Chronicles of an expat from the US living in France
A road trip! Shelly’s high school friend happened to be in France visiting with friends and on business and she invited us to join her for lunch in La Rochelle, a 90-minute drive from Vertou. It’s not everyday you get to see an old friend from Los Angeles and certainly not for lunch by the … Continue reading Our first road trip in France: La Rochelle
It’s not easy to buy a car in France as an expat. And it’s certainly not easy with the added pressure of needing a car immediately. We had no plans of buying a car in France. We briefly entertained the idea of shipping over our Audi from the US, but quickly ditched that idea. The … Continue reading How to buy a used car in France as an expat
Now, with our search area increased to cover a larger area of Nantes proper, we started to pull up houses and apartments that ticked some of the boxes we had. Must-haves got relegated to “nice-to haves” and new boxes got added to the list. It was a very stressful time. Frantic emails and texts and conference calls to our house-hunting agency, hours of online searching, a decision to increase our monthly rental budget, all to find a seemingly impossible place to live. We had no idea it would be so competitive and that there’d be so few properties.
Where the heck is Nantes?
How we ended up in Cholet for our first month in France
March 2022, when we started our lives as expats in France.
We lost Oliver on Friday. In the past two months, he was diagnosed with two different kinds of aggressive cancers. One, nasal, one in the rear. Not fair. Rather than treating one and waiting for the other to catch up, we opted to prevent further suffering and have him go out on a happy note. … Continue reading Our brave boy
Back in November, Shelly and I got a private tour of the inside of the Clock Tower aka Big Ben. You won't find this free tour in any guidebook. You need to be a UK resident and arrange the tour through your MP. So, we took advantage of our temporary resident status and our Richmond … Continue reading Big Ben and its 334 steps
Exactly one year ago this past week, I landed in London. Shelly followed with the pups just over a week later. A lot has happened in those 365 days. In fact, more stuff than I can remember. A whirlwind. I like lists, so I made one. What I've done in the past year: Packed up … Continue reading A year in London
When a dog has nine lives, there has to be one last one. And our Frances used all of hers up on Sunday. She came from Richmond, California and died in Richmond, Surrey, UK. Born on January 3, 2001, she graced our lives for nearly 11 years. But let's be honest. She earned her nine-lives … Continue reading When a dog has nine lives
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