When you're an ex-pat and you happen to fall in love with a "local", suddenly your foreign city feels like home. You cross over, go native, and never look back.
And then one day it's over, and the city which felt so much like home is instantly converted into a minefield. Waiting around every corner are reminders of him, ready to ambush you. After all, this is *his* country.
If you're both living in your own country then maybe there are bars, restaurants, places you used to go together which you can avoid.
It's hard to avoid a whole culture, or a whole language, however, especially one that you have to work from on a daily basis (and one that you also like very much indeed).
The schoolchildren at the Nederlandstalig onderwijs school in my street were practising their own version of Vlaanderen boven (with changed lyrics, of course) at the noisy street party today... ambush one and counting.
Sometimes you just want to go home.
Posted by Eurodan at May 29, 2005 1:34 PM