Tag: Quality of life

Life in France

Europe, a haven of peace for Americans

An advantage of glancing at a few French news sources each morning is that sometimes you are directed to an interesting story from a newspaper or magazine from elsewhere in the world. Such was the case when I saw in the Courrier International a story with the title that I used for today’s blog post. The original text that appeared in The Economist was actually labeled “Why Europe is a Magnet for more Americans” with a subtitle addressing the growing number of people “seeking to escape violence and political strife in the United States”. Although this didn’t focus solely on France, I still wanted to see what was drawing our fellow citizens to this continent.

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Life in France

A rainy day out

For the singing group The Carpenters, “rainy days and Mondays always get me down” but that’s not necessarily the case when you have adventurous friends. In an ants-in-the-pants moment, as Sally and Larry would call it, they suggested we jump in the car with them to head out to destinations unknown, at least to us, to shake off the blues of a dull day. This wouldn’t be the first time that they’ve taken us on a secret road trip and I definitely hope that it won’t be the last. Our only clue was that there would be food and wine involved, and with those magic words, we were off!

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Life in France

Don’t do that

When I tried to find out how many YouTube channels there are, the only agreement between websites seemed to be on the word “million” following numbers such as 37, 51, 113, or even 373, all of which translates to “a lot”. I (half) joked with Bill that you could learn anything, including brain surgery, from these videos. Spoiler alert: don’t search for that unless you have a strong stomach. We do use this extremely popular online platform for less serious matters that include improving our French and discovering more about the society in which we now live. A topic that I’ve seen at least once on almost every channel I follow has to do with mistakes to avoid as a visitor or new resident in France. The faux pas listed below are the ones that appear most often with our own experiences noted beside each one. 

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Life in France

What’s the Point?

The magazine article headline that caught my eye was “A New Neighborhood is Being Built in Utah That Looks Like a European ‘One-Car Town’”. This told the story of developing a 600 acre (243 hectares) site in Draper, UT into a pedestrian-friendly town with favor given to bike lanes over cars. Author Andy Corbley said that this was like something he might see in the Netherlands. Realizing that potential residents could balk at going completely car-free, the developers are focused on making the use of an automobile unnecessary within the confines of the community. At least 45% of the city will be covered by greenery including sidewalks, bike paths, and roads that lead to the perimeter bus system with connections to Salt Lake City. Hikers and cyclists will have easy access to the river parkway and to the mountain trail system. In describing the target market, one of those developers said, “They want more urban features, they want to know their neighbors, they want to be part of a community.” Hmm, sounds like us. By the way, this new town is called The Point.

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Life in France

Retiring overseas

Chambord castle

Our friend Larry tipped us off to an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal that addressed the topic of retiring abroad. The newspaper contacted about a dozen of their previous contributors who had written pieces about moving from the US and settling elsewhere in the world. Because most of those original articles were so optimistic about this big change in life the editors were especially interested to see if that initial enthusiasm continued years later ranging in time from 4 years to 14 years in residence. Some discussion suggestions were provided such as what’s changed since you’ve moved and what advice do you have for others considering living outside the country, but to get things rolling they asked everyone, “How did your decision to retire overseas turn out?” Continue reading “Retiring overseas”

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Life in France

Number 1, again

The Eiffel Tower at night

It didn’t surprise us to see a headline that read, “French Nationality Ranked No. 1 Globally for 8th Year” with the story continuing that for the eighth consecutive year France was at the top of a worldwide nationality list. We knew that with 90 million annual international visitors the country had more tourists than any other. After all, it’s hard to beat attractions including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Palace of Versailles, and even both of our own UNESCO World Heritage Sites— the medieval walled city of Carcassonne and the Canal-du-Midi—all in one landmass area about the size of Texas. So, we were pleased to see this continuing recognition but we didn’t know what it meant. What is the Quality of Nationality Index (QNI)? Continue reading “Number 1, again”

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Dealing with government, Life in France

Four-tunate

Inside the medieval city walls of Carcassonne

This month starts our fourth year of living in France and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to answer a question that we are often asked, “Why are you so happy all of the time?” A good starting point that might say it all is that we live in the south of France and we’ve just received our residency card renewal to remain here for another year. That alone makes us smile. The procedure was identical to last year (Year 3 begins) which reinforces our other experiences with government and business offices here: follow their rules, give them exactly the documents they want in the order requested and in return you will be treated in a respectful and friendly manner and receive precisely what you’ve been seeking. Who wouldn’t be happy with that? But wait, there’s so much more…. Continue reading “Four-tunate”

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