What about your weekends?

"What day did you get married?  We have been told that they would ask the most obvious question, but i didnt expect something so simple and straight forward. I took a while to remember the actual date.

"So what community have you lived in since you arrived in France?"
Well,  the French community, the international community full of immigrants old and young.
Correct answer: "I have spent all the time with my husband's family which is very french".

"Are you a member of an association, do you practice a sport or have a hobby related to French culture?"

(I eat, cook, drink alcohol, entertain and be entertained, carry out grocery shopping individually and collectively, on a daily basis, does that count as a national sport or hobby related to French culture?)

"eh....not really....we have two kids, and are very busy every weekend".  (We have lived for 5 years together, had our fair shares of love, war, philosophical and non-philosophical discussions, putting up with each other's mom/best friend/an ex lurking in the horizon etc, now we were put in front of an  immigration officer who was ticking her boxes to see if we were having a genuine marriage).

"So what do you do on your weekends?"

(Exactly the point - weekends are spent with in-laws, diners, visiting friends/relatives, sometimes getting lost in the suburbs, preparing stuff for the following week, yelling at kids because they get on your nerves - all these are universal, all couples live their weekends like this in every culture, non?.....)


"Yeah....you see, we see the in-laws very often. Hardly any time to do other stuff. You know, his parents and his three sisters"


A little smile suddenly emerged on the immigration officer's face. She has in-law issues of her own.

With that, I continued "Yeah, and they have many advice to give me about how to raise the kids....."

The smile turned into a giggle.

"....which do not always correspond with my own practice". There the officer laughed. Afterall, i did practice one national sport: arguing with mother in law. O that note,the interview was officially over. I was officially as French as Sophie Marceau. Yooopi!

"You should've said at your interview that you guys have a country house in Normandy and every Saturday morning you drive out of Paris at 5am to beat the traffic and spend the whole day cleaning up the house...." a friend told us afterwards what the French weekend should be like.

".....and get ready to entertain all our friends from Paris for dinner". his wife said. They inherited the country house otherwise, according to the wife, would have sold it long ago.

"What sport? After I got married, all I do is weight lifting and she is getting heavier....." My husband looked at me. He used to do fencing, boxing, judo, horse riding, catamaran, now he wonders why his body hurts everywhere.

With the shortage of babysitters, we couldn't go out much in the weekday evenings let alone weekends. A friend told me that she watched a film on Saturday evening while her husband stayed and looked after the kids. Then it was her husband's turn to watch the same film on Sunday evening. "Why even bother watching the same film?" I always thought that man and woman have different taste in films. Most guys watch romantic film just to please his girlfriend. After the wedding, it's the wife who has to put up with the war/gangster/police films. "So that we can discuss the film afterwards". ---that was rather sweet.

Once at a soiree, the husband enjoyed the party for two hours then went back home to take over the babysitting from his wife. "We have been doing this for a while, so that we can still have a social life". His wife arrived soon after the husband left as they lived quite close.

I used to know people, (mostly British and Australians) whose saturday mornings existed for the sole purpose to recover the body from friday's night out, and dito for sunday morning for saturday night out. Quite amazed at the French style of organisation that they manage to have saturdays full of activities.

"We drink no less, but we eat more!" Can't remember which wine critic said it, and it is my Saturday night so dont ask me to google the name.

"Not only more, but better." Adds your favorite blogger.