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

I can assure you

Insurance building, Place Davilla, Carcassonne
Insurance offices in the Tomey building, Place Davilla, Carcassonne

The French word for insurance is assurance and I can assure you that we’ve been trying to buy some ever since we arrived. Because of rental laws here, apartment and house leases usually run for 3 years and you are required to have renter’s coverage for that whole time. Our place is furnished so we don’t fall under those same rules but we still felt it was important to be covered, especially since our own household goods have arrived. Trying to get an insurance company to accept our money has not been easy. Continue reading “I can assure you”

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Life in France

No one’s home

House with a castle view
House with a castle view

When we first arrived in Carcassonne we stayed in a hotel for a few days while waiting for our lease to start on the house we rented for the year. We intentionally stayed in a room with a view of both the river and the castle figuring that we weren’t likely to get that same vantage point again once we lived here. While out for a walk with Heather on our second day in the city we noticed the building for sale that you see here. It’s one block from the hotel, also at the end of a street, so it too looks out across the water up to the majestic Cité fortress. What a view, but at what cost? Continue reading “No one’s home”

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Life in France

Art is where you find it

Sculpture at the courthouse
Sculpture at the courthouse

We went to the Palais de Justice yesterday but not to attend a hearing although we did visit two different courtrooms. We were also in a couple of assembly rooms, many corridors, and even a lounge where lawyers dressed in long, flowing black gowns with white scarves tied at their necks looked quizzingly at us. I overheard one of the avocats tell her colleagues that we were there to see the exposition. We had gone to the city’s courthouse to see an art exhibition. Continue reading “Art is where you find it”

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Life in France

North vs. south

Bill and his soccer buddy
Bill and his rugby buddy

If you live in the US you’ll be aware of a rivalry between the north and the south that dates back to at least 1864 when the Civil War ended. Bill once had a boss in Atlanta who said that he was taking his family back to New Jersey so that his kids would learn in school which side really won that war. There’s a rivalry here between those same two regions of the country except it’s centered around something much more interesting: sports. Continue reading “North vs. south”

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Life in France

The earth moved

The cracked wall on the front of our house
The cracked wall on the front of our house

We lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years and out there earthquakes seldom make the news, despite their prevalence. I read that there are several small tremors daily but only sensitive scientific instruments, and probably small dogs, can feel them. One morning, however, Bill was having breakfast in a diner when the hanging light fixtures started swaying. At that same instant the building where I worked was also swaying and from the 14th floor, that’s not fun. When we moved to the east coast of the US we thought that we’d left all of that behind only to discover that Atlanta sits beside the New Madrid fault line that’s been shaking buildings since the early 1800s. You’d think that moving another 4500 miles east to France  would get us away from all that. Continue reading “The earth moved”

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Life in France

A diversion

Heron in the mill pond
Heron in the mill pond

If you’re the King or Queen and you’re trying to run a castle, it’s going to take a lot of bread to keep everyone fed and a lot of sheets for all of those beds. Why not build a mill that will grind all of that wheat and turn all of those threads into cloth. If you’re lucky enough to have a powerful river running near by, as we do through Carcassonne, you can use that force to run your mills if it doesn’t wash them away in the process. So how can you control a wide and forceful river? You create a diversion. Continue reading “A diversion”

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Life in France

You read that in the paper?

Newspaper shop on the ground floor
Newspaper shop on the ground floor

We can buy 3 daily newspapers in Carcassonne and for a town of 50,000 people, that’s not bad. These are actually regional papers, all owned by the same company, but we still think it’s amazing to have that kind of coverage. Many of their articles are published for free online and that’s one of the ways we find out what’s going on. Here’s a quote from the president of this region’s governing council regarding the upcoming fiscal year’s budget: “A tax increase is the only solution”. Oh, la, la, can you imagine ever reading that in a US newspaper? Continue reading “You read that in the paper?”

Unknown's avatarBob2 Comments