On an unseasonably warm, muggy but gorgeous early June Paris morning and just prior to a brief cloudburst, I met the adorable Australian journalist Sarah Turnbull. The author of the charming memoir: Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris was accompanied by her faithful canine companion" Maddie" for a café-crème at the Café Nemours. Positioned at the entrance to the Palais Royale gardens it offers a complete view of the square and the seemingly rhinestone-laden Palais Royale Metro entrance.

TG: So your decision to stay wasn't inspired by a love of Paris but rather a love of Fréderic?
ST: Yes, it really was.

TG: Would you have stayed with him in Bucharest?
ST: I loved Bucharest. I think I would have stayed in Bucharest, actually. It was a really interesting time. There was a sense of an emerging country. I can't say that I'm one of those people who came to France just for France. Obviously it was for Fred, but having said that I do love it and from that first family holiday I have very fond memories. Perhaps it was meant to be?

TG: Where do you live in Paris?
ST: We live in the 2nd arrondissement, not far from here. We live on quite a busy street but we look back on the quartier Montorgeuil, which is a pedestrian area. So it's very quiet. It's a quartier where there is a market street-the rue Montergeuil is a market street, so there are a lot of lively characters. When I say market I mean that it is a long skinny thread of food shops. It's been a market street for over 800 years. It was the old oyster street when Les Halles was still running. All of the fish and seafood came from the north. In fact a lot from Boulogne-sur Mer. Trucks would come down and arrive at rue Montorgeuil.

We live in a building in the Sentier that when we arrived had a lot of sweatshops. Some have moved out and the space has been converted into apartments but on the other side there are still three floors of sweatshops and coming out this morning a guy was carrying bales of bright orange shirts.

But in spite of the noise, pollution and traffic congestion what I love about the area is that it is authentic. It's a working quartier. And another thing that is fabulous about Paris, one of the things that makes it very different from a city like Sydney is that in a very small area you can have several quartiers, right next to each other that are utterly different. The atmosphere in the Sentier is completely different from the atmosphere in the quartier Montorgueil.

TG: Do you have a favorite café in Paris?
ST: I probably have a series. When I was writing the book I went to Centre Ville on rue Montorgeuil all the time. I like that café because it's got two walls in glass and looks on a fruit and vegetable stall. I'd be working and watching all of these deliveries and the banter between the deliverers and the people accepting delivery. And right next door was a butcher shop and you'd see a cow coming. It's wonderfully colorful and in some respects still authentic if not as gritty as when Les Halles was there.

TG: Did you write there?
ST: I'd go at about 8:30 or 9 (which is quite early by Paris standards) and it works for me not to be alone in the morning, to be among people and not be disturbed by people and then to go back to my office and write. Otherwise I found it very solitary to spend the whole day in my office. I needed to kick my day off.

TG: Do you write in longhand or on a laptop?
ST: No, I wouldn't so much write as read over what I'd written the day before and then make notes and corrections and do a bit if rewriting and somehow I think I got much more clarity just by sitting in that café.

TG: Do you have a favorite bistro coin?
ST: Lot's of favorites. In our quartier there is one that I really like called Le Leopold. It's a bistro à vins. They've got a fantastic wine menu. A great cave down below. You've got to love meat. They do a lot of meat, dishes from the southwest-canard. I love that area. There's another place at the bottom of rue Montorgeuil-Le Grille Montorgeuil. I like it in summer because you can sit outside. I also like to go to other quartiers. We'll hop on the bike (vroom-vroom) and go to Menilmontant in the 2oth. We were there just Saturday night and went to a Moroccan café/restaurant. You sit outside. They've got little, low tables and you sit on cushions that sit on a carpet. It's called Zap Spirit. It's terrifically slow but they do great tagines.

TG: Were you a "chef" before you came to Paris?
ST: I've always liked cooking. I usually cook Asian and that's definitely the Australian influence. I do a lot of Thai food.

