Finally, there are some very important meeting places for me, the only ones that allow me to forget our various troubles: on Thursday afternoons we meet with friends from Italy, Sudan and Afghanistan to drink tea, chat, play chess, in Manifesten. It is the only place where I have seen Europeans open up, putting aside their shyness.
You forget where you come from, you leave aside bureaucratic procedures and problems, you put things into perspective and you don’t think about the States and their affairs: it’s a place where people flourish, it’s like a family, with lots of children running around.
And besides, it’s the best place for integration I’ve ever experienced: you learn more French there than in the OFII’s language courses, because you want to communicate and you have things to share!