Musical Chairs 2007

The next wave of Musical Chairs is to start soon. (reminder: Musical Chairs is, according to my friend Andy, a phenomenon that occurs every year or so, in which friends swap countries: X1 moves to Y2, X2 moves to Y3, X3 moves back to Y1...)

Musical Chairs 2007 (to be confirmed):

Miss WW from London to Tel Aviv
Anna from New York to London
Vera from London to Stuttgart
Zsofi from Tel Aviv to Zurich
My father from Paris to Bratislava
Julien from Paris to Montreal

Where are you readers moving from and to?

Geopolitics

What's good about London is that you can make friends from many different countries and get invited everywhere. So you can actually choose your friends according to what country you want to visit. The only thing is that if you don't hurry to visit them, you might miss out on an window of opportunity. By the time you finally decide to go, they might have moved elsewhere, or simply not be your friend anymore.

Places in which I had friends to visit but didn't visit, and can't visit anymore: Ireland, India, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Milan, Odessa, Kiev, Oslo, Devon, Taipei, Krakow, Barcelona, Malmo, Switzerland, Marseille.

Places I should go to soon before it's too late: Tokyo, Greece, Australia, Reykjavik, Nice.

What places did you not go to when you could?

Definitely French

I was born in Paris from a Jewish Tunisian Father, born in Sfax, Tunisia, and from a Jewish Polish mother, born in Szczecin, Poland.

I grew up in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, a district populated mostly by Jewish and Muslim North-African, African, and Asian communities. In primary and junior-high school, most students were 2nd generation immigrants. Although I am of Tunisian and Polish descent, people usually think I'm French-French, because of my freckled light skin, light brown hair, and French sounding family name.

A teacher once had the idea of organising a special party where everyone in the class had to bring a specialty from their country of origin. There were Tunisian and Morrocan pastries, Yugoslavian sausages, Cambodgian sweets, Carribean exotic fruits, etc... My mom was working a lot at the time and didn't have time to prepare any Polish specialty for me... So I went to class with a bottle of "Banga" fruit juice from the corner shop, so I wouldn't arrive empty-handed.

My teacher, who was going from table to table to have a taste of each specialty stopped at my desk and said to me with a smile on her face: "A bottle of "Banga"! Well gee, you're definitely French!"

London: Je t'aime moi non plus

London. Either live there forever, or miss it forever. When you're a foreigner in London, you always feel like you're there temporarily. Even though I've been here since 1998 (with a 2 year break in Paris), I always feel like it's temporary. Maybe it's the fact that even at 30 years old, unless I worked in finance, I still have no choice but to live like a student, with total strangers, having to deal with inconsiderate flatmates and having to argue about dishes, stolen food, and worry about money. Or maybe it's the fact that in London, one has to move flats regularly. It's usually because either the landlord wants to sell the flat, which happened to me a couple of months ago after only 6 months of moving in, or because the flatmates are complete psychos, which they often are in London.

Since 1998, I moved from Bayswater to Bayswater to Bayswater to Farnham to Kilburn to Highgate to Chalk Farm to West Hampstead to Camden to Paris (2 years without moving!) to Stoke Newington to Stoke Newington to Golders Green to Stoke Newington.
That's 14 flats in 9 years. Wow.

Two solutions: buy a flat (with a 150 year mortgage) or marry a guy who works in finance...

How many years can anyone live like that? And is it even worth it? How much can you love a city to be able to accept this way of life? I really really love London, but do I love it so much that I don't mind living like an eternal nomad?

London is a seductive trap. Once it seduces you, it won't let you go. And even though it doesn't treat you so well, you can't stop loving it.

It's a catch 22: I can either decide to settle here, but accept the consequences, or go away, and feel like I will always be missing out on something.

London. Either live there forever, or miss it forever.

LHR CDG TLV JFK

I am not just a wandering (and wondering) Jew. I am part of a new international generation. Most people I know all have lived in at least 3 different countries and all speak at the very least 3 languages (many of them 4). Every year or so, there is the "Musical Chairs" phenomenon, as my friend Andy calls it:

- I moved from Paris to Vancouver to Paris to London to Paris to London.
- Sophie from Berlin to London to Beijing to London to Taipei to Paris to Frankfurt to Berlin.
- Andy from Bavaria to Tubingen to Costa Rica to Nanjing to Taipei to Berlin to London to Seoul.
- Ben from Paris to London to Paris to Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur to Paris.
- Vera from Stuttgart to London to Stuttgart to Barcelona to Stuttgart to London.
- Kasia from Szczecin to Ingatorp to Boras to Gothenburg to Paris to Ingatorp to Paris to Szczecin.
- Olga from Paris to Wales to Paris to Berlin to Switzerland to Berlin to Marseille.

These people all met at some point, mostly in London.
One always arrives when the next one leaves, hence the musical chairs. Will we ever live in the same city again?

Consequences (good and bad):
-We are chameleons who can blend in, adapt, and make ourselves at home anywhere we go. But the reality is that nowhere is our home. We have tasted the good bits of each place therefore cannot choose one because there is always something that's better in the other places. No matter where we are.

-We have an international accent. People always know we're foreign but never know where exactly we're from. Even when I speak French (my mothertongue), people tell me how well I speak French and ask me where I learned to speak it so well...

Next destinations: New York City and/or Tel Aviv.

Where will I settle down? Will I ever settle down? Do I want to settle down?