TG: Where do you go for the ingredients?
ST: In fact there's a little street nearby, just off boulevard Beaubourg, the rue de Maire and there are several Chinese supermarkets along that street. But for Thai things-lime leaves and such I go to the 13th. There's Frères Tang. It's a big supermarket and it's fantastic-they've got everything! What is funny though is the reaction of French people. At first some of Fred's friends thought-what is this? I served spicy curries and I've had to turn down the spices. And now if they come to our place they're disappointed: "On a pas Thai ce soir" (no Thai food tonight!)

TG: Where do you go to celebrate an event or an accomplishment?
ST: I really like Lapérouse. I've only been there twice and the food on both occasions was really fantastic. I think it's a really special spot. The history, all of those little rooms and I like it also because it's a chic restaurant, a beautiful restaurant yet the waiters are unpretentious; none of that formality of silver service like a synchronized ballet with lids coming off at the same time. I can't bear that-it makes me really uncomfortable. And they were joking and teasing. It was really lovely.

TG: A pause to adjust my recorder sent our conversation off in the direction of other expatriate writers like Adam Gopnik: Paris to the Moon and Sarah made the following observations about adjusting to life in France.
ST: I think a lot of foreigners come to France, knowing they're coming to a foreign country and naively don't expect it to be that different. It's Europe; it's not that different. A lot of Australians came from Europe. And I think we go through a period of shock realizing just how different it is. I know it sounds like a cliché but the dinner party situation is incredibly confronting. I was twenty-seven when I came here. I thought I was socially fine. I had no trouble interacting with people in Sydney. Yet, I did have trouble here. And although in retrospect those stories can seem cute and funny, at the time they were painful. That was what I wanted to convey in the book. I had so many letters from people who have lived in France that begin: "It seemed as if you were writing about my life" or "I felt so lonely because I hadn't voiced my experiences and reading your book made me feel less alone."

TG: (Adam) Gopnik and other expatriate writers have approached their books with journalistic distance. Your book feels much more personal.
ST: I had Fred and being with a French person, sharing your life, you are thrown into the whole French culture. You can't avoid it. You're not really in an expat world. I think some foreigners would like to be more integrated but find it quite difficult. Although as you have suggested it's often easy to have pleasant, engaging spontaneous conversations with your neighbor at a café, forming friendships takes a lot of time. I had a very interesting chat with a woman at a café while I was writing my book. She was intrigued with my collection of notes and reams of fax paper spilling over my table and asked me what I was doing. She teaches French to foreigners and was interested in my thoughts and asked: What is the most difficult thing you found about France?" And I said: "You've been so open and lovely so I'll be really honest. What's been most difficult is making friends. It seems so difficult and takes so long that I often feel like failure?" She asked how long I'd been in France and at that stage it had been seven years. And she looked at me incredulously and said: "That's all! Seven years is a very short time." For an Australian that's an eternity.

TG: What's your favorite time of year in Paris?
ST: This time, June. For me it's little things like when we were coming here to meet you we were on the bike and we went round the back entrance of the Palais Royale Gardens and we were met by a wave of perfume from the garden's flowers.

TG: Can I assume then that your favorite garden or park is Palais Royale?
ST: Yes. I love it. It's so intimate. It smells beautiful. The head gardener is an American and one of the things he wanted to do was to have a garden that's not just beautiful. So it's not an accident that it smells so gorgeous. He planted things that have perfume. We often go there with a glass of wine. We have a sense of ownership.

TG: How has Paris affected your work?
ST: It radically changed it. I was a TV journalist working for SBS-Sydney. I did a lot of stories on the aboriginal community. I came here and pretty quickly gave up on the idea of doing TV. Perhaps I could have made it work but it was very complicated so I changed to the idea of doing print. That really appealed to me. I did that for six years and then wrote the book.

TG: And finally how has Paris changed your life?
ST: In every possible way. When I think of my old life in Sydney and how different it was… I'm married now to a Frenchmen. And regardless of what happens, whether we move to Australia one day or elsewhere Paris will always be a part of my life. It's kind of a before and after really. Although as a mixed couple it might be nice for us to someday live in a neutral country I love living in Paris. In fact I now have two homes Sydney and Paris. When I'm in Paris I refer to Sydney as home and when I'm in Sydney I refer to Paris as home. But hey, I'm not going to complain about having Sydney and Paris as two homes!