Petit Paris

There are days when I wonder if I managed to get on the wrong plane and fly to Paris instead of London. I live in a part of London close to the borough of South Kensington, one of the most affluent parts of the city (mind you, I said 'close to', not IN!). This area is so full of French people it is like little Paris out there. Aside from the French consulate, the area houses a French high school , a French cultural institute and several French bakeries and bookstores. The population of French people in London is in fact so large that Nicolas Sarkozy actually came over to campaign here a few months ago.

Out of the 4 people that I currently live with, 3 are French. We try to keep English the predominant language around the house but I do still get my fair dose of French. I should be able to handle that. I have had French lessons for six years in school and it was in fact one of my best subjects. I vaguely remember discussing the meaning of 'Le rouge et le noir' at my final oral exam. On my CV I actually claim to be business conversational in the language. At some point in my life I would have had no reservations about making such a claim but those days are long gone. I haven't practised it since I left school all those years ago and it has gone pretty rusty. I realised it again this morning at the bakery, buying my croissant, when two ladies were carrying on a conversation in French. I could just make out the words 'plage', 'soleil' and 'Marseille' so I assume they were discussing their holiday plans. My teacher would be very disappointed in me.

As I have mentioned many times before I would really love to end up working for international organisations such as WHO or the Red Cross. Their requirements include that you are fluent in one of their official languages and at least conversational in an other. The options are English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Arabic and... French. Despite my efforts this year to learn some Spanish my best bet at this stage probably still is to go for French. Also, the headquarters of both these organisations are in Geneva where the primary language is, again, French. I suppose I should start taking more advantage of being exposed to the language so much. Who knew you could go to London to brush up on your French?