Moving to France? Expect visitors and little white lies!

Let's face it. When you move to France you're going to become very popular with your friends and family back home. You just have to mention that the sun is shining, your day-trip to the beach was brilliant, or how you enjoyed the lively village market...and trust me, they'll soon be booking their flights.

That's great, I say, especially in your first year. Visits from friends and family can actually help you settle in better. In the early stages of an international move, when you are missing everything from home, visitors offer good support and give you a bit more confidence in what you are doing. (By the way, www.americansintoulouse.com have a good post explaining the effects of culture shock - it's worth reading.)

If you move here, they will come. No doubt about it. Some for a couple of days, some for a couple of weeks. Every year. The short and frequent visits you enjoyed when you all lived within blocks of each other are very different when they are stretched over numerous days in a foreign country. So I thought I'd share some of my tips and things to expect:

1. Visitors will dirty your house - quickly!
   The 65 hours that you spent cleaning and making everything just right will be lost within 10 minutes of them coming through the door. Suitcases will explode, coats and shoes will be everywhere and you'll trip over camera bags. Aircraft magazines and sticky toffees will land on your highly polished coffee table. Magically your bathroom mirror will immediately be covered in splashes, furniture will be moved around and every glass in the house will be in use. Save yourself the stress...don't overdo the cleaning. Main chores can be done the week before (never do them at the last minute) and then just a quick (stress-free) tidy before going to the airport. You won't be exhaused and smelling of bleach when they arrive and you'll be ready to enjoy the visit rather than instantly regretting you'd ever agreed.
   
   
2. You'll be nominated chief translator - learn to lie.
   Even if you are struggling to learn French yourself, you will be asked to translate everywhere you go. You've moved here after all, so your visitors automatically expect you to read and speak with native fluency. You'll be reading restaurant menus out loud and asked to interpret with shopkeepers. Advice? Simple. Little white lies. It's a lot more fun. My aunt once asked me to "...just tell them I need a sticky plaster to stop scabs forming from the burst blisters on the back of my heel". What? We hadn't yet covered "burst blisters" in my french course, so I just told her they were sorry and didn't have any left. She was frustrated with that but she accepted the answer and we avoided the inevitable game of charades. Use your imagination and have yourself a blast.
   
   
3. Visiting an historic village? Google it first.
   You're visitors will love visiting towns and villages in France but with their enthusiasm comes questions: "When was that built?", "What is that for?", "Where does that go?". Telling them that you don't know is, of course, completely unacceptable. They'll look at you as if your lack of knowledge has just ripped them off for the price of the tour ticket! (You were secretly and unamimously elected to the unwanted position of Official Tour Guide.) Solve all your problems (and avoid refund demands) easily: just Google the place before you go. Print out the history and let them read it in the car on the way there. Or, my favourite solution. Little white lies of course. Invent stories using words like "hot, boiling oil", "impressive porticos for hanging traitors", "...in 1276 when the princess was married...". Get your creative juices flowing and watch them fall for your tales, hook, line and sinker.
   
   
4. Get visitors out of bed early.
   Your visitors are on holiday. They'll want to take their time getting out of bed, drink five coffees and use the hair dryer for 45 minutes! But the place they wanted to visit is likely an hour and a half by car. So your tour doesn't leave until they have finally all assembled at around 11am. Therefore you'll arrive about 1pm (with stops for coffee and toilet breaks along the way). The gang will start having a look around (wondering why everything is closed) and then decide it's time for a bit of lunch. BANG. Problem!
   
   Hey, this is France. The restaurants are full (that's why the shops were shut) or they're closed between 2pm and 6pm. That means from about 2.30pm to 3.30pm you'll be searching for a sandwich, or a crepe or "let's just walk over there to see what they've got", until everyone is fed and no one is really satisfied. The snacks weren't enough, and they'll want dinner early (which will, of course, screw up your plan to have a little nap when you get home). So...get them out of bed early! (I lie and tell them it's an hour earlier...It's for their own good!)
   
   
5. "Home, James."
   Isn't it odd that two years ago it wasn't a problem for your friends to drive a rental car through Istanbul, Athens and Naples but while visiting you in France, they suddenly become scared to get behind the wheel? Uh-huh. Don't fall for the old "you be the chauffeur/we're scared and don't know what to do" trick. Your visitors know exactly what they are doing: they're planning on enjoying lots and lots of holiday wine with lunch and dinner and then sleeping in the back seat all the way home.
   
   Remember, a two-hour drive to the coast will mean a two-hour drive to get home again. Therefore, you're facing four hours behind the wheel in a hot car, plus three hours sightseeing or sunbathing, two hours for lunch, and three for dinner. Your contented passengers will be gently snoring on the return journey and you'll have toothpicks propping your eyes open after a 12 hour day. So make arrangements to share the driving wherever you can. Of course you can always lie and say you've lost your licence.
   

The main thing of course is for everyone to appreciate their time spent together. When your family and friends visit you in France, it's not necessary to be the cleaner/translator/tour guide/chauffeur all of the time. Relax and enjoy yourself. That's what you came here for.