Which would you rather do: A. Get up at 3:30 AM on a Saturday so that you could drive someone to the airport, or; B. Drive into downtown Atlanta during evening rush hour on the Friday of a long holiday weekend? Give me choice A. anytime. Our neighbor needed to get up to New York City and we were happy to take her to the … Continue reading Would you rather….
There are several expat discussion forums on the Internet that can be a great source of first-hand information from people living in the country to which you are moving. The one I like the best is Expatforum.com because it tends to be full of positive, helpful advice and the moderator keeps everyone on topic and is very knowledgeable about French culture, daily life, government issues, and other challenges we are likely to encounter. Continue reading “But you gotta have friends”
When Bill and I first got together nearly 30 years ago, we moved almost every 18 months. No, not because the rent was due but because job changes within the same company for me required it. With all of that packing and unpacking we came to an agreement that if we had not used something within the last year then it was not going with us to the new location. I think that we’ll be invoking that rule and a companion one as well, especially once we’re in place.
That new rule, called “Double or nothing” means that anything we buy in France to replace something that we’ve left behind here must do more than one thing. For example, we have two popcorn poppers, an air one and the oil kind. They each do just one thing: pop corn. The ice cream maker you could argue also does frozen yoghurt, sorbet, and sherbet but they’re all just variations on a theme. The juicer juices. The tortilla press makes tortillas. The apple peeler peels apples. You get the picture. Continue reading “Double or nothing”
No, it’s not Christmas yet; in fact, it’s still summer but this title refers to being in-season as in what fruits and vegetables are available from farms nearby now. One of the advantages of living in France, or in Europe in general, is the availability of markets that feature locally-grown produce. When we were in Normandy, northern France, this past May, it was cauliflower harvest time … Continue reading ‘Tis the season
What a question, huh? In our quest to use up the foods that are still here in the house in what we call “shopping the pantry” I came across a box of tapioca, part of which Bill had used quite some time ago when making a fresh cherry pie. I don’t really remember the pie but I know that he didn’t make the tapioca into … Continue reading Tapioca or Jello®?
After a month of writing and rewriting posts, trying various layouts, finding or taking appropriate photos, and figuring out what widgets we wanted to use, we launched this blog yesterday with little fanfare but much praise. Thank you so much to all of you who have already said such nice things about the blog and good wishes for prosperity in our new home. But it’s not just … Continue reading It’s alive!
Now that you know where some of this motivation for learning other languages comes from, I’d like to talk about what we are doing to learn French. For me it started back in high school where, after 3 years of classes I could flawlessly repeat the first lesson we ever learned which started out with “Bonjour, Jean. Comment vas tu?” and continued on with other basic questions, replies, and a request for how to find the library. All of that and nothing more. Fast forward about 20 years when Bill and I were taking language classes in Germany and met our wonderful French friend, Michèle who invited us to visit her country on our next European trip. Motivation to learn the language for sure which increased tremendously when she married her husband who spoke only limited English.
To get a headstart on our German classes in Cologne, we practiced with tape recordings from Pimsleur that we found very useful. The company has since changed its fluency guarantee to a more reasonable “converse comfortably” after 30 days. We were impressed enough with their method to order the French version and found it equally helpful and now I’ve started using their Spanish cds for a trip to Barcelona. Continue reading “Leave no Rosetta Stone unturned”
Let's Live In France 