Homesick

Being in Paris, my husband has been feeling a bit homesick. A reasonable emotion to be sure, although the precise source of this ailment is maybe not what one would initially surmise.

He misses football, American style.

And, because our computer does not easily streamline programs from the United States, he was forced to watch a game recently in this really annoying "real-time" manner where the screen would freeze for 2-3 seconds every 5-7 seconds. It was like trying to talk to someone who pauses half-way through every other word and who takes 30 second breaks in the middle of each sentence. Manageable, I guess, but also really frustrating and not a little disorienting.

Being resourceful little buggers, we decided on a solution: we would be to go to a bar in St. Michel where they play American sports all the time. Perhaps you can ascertain from the description that such a place could double as this non-sport lover's personal heck.

But I wanted to go because my husband wanted to go and, generous as I am, I figured that if he could travel half-way across the world to live in a foreign country with me for a year, then I could walk half-way across town to be in a different sort of "foreign" land with him for an afternoon.

Even without being a sports fan, I can see that the odds are in my favor here.

So we go to this American football bar, and the whole enterprise quickly reveals itself as a conglomeration of Canadian, British, American and Australian elements. It is essentially an English-speaking mutt in sports bar form. And (just to keep the animal reference theme going), it was also revealing itself to be somewhat of social experiment on a par with a zoo.

Kind of like when a zoo transplants a bunch of wild animals from, say, the Serenghetti, and then simulates a "natural environment" somewhere that bears essentially no similarities to their actual natural environment, so they can carry on being "wild" while actually living in a fishbowl. Oh irony, I just find you everywhere!

The sports bar, it seemed, was a simulated "natural habitat" for English-speaking sports fans. The irony here, of course, is that in the U.S. my husband and I would not be at a sports bar with Irish, English, Australian, and Canadian people watching American football. It is not that I am suggesting that America is not diverse, it is just that each of those country's has really individual proclivities when it comes to sports they favor. I mean do you know any English guy who loves American football? Didn't think so.

So, while we sat in "I speak English and therefore I must have things in commion with everyone who speaks English" land, something REALLY bizarre took place. More so than the fact that at the bar next to us a couple were obviously on their first date and the guy tried to impress the disdainful looking French gal with a plate of buffalo wings (ummm, call me crazy, but not sure that relationship is off to a great start--who wants to talk to someone they barely know who has buffalo wing juice all over their face? Ew). But the weird thing for us was that my husband found himself making congenial conversation with the most unlikely of creatures. My husband, who has a devout affinity for the New England Patriots, was talking amicably to a New York fan.

It was be like putting bears and jaguars in the same pen, and having it miraculously work out. Or something like that.

Here is what I learned (besides the fact that simulation is not an exact science--and I bet the cheetahs at the San Diego zoo would agree with you on that one): when you feel like you are a fish out of water, your horizons widen considerably as to what might make you feel "at home" again.

In the U.S., gravy fries and pints of Victoria Bitter would hardly give us that "mom's home cooking" feeling. And making casual convo with a NY Jets fan would not be my husband's past-time of choice. But here we are in France, and that is what happens, and it seemed to make my husband feel more "at home" in France.

So, in sum: I have found that no matter what country I am in, I do not fit in at sports bars. More importantly, homesicknesses is an inevitable aspect of life abroad, and it is one which can have a variety of sources, and a variety of "cures." Finally, since I have now seen with my own two eyes that it is possible for my husband to tolerate NY sports fans, I also now have absolute faith in those videos on YouTube where an elephant befriends a dog, or a deer and a squirrell cuddle-up on a sofa. I always hoped they were true, and now I believe it; harmony can happen!