitely chosen by the bride. This wasn't like a city hall thing. They

Aimee:

right.

Rebecca:

system available. So then the mayor of Paris walks in apparently. Oh wait, oh wait, no. Mayor of the arm, Desmond. But it was the actual mayor, not a clerk. Comes in. Starts talking French. Luckily I was sitting next to one of my French teachers, so she did some interpreting for me and gave us, and this is so French, gave us a history lesson first about the art behind us.

Aimee:

Oh my God.

Rebecca:

Yes. Turns out it had just been completely restored. Everything in the space had been completely restored to make sure that it was actually how it fit or how it looked when it was built in the 18 hundreds. So this beautiful blue velvet was so lustrous because it was actually restored. It was new, but it was new to the original specs. So, so cool. Then he proceeds to do the ceremony, which was. Very straightforward In French. Completely in French, no interpreters or anything. Um, it was pretty easy to follow along.'cause just like if you're not Catholic and you go to a Catholic mass, you just follow what everybody's doing. So you stand up or you sit down. So we, we didn't stand for the bride, but we were told to stand for the mayor coming in. So that was fun, kinda like a judge. and then we were seated. Then the bride and groom stayed seated for. The whole ceremony. There was a funny little moment right at the beginning where, oh, I think it was before the mayor came in. The clerk's like, do you have, do you have the rings? And they dug out the rings and had to put'em in a little tray up by the And, uh, so he does the ceremony. It's obvious when they're supposed to like, like, yay, you are married. And they did the, oh, it was so cute. When it was time for the vows. He had the two people stand'cause

Aimee:

Now is the mayor. Is the mayor behind the pulpit thing or,

Rebecca:

yes, he's on the diets, so he is raised up a little bit and everybody else is on the main floor level, including the

Aimee:

Okay.

Rebecca:

room. But when it's time for the vows, he. Beckons them to stand up and he does whatever he does to the groom. And the groom. He speaks French, was like we, and then he does whatever he does to the bride who speaks English, and she went, we, and it did a little bit sound like a question, just like me talk, trying to talk French all the

Aimee:

Right, right.

Rebecca:

and it got a good giggle out of the crowd. They kissed. That was it. we all applaud and then we all filed outta the city hall and that was the whole ceremony and

Aimee:

then you went to a cafe and had champagne.

Rebecca:

Okay, this is actually a funny story too. So they had planned to take us to a different cafe, but like a week before they tried the champagne and apparently it tasted terrible'cause

Aimee:

Oh.

Rebecca:

bad champagne in the world. So they swap it for another place and it's, oh my gosh. In Paris there are these passages, there's sort of like little alleyways and they feel out of another world'cause it's away from all the traffic. There's no cars and it's quieter. So this is down one of those passageways, so that's lovely and it's a very nice old cafe, but we go in and the groom who's French is telling everybody here's what to expect. You can eat, you can have champagne in here, you can go out on the terrace and the terrace, and the waiter gets mad in French, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and apparently they're like, no, you can't go outside. Now, mind you, it's a 90 degree day. We have 75 wedding guests prearranged to be able to come and drink champagne that they have bought for the guests. And yet, you know, I don't know what mood they were in when they made the agreement versus when we all showed up. But now you've got this bride and groom going, well this is awkward, but we all made the best of it and hung out inside just fine, had champagne, and then it got even funnier because. I think we had like a two hour window to be there and they ran outta champagne. Not out, but you know, they finished what we'd purchased and several of us being Lushes wanted some more to drink and one of our guests goes up to ask to buy some more champagne. They said, no, you can't.

Aimee:

So, so, so classic. This is such a beautiful, this is such a beautiful example of how customer service is not a guarantee. In Europe, they do not work for tips. They don't care. They are there to do the minimum that is expected and agreed upon, and sometimes not even that if they don't freaking feel like it. And basically the reality is you are at their mercy and you are at the mercy of service staff in the states as well. It's just that nobody really realizes that, except for the cooks in the back of the kitchen who will totally jack up your food.

Rebecca:

Yeah.

Aimee:

You send it back too many times.

Rebecca:

There is always a way for service people to get revenge.

