Why are we in Paris?

"There might be an opportunity for you to work in Europe for 6 months. Would you be interested?"

Those were words I did not expect to hear when I woke up that morning on a otherwise normal day in February 2013. I'd been working for Freescale for 6 years as an applications engineer in our microcontroller division, having joined after graduating college. We build the computer chips that go into things like washing machines, thermostats, fire alarms, etc. Basically anything that you can put a small microchip in to make it smart. And it turned out that upper management had come up with an idea to do a swap between Europe and the US personal, to facilitate personal career growth, diversify our roles, bring in new perspectives, and bring our organizations closer together. It wasn't the first time something like this had been done, but usually people were brought to our headquarters in Austin, and not sent out to the field offices we have across the world.

Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity. I'd always been interested in living overseas, and Kara had lots of experience living abroad (Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, New Zealand, and more) and was itching to get back out into the greater world. It took a while before the swap got final approval from management, and then a much longer wait while the visa process went through it's very winding road, but finally at the beginning of October 2013, we arrived in Paris for the 6 month assignment. The relocation came along with a role change, as I went from being a very technical applications engineer to managing our relationships with our distributors, so it's much more marketing/sales focused than what I've done before. And my French colleague whose role I replaced went to work in the product definition group in Austin, to help them spec out the new chips we'll be selling in the years to come. He was just as excited to get to live in the US as we were to live in France. Grass is always greener on the other side and all :)

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been given this opportunity, and plan on making the most of it both in work and fun. I wanted to document as much as I could for personal memories, and to share the experience with our many friends back home, and to help anyone who stumbles across this blog if they find themselves in a similar ex-pat situation in Paris.

We decided to live in the actual city of Paris, and were very lucky to find a flat in the 6th arrondissement, which is close to a lot of attractions, food, shopping, and more. We had been looking in the 14th and 15th, but this one came up at the last second in the 6th that we were able to snag. Our "Paris" office is actually very far outside of Paris (it's literally surrounded by farm land), so I have about an hour commute (from apartment to desk) every morning on the train to get there. I actually park my car by the train station to drive the last 5 kilometers to the office since it's not directly off a metro stop. But we figured for 6 months I could handle the long commute, and I much prefer sitting on a train reading emails and news instead than being stuck in traffic, or living in suburbia where everything closes at 8pm. It's not every day that you get the opportunity to live in the center of a major international city after all.

I'll try to keep the blog updated as often as possible and share all the odd French things that we come across. And of course upload the photos I've been taking! I hope you enjoy!