One more go

I think I am ready to give this another try.

For a while now I've been debating over whether to shut down this blog, start another secret one ("Fned's other Blog") or simply stop writing all together. None of these options seem to satisfy me completely so I've decided to give this another go.

Can't make any promises on how constant I'll be or even if I'll keep this up (some of the reasons I stopped blogging are still present), but for now I feel like this could once again become a very important part of my life. Because it once was. There once was a time in which every thought that went though my head invariably went through the "is this blog material?" thought process just as soon... to this day I still enjoy going back and reading old posts from that golden Fned's Blog era.... this is also why I can't bring myself to completely quit. I really did enjoy having Fned's Blog up and going and having a place where I could express the stuff that was going on around me.

Which brings me to the today, the now... what's been going lately?

Well, for one thing, the biggest, most exciting news is that we're moving! After much debating and dreaming and talking over this for a very very long time, Hubby and I are finally setting sail and moving to.......... London.

I have to admit I was a wee bit disappointed at first. Not because it's not a great city, it is and we have really good friends living there so that definitely adds a plus to the place, but to be perfectly honest, I was hoping we'd go to a more "challenging" destination. A place where we could smooch so much out of it, the way I've smooched so much out of France. A place where we would learn a new language, be drowned in a different culture, start from scratch and find our way..... that was and has always been my motivation in life: to keep extracting and absorbing what this world has to offer in diversity. And at a time it seemed like there could be a possibility to go to a place like that. At different times in the past 7 months, there were possibilities of going to Brazil, Hong Kong or Singapore. For reasons our of our hands none of these options became concrete and when London came up we decided to take it.

In retrospect I realize this is a good thing. Brazil or Singapore would have been fun and exciting, but I think a transition first, before taking such a radical plunge like the one I took in 2002, is a better idea. For one thing, this is going to be Hubby's first expat experience and him being the reasonable and adult one in our marriage, I really don't think he would have handled very well flying off to some foreign, far away place without knowing the language, having a steady situation waiting for him and with some sort of precautions taken ahead. The great thing about London is that it is a good compromise for this first takeoff: it still implies a far away place (for me), a foreign language (for him) and a highly different culture (for both of us).

And I have to be honest with myself as well. I know me well enough to realize there was a good chance I'd get bored or disappointed very quickly in our new home town after a while if we didn't pick it carefully. Paris is a hard city to follow and I am an easily bored person. No amount of shopping malls, restaurants or even sea shores or near nature will keep me happy after a certain amount of time. I need to live in a city I can walk in and never feel I've reached it's limits or seen all there is to see. I need to live in a city where the weight of history is felt in every brick or stone wall and where you know history is still happening. I need to live in a city where the people come from all corners of the planet and from where you can easily take off to all corners of the world as well. I need to live in a city where things are constantly moving, where people get restless, where people are angry, stressed, hurried..... but where they feel alive.

I can only think of a few places like this: Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires.... London. Not because they are better than other cities, but because they have the same kind of vibe and feel and pull for me that Paris has.

So why are we leaving Paris you ask if it has exactly what we need? It's difficult to say really, but I think I came pretty close to expressing it correctly in my Plain Vanilla post last year. It kind of comes down to that for us.

So London it is. And fast.

Hubby is crossing the channel this week to go find us an apartment. He'll then move permanently at the beginning of July and I'll follow (hopefully) once my visa comes through (though I should probably get going and apply for it first!!). I'm -sort of- crossing my fingers that my company will be able to find me a job at our offices there too though if they don't perhaps this will be a good moment to do some serious career soul searching. Then it will be on to the less fun logistics of renting our place here in Paris, arranging all the bank and insurance crap on both sides of the channel and finally packing up the boxes.

Guess things are moving right now. I suppose Fned's Blog still has some glory days left in store for her.

Fned.