Aimee:

always away. This is why you treat them with respect.

Rebecca:

A hundred percent, but at the same time, why wouldn't you sell? I mean, it's not, they weren't cutting us off'cause we were being misbehaving or drunk. They were just saying, no, you cannot purchase alcohol. And what we could piece together was. Something like you have to be seated for 45 minutes at a table before you can order it felt like they were making up rules.

Aimee:

They probably were.

Rebecca:

And then a second guest, uh, says, all right, I'm gonna go try maybe 10 minutes later. Totally is able to buy four glasses of champagne. And we're like, okay. Weird. He goes back, he realizes he's one glass short. He goes back. The boss guy was back too. And no, absolutely not. You can't, it was so odd and so French and delightful. Um, and then after that. We all gathered ourselves up and we went out for curry, which because they were seating and feeding so many people, was a, uh, three hour dinner and I didn't finish. So I, I showed up at this wedding at three and I finished at midnight.

Aimee:

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Rebecca:

dancing, no nothing else. No gifts, no big collections of anything. Apparently it's most common to give a, like an envelope of cash.

Aimee:

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca:

a very east coast thing in the United States. Um, but in this case, she set up a wedding fund that you could donate to. So it was completely separate from being a guest or showing up at the wedding.

Aimee:

Nice.

Rebecca:

That's my story.

Aimee:

Do you have a sense of how typical that is compared to a typical wedding in France?

Rebecca:

My impression is that the ceremony experience was a hundred percent typical.

Aimee:

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca:

I don't know if the average French person wears a full on wedding dress like that. Um, so that's the thing I don't know, and I don't know how another person might handle the music part, but other than that, it all felt very typical. Um, going and just getting together at a cafe. Wedding or not is very, very French, but I don't have any insight into post wedding ceremonies beyond because it was also the bride's first French wedding. Oh. And it was my French teacher's first French wedding too, because she spent most of her life living in Spain.

Aimee:

Oh my gosh. Get out. How did she learn her French.

Rebecca:

She didn't move until she was like 11 or 12, and her family is French and so you know it. I'll speak our native language,

Aimee:

yeah,

Rebecca:

but it is funny when I'll ask her pop culture questions, she doesn't know them really anymore than I do.

Aimee:

Right, right. Oh, that's funny. Oh, something that I forgot to tell you earlier. I have decided, assuming there's room, I will be going back to the local institute for Spanish to retake my Spanish B two class.

Rebecca:

in your substack. Yes.

Aimee:

Yeah, to deepen the concepts and also, you know, because I've already taken it, I've already taken the exams and passed it, at least B 2.1. I don't have to worry about missing exams or anything this fall, and kind of having a sense of what's ahead and knowing more about what is, what my life is like, because hopefully there won't be any other life altering surprises this year. I can coordinate my travel based around exams and also, you know, I know the teacher so I, my ability to speak is better so I can, you know, talk with her more liberally about, okay, this is the situation. This is what I wanna do for B 2.1. I just wanna deepen these concepts. And then when we come to B 2.2, I plan on enrolling. Here's my travel schedule. What dates do I need to make sure I am here and what can I do to stay on top of all the homework while I'm traveling?

Rebecca:

I think that's really spectacular. I have totally slacked on improving my French and I have been making a lot of English speaking expat friends lately, which

Aimee:

Mm.

Rebecca:

but I think at this, I think I've reached a moment where. I can go to a store or to a bureaucracy and make myself understood. I'm embarrassed the whole time, but I can do it. And now it matters more to me to establish friendships and relationships and, and that's hard to do at the level that I'm at. And it's gonna take me so long to get to my, my French to where that would work. That, you know, it's sort of. You, you can't pursue both all the time at the same time. And so while I'm a little embarrassed about slacking, I also see why it's happening and, and it's okay.

