May 12th, 2023 / µ

Why I Wrote My Story

My nine months teaching Parisian business executives and similar personalities English in a language school in Paris showed me a world I did not know existed.

The conditions in the schools were harsh, and how the schools took advantage of young romantics at the time was wrong. It was a world of exploitation, financial struggle, and downright old-fashioned poverty among the well-educated young white-collar Westerners in a European capital.

I never wrote the story out of hatred of Paris or France or to ridicule anyone or anything. I loved my life in Paris at the time. I wrote this story because wrong is wrong. I wanted to show the conditions behind the political correctness and the beautiful Hausmann facades, the truth about salaries, the work environment, contracts, and the nightmare it is for young foreign teachers to find a place to live.

A Room of One’s Own

Finding a decent place to live can be and most often is a horrid ordeal in European capitals and big cities, for foreigners and natives alike. And even if you pay sky-high rent, it does not assure that your place is legal or warm in the winter.

Some of my former apartments in Paris felt and looked as if they came with the cast of La Bohème and a prescription for tuberculosis!

My last apartment in Paris (apart from the ones in 2019) was on the top floor, beneath a roof that seemed to predate the Eiffel Tower; it had a uniquely placed and installed toilet and mice. It was like a sauna in the summer and a freezer in the winter. It came with broken-down electricity that started a minor oven fire in my kitchen, an approximately 2 square meter area. The walls were as thin as paper, and it had one-layer windows – and it wasn’t cheap. It was costly.

Europe Is Not Paradise

My point is that despite what European politicians and their bureaucrats may want to impress upon the world, Europe is not Paradise, and people with regular jobs can live in relative poverty.

European capitals and big cities are overpriced, and European financial politics means that you end up paying most of what you make to socialist states that seem more interested in their international image than in providing the well-fare and security the insane tax levels theoretically justify, so even decent salary jobs can make it a fight to make ends meet and a struggle to buy basics such as food.

Truth, Not Lies!

As I said in another post, in the end, no one wanted the truth because Paris is romance, and that’s it! The way my story eventually turned out after countless rewritings was a meaningless, romantic story, light years away from where it started.

But words can be changed, and even if I am not comfortable with self-publishing, I would rather self-publish the truth than suit the official taste to have the possibility of one day being able to publish a lie.

“Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leaving the above issue aside, the fact remains that regardless of where you are in Europe, you can choose to ignore the politics, the system, and your likely future financial collapse and relish in the fact that you live on the most amazing and beautiful continent in terms of stunning cities, art, architecture, food, nature, theater, history, and literature.

And I guess that is the best way to stay sane and endure European bureaucracy, the system, and politics:

Do your best to ignore the bureaucracy, the system, and the politics… until the day you cannot ignore it anymore.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found it valuable and worth your time! Until next time, remember to get your facts straight and that whatever good times you have will never come back as bad times,