Author: Bob

While living in North, Central and South America, in the middle of the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, and now in Europe, my passion has remained the same: travel and meeting new friends.
Life in France

Lost, hidden, and secret Toulouse

The two of us are probably like most tourists on our first visit to any city; that is, we want to see all the highlights and take all the photos of the sites we’ve been admiring for years on TV and at the movies. Since we travel by train, we’re often in a hub city to make a connection but sometimes we stay over in that hub to see what we’ve been missing by not leaving the train station. That’s been the case with both Bordeaux and Montpellier where we’ve written about our first impressions and then what we discovered by returning. That’s how we learned of the public demonstration of a parachute in 1783 and the American Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, in 1787. Now it was time to uncover what Toulouse was keeping under wraps.

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Unknown's avatarBob5 Comments
Life in France

Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurants

Before we moved to France, we’d been coming to Europe on annual (or more frequent if possible) vacations for 30+ years. Almost every one of these trips involved a stay in Paris so naturally we had to find places to eat. That task got easier in 1996 when Adrian Leeds published her first edition of Top 100 Cheap Insider Paris Restaurants with the goal of listing value-for-money restaurants all over the capital city. The cover stated, “You don’t need to be rich to dine well—you just need to be in the know!” Sadly, the book has now gone out of print but all is not lost. Although you might typically associate the word Michelin with starred restaurants and correspondingly multiple $$$$ or €€€€ signs, that doesn’t have to be the case.

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Unknown's avatarBob8 Comments
Life in France

La Fête Nationale

Today is July 14 and in France it’s officially called “La Fête Nationale” (the National Holiday) although most often we hear, “le quatorze juillet” (the 14th of July). Interestingly, none of our French friends ever say “Bastille Day” even when they are brave enough to practice English with us. Apparently the name was just a practical choice since neither of those translations above would have much meaning except in France—think “4th of July” outside of the US for a comparison. Given that today is such a beloved holiday here, I wanted to investigate further its origin and make some comparisons with America’s Independence Day.

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Dealing with government, Life in France

Citizenship interview

There’s a France 3 TV game show called “Questions for a Champion” (thanks France 3 for today’s photo above) where they ask lots of general questions to determine a winner for the day. Last Thursday I felt like a contestant on that program except instead of being on a soundstage in Paris, I was in the compact office of an immigration officer in the Préfecture building in Montpellier. It was a little over 3 years ago when I mailed in my application to acquire French citizenship and about 2 weeks ago an email arrived summoning me to the interview. The purpose is to show that you’ve integrated into the society here rather than remaining an outsider who lives in a bubble that in our case would be called “Little America”.

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Unknown's avatarBob26 Comments
Travel in France & beyond

Champagne, anyone?

We discovered canal cruising last year when Bill was reading an article in the online magazine The Good Life France about all of the inland sailing opportunities there are in this country. We initially chose that first ship because it was traversing an area that we’d never visited and it was all-inclusive: accommodation, meals, drinks, and daily excursions. Unpack once yet wake up in a new city each morning. Because these barges, péniche in French, are small with only 22 passengers, they can travel where larger river or sea-going vessels won’t fit and can dock very close to a town’s center. All I had to hear from Bill about this latest offering was, “Would you like to start in Paris and end up in Champagne?” Let’s go!

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Unknown's avatarBob8 Comments
Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

Whatcha packin’ ?

Thanks, Larry, for sending us a link to an article with the intriguing title, “Why Tourists Need To Be Cautious Of The Clothing They Pack On A Trip To Europe.” Before moving here, we were one of those visitors making an annual transatlantic flight always trying to figure out what to bring and what to leave behind. Once we started staying in holiday homes/apartments with washing machines it became possible to cut in half the sets of clean clothes that we needed, effectively reducing our luggage requirement to just a carry on bag. I saw an ad for a travel backpack that promises you space for 5 days of vacation clothing. Hopefully that doesn’t mean just the “bare essentials” you might require at a clothing-optional resort.

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Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

A gourmand weekend

The word gourmet was something I learned at a very early age. My mother had a subscription to the magazine thusly named that was devoted to food, culture, and travel. Although I might not have been able to read the words, there were plenty of pictures of delicious looking meals served in exotic locations to keep me interested. On Sundays we were often treated to a special lunch created from recipes found within those pages. One of our current neighbors used a similar-sounding term, gourmand, to describe our experience last week at a restaurant and an overnight stay in Narbonne. She insisted that it was not an insult despite our association of the word gluttony with it.

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Unknown's avatarBob9 Comments