Aimee:

Yeah. I think too, I don't think that it's, you know, unless you are. Immersed in the culture such that you are either living with locals or working in a local business or going to school at a university that is mostly locals. It is extremely hard to make friends with locals. You really have to be out immersed where they are, and that's extremely difficult without a degree of language fluency. Even in that situation, honestly, when everything is so new and so foreign and so intimidating, making friendships with other people who have lived through that situation is so valuable and so important that I think, for the stage that we're both at super appropriate. When I think about, those who immigrate to the us, in some places, if they're lucky, they have their own dedicated neighborhoods, right? They live in Chinatown, they live in Little Havana. They're not,

Rebecca:

you can understand why it happens because. Something has to be easy. Like if there's an easy button, sometimes you need to take it, which is, by the way, why I finally ordered a printer

Aimee:

Yeah.

Rebecca:

night. It's on my way, on the way to me today.'cause something has to be easy.

Aimee:

I'm really, yeah, I bit the bullet and bought a printer I think four months ago and have not regretted it at all having one in the house, especially since our printer, the lady who used to print our documents for us, she retired this summer, so her shop is closed up and I can no longer.

Rebecca:

for that though, you know? Yeah. The printer, closed shop. I mean, that's so old world, just right there.

Aimee:

The lady who used to print our documents. Yeah, she was this like older woman probably in her late sixties, early seventies, would always be outside her printer shop chain smoking, but she would only charge like maybe a penny. 2 cents per copy, like next to nothing. And so we could get everything printed. I never spent more than, I think 50 cents for like stacks of paperwork needed to get our visa approval, approval process, business paperwork that I needed for the states, thick stacks of paperwork. It was always cheap, cheap as f, you know? And then I found out from a friend of mine that actually she was the cheapest place in town and everywhere else is a lot more expensive. But I think she set her prices back in the eighties and never bothered to increase them. So she

Rebecca:

I find that absolutely delightful.

Aimee:

Yeah, you go into this tiny little shop, it reeks of cigarette smoke. Even though she did smoke outside. Right. The smoke carries. you know, she spoke Kalon, so in your garbled, horrific Kalon or Spanish, she would, she would take care of you. And, um, yeah, she's, she's retired. She will be missed. I'm happy for her though, that she has, she's retired, so we've lost our printer. We've lost our baker this year. And yeah, that's, that's been a, that's been a heavy hit'cause my kid has not had a replacement for his pana chuck lot. And, um, it's that, that one hit, that one hit hard when she, when she shuttered her doors. But I still have my liver lady, I still have my, my ground meat butcher holding fast and steady.

Rebecca:

You are living more The lifestyle I thought we would live When we moved to France, I expected, especially'cause Damian is in school to be a chef, I expected we would have a butcher and a fish place and aie and in for lots of reasons that hasn't come to pass. Partly because of where we live. There's a really good, really large, super sized store that has everything.

Aimee:

yeah.

Rebecca:

the easy button, right?

Aimee:

Yeah.

Rebecca:

then your, the markets, so the butchers in some of the places are open regularly, but the markets are only open certain days of the week, every single week, only in the mornings. And that frequently is when Damien's in school. So our schedule simply hasn't really aligned with the, the European lifestyle. I really thought we'd have. And for a while I was really frustrated about it because. Technically we could make that happen. But again, as I settle into being an expert, I'm like, yeah, but we've also done 300 other hard things. They can't all be hard,

Aimee:

I am

Rebecca:

love,

Aimee:

Yeah, it's great. I love it. I love it. I have my fish lady too, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring her back some salmon from the states when I come back.'cause I just,

Rebecca:

they don't do salmon right here.

Aimee:

your salmon is great. It's the best I've had in Europe. However, this stuff is the best in the world.

Rebecca:

Damian's in Tokyo right now, and he is finding the same thing true there

Aimee:

Um,

Rebecca:

well. And so, and, and that's a place where you would think if it's gonna be good somewhere, it'd probably be Japan, same ocean, similar um, latitude.

Aimee:

Yep. Yep.

Rebecca:

absolutely not. We absolutely in Seattle and Alaska have the best salmon

Aimee:

Wild. Wow. Ha. Unintended pun.

Rebecca:

Yeah. If any of you listeners got that, you are my friend. Well, is there anything else? Oh, oh no. There is something else we need to talk about. Scouts.

