Interview Meme – Question #1

This is a cool meme that I’ve found over at Abby’s: basically, I answer 5 questions Abby has especially concocted for me, and if you so wish, I get to ask *you* 5 other questions!

Instructions go like this:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be sure
you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five
questions.

But as I haven’t been visited by my inspiration muse lately (also because some of Abby’s questions require much pondering) I will answer the 5 questions in batches – Today it’s time for #1. So…

{rolling of drums}

1. While you are obviously currently located in Europe, what country are you from and what country do you currently live in?  I know that is technically two questions, but I am just curious about your background.

OK, so get ready for a small ride – I haven’t stayed for very long in the same city yet! And I hope your curiosity will be satiated – I think I’ve talked too much but hey… you asked!

I was born almost 28 years ago in Spain, in a town around 200km North from Spain’s capital, Madrid. When I was 8, we (that is my parents, my little brother and I) moved to Madrid, where we stayed 4 years, until my dad got a job in Paris, France, that would take us there for a whole school year: I was 12 y.o. and didn’t know a word of French when we drove there in August. The school we attended was a Spanish one (that is 1h/day of French lessons), but my parents were adamant in that we didn’t listen or watch anything that wasn’t French radio or TV (the only exception was the movie theater: there was one a short walk away from home that only showed movies in their original language with French subtitles… oh the mess! obviously I didn’t speak or understand much English then either… I guess it only helped!) – by June, I was able to understand almost everything someone would say, if they said it slowly enough, in a correct grammar and ‘regular accent’. My, the South of France accent was a nightmare back then – and still is a little bit sometimes… :blush:

In June, it was back to Madrid, for a couple of years only: if the first half of our stay in Paris was spent mostly crying to be taken back to Spain, to my friends and school, the other half was spent enjoying many of the pleasures France and Paris have to offer: museums, gorgeous buildings and walks around the city, short trips to visit some of the most important gothic cathedrals of the North of France, etc. By June, I just didn’t want to go back to ‘boring’ Madrid! My parents had succeeded in planting the seed of traveling and discovering new places and cultures in me – as well as to have me tagged as ‘the French one’ back in my old school in Madrid…

… so 2 years later, my dream of going back to France came true: my dad got another position there, this time in Strasbourg, by the German border, and for 3 whole years! I was ecstatic, all the more so as I had become fluent in French in the meantime – reading, watching movies and spending a whole month with a French girl my age who didn’t speak a word of Spanish – so those years – highschool ones – were some of the best in my life so far.

Again, I didn’t want to come back to Spain afterwards, but my parents couldn’t afford for me to study abroad, so… Back to being ‘the special girl’ at University: I didn’t have the same background (highschool in Strasbourg was an international one so I followed France’s studying program, plus some Spanish literature and history courses) so I usually lacked some concepts… However, I had done many more laboratory hours than anyone in my class! Hey, when you’re following Chemistry studies, those hours help – a lot.

4 years later, I couldn’t stay put in Madrid any longer, and decided to taste some other region of Europe – Sweden it was! Uppsala, 70km North from Stockholm is a student town, a wonderful one at that too! I only spent 6 months there, from August to January, but it was enough to charge my ‘new cultures & people’ batteries for a while: I met so many different and interesting people there, it was amazing… While I don’t keep in touch very often with everyone, there are some that manage to poke me and get some news from me – Martin is even kind enough to open his home for me in no time from now!

After that 6-month-stint, I stayed in Madrid to finish my studies and start my working life. However, I always had the small hope to be able to live in France once again, this time for a long time as I wanted to work there too. And when I suffered a pretty bad heartbreak, I decided it was time to go and find that ticket to France, otherwise I might never take off! (By the way, it had been 3 1/2 years since I got back from Sweden).

It was one of those times. You know the ones: at first, you’re just feeling like crap, just want to get over it, get away from the memories, but don’t hold much hope. Then something comes up, you remember someone who might be able to help you. You brave your shyness and ask for that favour, the one that may or may not get you out of the mess…

The right time, the right moment – this job was waiting for *me*! I landed here in Saint Nazaire, on the West coast of France, around a year and 8 months ago: though at first there were difficult times, things are just turning out great!

So! To get back to your ‘background’ question – yes, bear with me, there’s one more thing I would like you to know (weren’t you curious? ^^): people often ask me where I am from – and it’s a difficult one to answer, as I don’t really feel from anywhere more specific than Spain: you see, something I haven’t said yet is that both my parents and thus my nearest family is from the South of Spain – Seville, to be precise – so all of my holidays have been spent over there, either in Seville, Malaga or Huelva. Moreover, I don’t have friends from my years in my birth town, and I don’t like Madrid enough to say I ‘come from’ there… I just answer with a ‘I lived in Madrid before, but all my family is from Seville’, as I feel sentimentally connected with that city.

Also, if you tell people that when 2 seconds ago they thought you were French with some foreign background, you’re in for a little while: I am often told I have no traceable accent when I speak French (so often I get tired of it… really…) and then I am usually asked if I’m ‘a *real* Spanish’… {sigh} Of course, it’s followed by ’so, how come you speak French like this?’
Then, they get the short story of all these -my!- more than a thousand words…. It sure gets you far in a conversation with people you just met!

I hope I didn’t overdo it…
I’m afraid I did, I got carried away! It’s just that all those trips have made me who I am today: someone who doesn’t need a geographical specific spot to feel at home, and someone who actually craves to feel like ‘a stranger’ wherever I go. Because I love discovering things, like all the ‘first times’ moving to a new place entails, am curious about *so many* things…
But I can’t bear having to make new friends from scratch – it’s so hard sometimes! – and tell your life story many times in a short period of time is tiring too. It is balanced by all the perks aforementioned, though.