Despite the title of the Rolling Stones’ 1965 hit song (and today’s blog post), according to the lyrics, they were never able to get any satisfaction. Luckily that’s not the case with overseas visitors who settle in France, according to a recent survey I read about last month. In fact, we find ourselves in a country that ranks 4th out of 45 countries when respondents were asked about the quality of life, and we totally agree. Continue reading “Satisfaction”
A few years ago we spent a delightful week in a 10-bedroom chateau, about 3 hours north of here, with our travel buddies Paula, Kate, Cathy, and Jane. That area of France abounds in natural beauty along with numerous caves where prehistoric humans left their mark. Although we could have gone to the better-known Lascaux caves to see replicas of art from nearly 20,000 years ago, we chose the similar Pech Merle where a limited number of visitors are allowed each day to view the original paintings. You’ll never guess what we discovered on the back wall of our courtyard. Continue reading “Cave drawings”
If you live in the US you will be well-acquainted with the words in the title of today’s post. Having been residents for 20 years in Atlanta, often considered the unofficial capital of the South, we were surrounded by reminders of the heritage of that region: friendly people, big smiles, warm welcomes and tables full of comfort food always generously offered. We’ve been in France for less than a year, but I can happily report that we’ve found exactly the same reception in this southern part of the country. Continue reading “Southern hospitality”
Since we walk a lot, we are always making discoveries that we probably wouldn’t ever see if we were driving. When you’re on foot it’s pretty easy to take a quick detour to literally smell the roses, take a photo, or stop into some place inviting since you never have to find a parking place. That’s exactly what happened when we were walking on a road beside the river on what I’ll call “Wharf Street” when it turned to go uphill and changed names to St. Michel’s Cemetery Drive. When we got to the entrance, Bill took this photo of who was there to greet us. Despite what seemed to be a less than warm welcome, and my allergy to cat fur, we ventured inside. Continue reading “Scaredy cat”
When you move to a new country where the language is different from the one you grew up speaking, naturally there are going to be challenges. Not only do you have to learn the basics that you might know as a tourist, but now all of the nuances of how you say something or where you put emphasis come into play as well. Before we left the US, I had been studying French for a while and now that we live here I’m continuing with that online while Bill attended some classroom instruction with a live teacher and fellow students and has now gone the online route too. As effective as these classic methods are, we’ve discovered a simple, fun, and instant way to suddenly speak French. Continue reading “Instant French”
There are many variations on the phrase that starts with “A little bit of knowledge” and none of them end well. Every few weeks (or days) we fall victim to that concept and our most recent encounter could have indeed made us victims but Bill’s keen sense of smell saved us from that fate. We were looking at outdoor grills and everything that goes with them when we spotted this huge bottle you see in the photo that seemed really cheap for such a quantity of flavoring to give your food the smell of smoke. Just look at that delicious corn on the cob, steak, sausage, and asparagus and the words “barbeque, liquid, and grill”. Just don’t look at anything else on the label! Continue reading “Mistaken identity”
We’ve only lived in France for 7 months and already we’re returning here to an annual event. How’s that possible? Once we had decided that Carcassonne was going to be our new hometown, we had to find a place to live. Thanks to Bill’s Internet searching skills and to the generosity of our landlords, that part was easy, although they insisted that we visit the property in-person before they would accept our rental deposit. Darn, that meant that we would have to fly over from Atlanta to France to cement the deal. I wondered at the time if there might be some kind of festival going on since we had been following the city’s website for quite a while and noticed that every weekend there seemed to be a party. How about the 2-day Fête du Vin wine festival? Continue reading “What goes around…”
Let's Live In France 