Is Netflix's Emily in Paris Really Like Expat Life?

Netflix’s Emily in Paris is a series that made everyone want to move to Paris immediately (including me!). I even saw in some Facebook groups where members were asking others if they watched the show and where they wanted to move to!

No doubt, the show makes expat life look dreamy. But the writers also included some funny parts that highlighted the difficult parts of living abroad. 

So while Emily and Paris is a fictional take on expat life, it was still quite accurate. 

Let’s break it down...

Emily experiences an immediate “high” when she arrives in Paris. 

This will definitely happen to you when you first move overseas. When we arrive in a new place, we’re excited to explore and learn new things. Everything that later on seems quirky or frustrating are still cool and interesting. In this initial excitement phase we’re still sponges ready to soak up everything in our new home!

Emily started to feel a little down after a couple of weeks. 

You will feel a low come on when you realize there are hard things about your new location. This normally happens a few weeks to a month after arriving in your new country - just long enough for you to realize you’re not there on vacation. 

Maybe you’re starting to feel homesick for your family or friends. Or maybe nothing in the grocery store is similar to the items you need for your favorite recipe. I think I lived off eggs and pasta the first month we were in Angola! These things can be really frustrating before you’ve relaxed into expat life. 

She starts to discover cultural quirks. 

After being in Paris for a few weeks, Emily gets more adventurous in venturing out of her apartment and getting things done. At one point in the show, she has a plumber over to fix her shower and while he’s working asks for coffee and croissants. Then he proceeds to tell her it will take a few days to fix!

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had this happen to me with repair people in my home lol. One time we had a plumber come to our Buenos Aires apartment with no tools!

He went to take a look at our leak then said he would come back tomorrow with his tools to take a look again. OMG, infuriating! Just bring your tools the first time!!

These stories are about plumbers but it can be anything. You may start to see the hierarchy in your country is extremely obvious and you don’t think it’s fair. Or you don’t understand why if the supermarket line is really long (like 10 people) a manager or available employee doesn’t open a new line?! 

These would all be very quirky (annoying) in the USA but in many other countries they’re totally normal. 

Her coworkers aren’t interested in getting to know her. 

Locals not wanting to accept you can be a problem sometimes. They’re a little skeptical of you, especially if you moved overseas for a job. They may feel there are qualified or even more qualified people that live in that country that you stole a job from. Or maybe they’re not sure if you’ll be around long enough to form a friendship with.

So, it will probably take time for them to warm up to you. Don’t take it too personally. Once they see you’re making an effort to assimilate to life in their country, they will start to come around. 

Emily felt like everything was going wrong. 

There will be many times when you’re an expat that you will feel the same way. One time, when I felt so overwhelmed in Angola, on the way home from work, I asked my driver to pull over and step out of the car. I locked the doors behind him and proceeded to ugly cry. I cried because work was hard, I was tired of the culture I was living in, I missed driving myself, I missed having freedom, I was tired of waking up at 4am and I missed home. Basically, I was overwhelmed and needed to cry it out. 

But when you’re feeling this way, I promise you, everything isn’t going wrong. It’s just a few cultural things that are hard to get used to. And you probably miss home. Each day presents a new challenge when you’re living overseas and you can’t be too hard on yourself. So go ahead and have a good cry then pick yourself back up and try again the next day. 

“Pas possible” was something Emily heard a lot. 

This one made me laugh so hard because it’s so true! And it’s a phrase I heard a lot living in both Angola and Argentina. The cynic in me used to think that they just didn’t want to check with the kitchen if something was possible. Or they didn’t like me because I was an expat. In Angola, they never had anything I would order at a restaurant. After a few months of living there I learned to have two or three order choices ready. Because 3 out of 5 times they wouldn’t have my first choice! 

But then this happened. 

One time, we were eating out with friends (in Angola) from South America and another set of friends tried to ask for no pickles on a sandwich. The South American friends started making fun of them saying how “only Americans try to special order things” and that “it was such an American thing to ask to take things off a menu item.” I had no idea that it was pretty exclusive to Americans - probably because that’s the culture I’m used to! 

Now, when I’m eating out or travelling outside of the USA, I try not to special order anything or ask for changes to my order. I’m being more culturally sensitive this way and it prevents me from stressing when the food comes and they didn’t tailor it the way I wanted anyway! 

There you have it! The ways in which Netflix’s Emily in Paris was actually super comparable to real expat life. 

But let’s be real - her love life, career and huge instagram following was definitely on the more fictitious side.