Aimee:

Oh, Scouts. Yes. Yes. So, um, my child's best friend's mother discovered that there is a scout troop in the town.

Rebecca:

Is this Boy Scouts like of America or different

Aimee:

Mixed. It's mixed. It's, it's both genders, right?

Rebecca:

Oh, no, no. I mean, is it the, is it the franchise from America or is it its own like Spanish catalog version?

Aimee:

It is very much, I mean, I don't know what like the national, regional, international, I don't know, but here in Catalonia it is, it is called the wait for it. It's actually pretty, it's actually pretty hilarious minions, right? Like Minions, the Catalonia.

Rebecca:

Oh, okay. Wait. Quick side note. Aren't the minions from Spain? Is this, is this related at all?

Aimee:

No, no. The language that the minions speak is a mix of a couple of different languages. Spanish being one of them that people are able to pick out, but it isn't actually any existing language. It's kind of a mix of all sorts of things,

Rebecca:

so there's no coincidence between the scout minions or it is just a coincidence that we have scout minions and regular minions.

Aimee:

I am assuming so. I am assuming so. So Min and when I first saw this, I was like, oh my God, minions, it's so great. So great. So I learned about this from. My son's friend's mother, she sent me the link to register, which I clicked on the link. It's a Google form, and I clicked on that link the day after admission closed. So it was like, ah, well, whatever. I'm just gonna give it a shot because you know, one thing I've learned living here is that everything is really damn arbitrary. And the only reason he won't get into scouts is if I don't register. Or don't, you know, submit an intent to register. So, you know, I had followed her. Now this is all in Kalan, so there are some words I can pick out the rest of the time. I use Google Translate and I fill out the form according to how she filled it out for her kid to increase the chances that they would be in the same troop, and then I submit it. This happened in July before we left for the states.

Rebecca:

Three, four months ago now.

Aimee:

Yes, and I heard nothing. I got a text from her in late August. I received an email. They said that he's been accepted and they're gonna send a follow up email, and I look and I'm like, I don't see anything about that. I didn't get an email. I guess he didn't make it in, which makes sense since I submitted the form after the deadline. Okay. And then, about two weeks ago I received an email saying, you know, welcome to scouts. Here is our first meeting. This is where it will take place. You'll receive information, at this meeting, on this date, at this time. And

Rebecca:

And how soon was that meeting and how much warning did they give you?

Aimee:

that is an excellent question they gave us.

Rebecca:

So hope you're available.

Aimee:

I hope you're available. This meeting is in 10 days, Friday night, seven o'clock

Rebecca:

I

Aimee:

at our layer.

Rebecca:

common thing in the French bureaucracy where they just go, yes, here is your appointment. You know, like a court date. You have to make it. There's no negotiating.

Aimee:

A hundred percent. It's like that with the school too. In fact, I got an email today saying that, you know, interview with your son and the teacher this date in November at this time. I'm like, all right, well I gotta. I gotta talk to them about that because I'm not gonna be in town and see if we can change it. And usually they're, they're quite flexible, but they, they completely avoid here in Spain, they totally avoid the back and forth of what time is good for you. They just say Here this time, and it's your job to either make it or to. Come to them and say, that's not gonna work for me. What other options are there? Right? So I mean, in that regard, in some ways it's kind of efficient, right? They're like, this is what we have available. Let us know if it's a problem, rather than that back and forth situation.

Rebecca:

Although I will say the French is more like take it or leave it, not let us know if that's a problem.

Aimee:

well, they never say let us know if that's a problem. They just say, this is your appointment. However, at least with the school. When I say, can we change this? They're like, yeah, of course. Yeah. They don't have a problem. So this was, you know, the initial meeting, um, where they kind of talked about scouts and how they organized the group. It was all in cuddle on. It was presented by presumably some of the scouts, which looked to be teenage. They were about teenage, they were teenage girls. They talked so freaking fast. The limited, very, very limited kalon that I understood was gone. My kid who has been immersed in Kalon for two years told me he understood about 30% of what they said because they were talking so fast.

Rebecca:

I mean, you got the teenage girl syndrome. That's, that's hard in any

Aimee:

yeah. Yeah. But if you're a native speaker, it's evidently not.'cause I think all the other adults knew what was going on. We did not had no freaking clue.

