Celebrating Easter, International-Expat Style

Easter is usually a subdued, almost non-existent affair for me. I’m not religious, and on the cultural side, I never understood the reasoning behind the Easter Bunny or getting chocolate and gifts on Easter Sunday.

But you know what I do like? Public holidays. And food.

In Paris, people aren’t given Good Friday off, but rather Easter Monday. So to celebrate the long weekend, my Italian friend Silvia decided to host an Easter lunch at her place. She’s an au pair and her family were out of town for the holiday, so we had full use of the family apartment, which was quite lovely — usually as an expat, you end up seeing only the inside of other expats’ apartments, so seeing an actual French family’s living space was a nice cultural touch.

We had an international table for lunch: besides Silvia the Italian and me the American, the other four ladies were from Brazil, Ireland, Germany, and The Netherlands. Everyone present spoke French — in fact, the invitation and all emails regarding lunch were written in French! — though at varying levels: the German was practically fluent; whereas I could understand half the conversation but could barely form sentences. Ultimately (and I felt bad because I think it was mostly for my sake), we all switched to English — but we’d still have the occasional tangent into French.

Lunch was quite the cultural, international affair. Everyone brought a dish, and while some of us (ahem) were unimaginative and brought wine, Silvia cooked a a simple yet incredible pesto pasta (with just the slightest hint of cheese; it was divine — are Italians just born with this gift for cooking pasta?); and the German friend brought homemade pfannkuchen, or German crepes.

Before we ate, we each went around the table and said Bon appetit in our native language (which the Irish girl and I fumbled over; we don’t really have an English equivalent, do we?). Over lunch, we discussed and compared our jobs, our experiences in the city, our plans (if any) for life after Paris. And after we finished, we had a mini-concert by Miss Ireland, who is here studying piano professionally. Seriously, how classy is that?

Even though I spoke English for most of the afternoon, this was still unlike any other holiday I’ve spent abroad — which usually see me getting together with other Americans and Brits, talking loudly and drinking all day.

In one afternoon I was able to practice my French, try new (homemade!) international dishes, and learn about other cultures. And we didn’t even finish the first bottle of wine. This was definitely the classiest expat holiday celebration I’ve ever had the pleasure to be a part of.