Monthly Archives: February 2017
The year that flew by
The daily view on our walk that still makes us smile
It was a year ago today that we moved from the United States to France. Part of those last few weeks “over there”, first in Georgia and then in Florida, remain a blur. There were so many things that had to happen in a specific order and within a limited time period, that there was little time to think about anything other than checking tasks off the calendar as the days flashed by. I still get anxious remembering arriving at the check-in desk at the Atlanta airport pushing two rolling luggage carts piled high with 2 backpacks, 2 carry-on bags, 3 checked bags, and a travel dog house with Heather sitting happily on top. We were about to find out if those 18 months of planning, preparation, and paperwork were going to pay off. Read the rest of this entry
How many bars?
This tiny device can see through walls
What kind of question is that? If you’d asked that about our house in Atlanta, we would have said “two”—one emergency bar upstairs in the kitchen and a full-service one in our basement British pub. If you go in our kitchen here in France the answer would be “15” because that’s how many bars of pressure our espresso machine has. But today’s post has to do with a third kind of bar and how to cope with thick stone walls that keep you from them. Read the rest of this entry
Gimme a (coffee) break
All kinds of coffee makers
How did we end up with so many ways to make coffee? This photo doesn’t even tell the whole story. Here you can see from left to right, an hourglass-shaped coffee maker, a red capsule espresso maker, a grind-and-brew espresso/cappuccino maker, and a good ‘ole drip coffee maker. We actually have a second identical one of the drip version because we were operating out of two houses for a while. If you looked in our suitcase you’d see a collapsible brewer that fits directly over your cup, a couple of half-liter thermoses for the train, and even a few sleeves of our favorite brand as instant crystals in case we get desperate. Have we lost our way? Read the rest of this entry
Step into my laboratory
Which way to the lab?
A couple of days ago I wrote about our first experience of going to a doctor in France and this is the follow up to that. Although we both have been going in for annual check ups in the US for years, that’s apparently not really the norm here. Your employer might require, and pay for, this kind of visit, but our neighbors have said that typically they see the doctor only if they are sick. We were still going to be more comfortable if we were at least in the files of a medical office near us, even if just to have a “no problems found” status. Read the rest of this entry
Doctor, doctor
The building where our doctor works
Going to the doctor has never been at the top of my favorite-things-to-do list. Luckily, those visits have almost always been limited to an annual physical where the cost was covered by my health insurance. Just before we moved from the US to France we each had one of those yearly exams and as our first year anniversary of living in another country approached it was time to do it all over again. This has been quite the learning experience. Read the rest of this entry