Rebecca:

Did that worry your son at all? Since he's the one who's gonna be a member.

Aimee:

No.'cause his buddy is there.

Rebecca:

Oh, that's right, because they made it into the same troop.

Aimee:

Yes, they did. They made it into the same troop. When I got the email saying, you know, you're in, I immediately messaged his mom and was like, I got this email from this troop. Is that the troop your son is in? And she's like, yes, it is. I was like, oh my gosh, this is great. I'm so excited for them. So we all go, right. We all go to this meeting. They don't understand much more than I do with regards to what was spoken and cuddle on what I was able to get out of. Furiously trying to Google translate what was up on the PowerPoint presentation and what little kalan I can understood in written form because none of the vocal stuff was com was being understood was that the minions are the youngest, so the minions are like the the little kids, right Grade school

Rebecca:

It's like the brownies. Back in Girl

Aimee:

Cub Scouts. Yeah. And brownies. Exactly. Those are the minions. Once you get into secondary school or Esso, then it is the estas, and I believe the gists are like the high school troop. So

Rebecca:

Mr. Window for having a minion in your house.

Aimee:

really, really disappointed.

Rebecca:

You can have another kid real quick.

Aimee:

Yeah, that I think would be a disaster on a multitude of levels, like physically, logistically.

Rebecca:

the lead time to get him old enough to become a minion. Ugh. So much

Aimee:

Yeah, I know. And then I would have to ensure that we were back in Catalonia, you know, within six years. So anyway.

Rebecca:

has he has the troop started.

Aimee:

No, the, the troop will start October, October 5th. That is when the first, the first meeting, official meeting is, and there's like this kind of initiation welcoming in new troops, a passing, like the graduation ceremony for those who have been there and are like graduating to the next level. Right. So that kind of thing. I believe from what I think I understood, then there will be a meeting on the weekend where they will build a tent. Then three weeks later, they take down the tent.

Rebecca:

Okay.

Aimee:

so they, they do like a setting up camp exercise. They guess what, guess what? The troops put together a tava in the spring.

Rebecca:

Wait, is that the tower thing?

Aimee:

No, no, no. That is the, do you remember the OTs when you guys, when you and Damien, the leaks? Yeah, the Spring Onion grilling Festival from this region, the scouts will put together one next year. So

Rebecca:

that's perfect. Did we talk that on this podcast? I

Aimee:

I don't think we did.

Rebecca:

We're not gonna

Aimee:

we did.

Rebecca:

now wait until her son actually does it, and then we'll give.

Aimee:

Exactly. Exactly. And the tasks that they. Trust children to do in this area of the world. I would not be surprised if there was a 6-year-old manning the grill or tending the fire. Yeah.

Rebecca:

I love that. When I meet, I just made a, a new friend, she's 22 years old, I'm 48, and we totally hit it off, and that's because the kids here are more capable at a much, much younger age, like. That's, it's, it's really astonishing.

Aimee:

There's the capability aspect, but one thing that I have noticed too, everywhere I have gone outside of the United States. Is that there is not this age segregation that we have. There's zero expectation that children are not to be seen in public and that are a nuisance and not welcome until they turn into an adult and are supposed to magically know how to function in the world when they've been sequestered at home or school for their entire lives. Nobody else, nobody else lives with that kind of expectation. And so kids are part of the community from birth. All the way until we die as old adults, because here too, people are out in public with their walkers, with their nurses in a wheelchair being pushed around. They are as much a part of society as people in their prime. They're not.

Rebecca:

Beautiful.

Aimee:

away in memory care homes or old folks homes, never seeing the light of day. They are an integrated part of the community, even if they do have elder care.

Rebecca:

And in the United States, if you're not between the ages of 20 and 40, you're not relevant.

Aimee:

Yeah,

Rebecca:

Don't count.

Aimee:

it's, it's such a, it's such a loss of potential. It's such a loss of culture. I think it's a major part of the reason why we are no longer functioning as a society because we don't have anyone to teach us our history, to prevent us from making some really dumb ass mistakes that we are currently making.

