passed tense

Question

A recurring difficulty with the writing challenges is choosing between passé composé and l'imparfait (I wish there were more hints in the answers)
B1 "week 49" "St Patrick's day" opens with "Last weekend, we were in Chicago to celebrate St Patrick's Day."
'nous étions' is the suggested answer. Why not 'nous avons été' ?

Answer

Bonjour Joakim !

C'est en effet assez difficile, surtout dans le cas du verbe "être" !

In this case, this sentence sets up the story by describing the state/situation of the protagonists at its start: that's why L'Imparfait is used here -> We *were* there when this happened.

However, here you could also consider Le Passé Composé as possible, but it would mean you're considering this action in its entirety as finished -> We *were/went* there that day.
It would just make it a bit disjointed from what comes afterwards, like it was a separate event.

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !