But in the midst of these feelings of stupidity, lose, and frustration, I've had a fascinating experience: the international sympathy and understanding that comes from the loss of a cellphone.
Now sure, there are far worse things in life to lose. There are far more disastrous things that can happen to a person that no matter where you are from, it's bad. For me, my family is healthy and happy. We are safe and living a fabulous life. If the worse thing that's going to happen to me is a cellphone being stolen, I'll take it.
But the lose of the cellphone is something that we can all relate to: whether Finish, Israeli, American, German, French, we understand the horrible feeling of losing an essential part of your life: the phone. We all know it. You put all your numbers in there and no one has anything memorized anymore, or even written down! And, sadly, I greatly, almost unhealthily, depended on my cellphone. I couldn't even call my husband to tell him what happened because I don't know his number. My own husband!
But that's why the cellphone is so fabulous. It has made all our lives easier, no matter where you are on this planet! (Which by the way, I couldn't even find because I didn't have my map application to tell me!) And the iPhone is especially so very wonderful. Birthday reminders, pay the rent, learn the weather, awesome time-wasting games, sports' reports, and INTERNET! I could check my email while the ladies tried to kill themselves at the park. What am I supposed to do now? Save them? Lame!
Luckily, I am recovering nicely. Immediately after losing the phone I was able to go into the Bouygues phone store, (awesome coincidence that there was one right there around the corner), cancel the old phone, and get a new one without having to renew my contract. Now, the new one is nothing to write home about. It's super lame but it works. I get to keep my number so I'm slowly collecting old contacts as they call. There's no email or fun games and texting is a huge pain, but it does the job.
Yet, what is fascinating about this experience is the way all my "Paris" friends can sympathize. We come from all over the world and have different traditions and customs. We eat a lot of the same foods, but with our own special touches, flavors, and spices. We celebrate different holidays, have different histories, and often, speak different languages. However, it's really cool when you discover and think about how we are so very similar, no matter where we are from...
We have the same struggles with our kids behavior and we all experiment with different parenting techniques. We can complain to each other about the lack of sleep or kids not eating or behaving. Many of us miss home, miss the traditional food, or our old comfortable beds. We lose our phones and our keys (and sometimes our minds)! Yet, we all made a decision to give this opportunity to live in France a try and there are no regrets. We get to share our lives, traditions, and backgrounds with each other while living in one of the most amazing cities in the world. Each of us admits how great it is to be out here at a point in our lives where we were kind of settled and done with the whole new friend-making thing. We sacrificed comfort for an adventure. And I'm super happy that I'm here doing all this: meeting new people of all kinds, trying new things, and learning about how the other half lives. It's fabulous to be trying a new life, new culture, new everything. And when things go bad, it's nice to know I always have help and sympathy!
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