Rebecca:

Yeah,

Aimee:

Because we have forgotten. We have forgotten where we came from. We have forgotten what we have accomplished. We have forgotten what we've already lived through to learn the lesson, not to do it again. And so here we are, folks.

Rebecca:

Yes, all true. All true. But to your, to the earlier point you made having children. As part of daily life shows them how to socialize, shows them how to behave, and so throwing a 22-year-old at a lunch with a 48-year-old is just life. It's not a weird thing. They don't look at me and go, why am I hanging out with this out of my segregated pocket person? But I hadn't thought about it like that at all. You're absolutely right.

Aimee:

You two are two adults. She is an adult. You are an adult, and so she probably sees herself as your peer and not as some out of touch old lady who just doesn't get it.

Rebecca:

well, I'm realizing that I've been carrying that in my head now for a while where I'm like, because Damien's friends are all in their twenties as well.'cause that's how, that's who goes to school, right?

Aimee:

Right. Right.

Rebecca:

And I've, I think both of us have sort of grappled with the, the, the parent image.'cause we're clearly their parents'

Aimee:

Well, and Damien keeps getting told you, remind me of my dad.

Rebecca:

Yeah, that part does happen, but there's no feeling of, and therefore, why are you here? But I will carry that into the conversations like, yeah, you know, I'm just an old lady with a bunch of wisdom. And they're like, you're not old. And it felt at first, like they were just trying to make me feel nice, like we would our elders in the United States. But I think it's sincere, like, what

Aimee:

Because you're not in a wheelchair, you're not using a cane. Your hair isn't even all white. Why are you calling yourself old?

Rebecca:

And we can age ourselves interestingly.

Aimee:

Yeah.

Rebecca:

I think I might try and stop doing that.

Aimee:

That would be kind of awesome.

Rebecca:

It's a good growing moment.

Aimee:

It's, it's totally okay if you've.

Rebecca:

from those 22 year olds.

Aimee:

And it's totally okay if you don't speak an elderly mentality into existence.

Rebecca:

and it's not like I was hip when I was 12 or 15 or 18 or 36 anyway, so I've always been an odd. Character. So that's just part of my personality, not an age related thing.

Aimee:

Totally. And I am so much more awesome than I was at any of those ages.

Rebecca:

Oh, that's also true. Yeah. I'm like a cheese. I am definitely getting better with age.

Aimee:

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Rebecca:

Okay, so we started talking about French weddings. We have talked about the scouts. Um, is there anything else we need to give our listeners today before we sign off?

Aimee:

I don't think so. That feels pretty complete to me. Just kind of general life abroad, the ins and outs, the daily. I guess the daily grind as it were, but with, you know, a couple little highlights of different things that are, that are going on. you know, being in that meeting that was all in kalan with people talking so fast, it really highlighted that outside of reading menus or. Doing very, very limited interactions. I know I still know n no kalan like nothing at all. And I didn't, A couple of weeks ago I was celebrating myself because I realized I now am about as fluent as a 2-year-old in Kalan. I have like maybe. A dozen different words that I can use if I think really hard. I can communicate, you know, very, very simple, basic sentences. And I was feeling really good about that. And then I went to this meeting and I was like, oh girl. Oh honey, honey, honey.

Rebecca:

Humility is a big part of this experience.

Aimee:

Totally, totally. But it has lit a fire under my butt to take advantage of the Kalon online learning. Masterclass that I purchased for Black Friday last year and have not yet cracked open. So I am, I'm actually committing myself, especially since I do have a lot of unstructured time right now, committing myself to getting some cuddle on fundamentals under my belt this year, in addition to going back to Spanish classes.

Rebecca:

I'm curious then, would you like to do our sign off in Catalan?

Aimee:

Sure, I can do that.

Rebecca:

Let's do it.

Aimee:

Alright, until next time folks. A.

Rebecca:

I'll say that. Is it a, and in my French,'cause I'm not learning Portuguese yet.

Speaker 2:

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Banla. If you did, the best thing you can do is share it with another person, brave enough to move abroad. See you next time.