Things I Love About France...#4

Travel

It still amazes me how quickly we can travel to other places in France, or even to other countries in Europe. Luckily, we live pretty close to the center of France. It is only a 6 hour drive to Italy, a 6 hour drive to Spain, a 4 hour drive to Paris, just over 3 hours to the Mediterranean, 3 hours to Bordeaux, and 4 hours to the Alps. Everything is so well connected by train, it is easy to travel around without even driving (or paying to fly!). Unfortunately the TGV (the high speed train) has not come to Clermont yet...

When Matthew and I agreed to move to France, the number one thing on our list of things we wanted to do was to TRAVEL! We have had some really great trips, and we have several trips lined up for this year that we are really looking forward to!

Paris, France
December 2008


Bordeaux, France
April 2009


Cinque Terre, Italy
May 2009


Nimes, France
June 2009


Pont du Gard, France
June 2009


Gorges du Tarn, France
June 2009


Barcelona, Spain
July 2009


Sete, France
July 2009


Nice, France
July 2009


Corsica
August 2009


Beziers, France
November 2009


Upcoming Trips:
Chamonix, French Alps...next week!
The Netherlands for Mark and Silke's Wedding!...August 2010

Things I Love About France...#5

Open-Air Markets


The town we live in has an open-air market every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning. Matthew and I love to go to the market on Saturday mornings. In Chamalieres, there are usually the same vendors each week. There are even some vendors that seem to remember us from week to week (it is probably my horrible French that they remember!). Even though the vendors are usually the same, there is always something new on display to try. The produce is so fresh and beautiful!


And the flowers! They are so beautiful, and usually pretty inexpensive.


Our market isn't a very big one, but there is a bigger one on Sunday mornings in a nearby town, Aubiere. They have a lady that makes this gigantic pot of paella every Sunday morning, and it is delicious!

One thing to remember if you ever find yourself at a French market: always let the vendor pick out your produce for you. Matthew has a colleague who actually had his hand slapped when he started to squeeze peaches to find ones that were ripe. This is a big no-no! You can tell the vendor when you want to eat the item, and they will pick out the perfect fruit or vegetables for you.

10 Things I Love About France...#6

Vacation Time

Cinque Terre, Italy

I never realized how little vacation time Matthew got in the US...until we moved to France! French people have got this vacation time thing down! In the US, Matthew took one week off in the summer and one week off at Christmas (2 weeks at Christmas if we were lucky and Christmas Eve, Christmas day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day were all on week days). Now that we live in France, he gets the 5 standard weeks of vacation, plus 3 more weeks of vacation because his work week is listed as a 39 hour work week (instead of the legal 35 hour work week)! 8 weeks of vacation! (plus all of the French National holidays) It sounds absurd even to write it! Now, granted, some of the weeks are mandated when you can take them. For example, this year, Matthew has to take off the first 3 weeks of August. Still, nothing to complain about!

Vacation is a very appropriate topic to be writing about, especially since we are leaving on Sunday for a week long trip to the French Alps. In the US, I could never imagine Matthew being able to take off a week in the middle of February for vacation! There are so many places we want to visit in Europe during our time here, it is a good thing Matthew has lots of vacation time!

10 Things I Love About France...#7

Walking


If you asked me a year and a half ago if the #7 item on a list of 10 things I love most about a place would be 'walking', I would say you were crazy! I walked only when necessary. Even though Matthew and I lived in a neighborhood that was right across the street from a Bi-Lo, the thought never crossed my mind to actually walk there. How would I carry my week's worth of groceries? All of the American-sized products? The case of Mountain Dew for Matthew? The buy 1 get 2 free jumbo jars of Duke's mayonaise (because I had a Paula Dean recipe to make after all!)? Get a rolling cart? Absurd!

Fast forward to my current life in France. Every week, at least twice a week, I get out my little pull-along rolling cart and head out to the grocery store. This week, as snow flurries swirl around in the air, it is probably not the best time to be talking about how much I enjoy walking to the grocery store. But it is true! There is nothing better on one of those perfect Spring or Fall days to set out to grocery shop, and not have to get into a car to do it!

It is not just the grocery store that I enjoy walking to in France. When Matthew and I go to friends' houses or out to dinner in the downtown area, we always walk. It is so refreshing after a big French dinner to have a twenty minute walk home. Quite healthy as well. The first few months after living here, I had already dropped over 15 pounds...and this was while still enjoying the bread, cheese, and wine (see #9!).

The topic of how French women stay so thin has many a time been the topic of conversation between American women here. With a mouth-watering boulangerie and patisserie on every corner, it astounds us that these women stay so slender (and might I add, this is after having 3 or 4 or even 5 children!). Our number one reason for this is all of the walking they do.

A little over 2 years ago I was in a car accident, after which I was in a wheel chair for 3 months, with a broken ankle and not able to walk. When we first moved here, I still walked with quite a noticeable limp. Matthew and I both agree that moving to France was probably the best physical therapy I could have asked for. I think this is why, even on these blustery cold days, that I truly appreciate (and even enjoy) the ability to walk and walk and walk...

10 Things I Love About France...#8

Public Transportation

This is something I love not only about France, but everywhere we have visited in Europe. Matthew and I are able to survive with just one car because of the excellent network of transportation in Clermont. I walk, take the bus, or take the tram everywhere I go.

In the US, the few times I used public transportation have been in Atlanta. While I have occasionally found it useful to take the Marta, you definitely have to take into consideration the time of day you ride it. Matthew and I have ridden very late at night coming out of downtown after "The Peach Drop" on New Year's Eve, or a football game in the Georgia Dome. The later it gets, the sketchier the people get. This is not true in Clermont. Everyone rides the bus. Business men in their 3-piece suits. Little old French ladies in their fur hats and high heels. Students (lots of students, there are no school buses, so the public buses are the school buses for the students). And me!

This past summer, Amy and Trey came to visit us. We spent a long weekend in Barcelona, where they too were bit by the public transportation bug. We took the metro everywhere we went. It was so nice not to worry about driving, finding and paying for parking, or who was going to be the DD.

I know it would take a lot of planning, and A LOT of money, but public transportation is something that the US should definitely start investing in.

10 Things I Love About France...#9

#9: The Wine. The Cheese. The Bread.

'nuf said!

Seriously though, Matthew and I are so spoiled by the plethora of inexpensive, excellent wine selections in just about every corner grocery store! Granted, half the time I have no idea what I am buying. The French don't label their wines like they do in the US. You can't go to the store and go to a 'Merlot' section, or a 'Cabernet' section. A lot of French wines are blends anyway, AND you are expected to know based on where the wine is produced, what the blend is! It is overwhelming to pick out wine, but it is a challenge I am up to! :)
and PS- most of the time I just buy the bottle with the prettiest label!

The cheese...I think picking out cheese is just as overwhelming as picking out wine!
My mom and sister can attest to the fact that when we came to France in the summer of 1997 to visit my uncle and cousins in Lyon, I lived on brie and baguettes. Since then, I have broadened my cheese horizons, but I still love a good brie. It helps that the region we live in is known for its cheeses! Although, beware! If you invite some French people (yes, I am talking about you, Bertrand!) to your house for dinner, they might bring the nastiest, stinkiest cheese possible...just to see if you will try it, laugh at you while you gag after trying it, and to enjoy the look of horror on your face as you think of how the putrid smell will linger in your house long after your guests have gone...

The bread...French boulangeries are one of my favorite things about France, and one of the things I know I am going to miss the most when we move back to the US! There is nothing better than getting to the boulangerie in the afternoon just as a fresh batch of bread is coming out of the oven. Matthew and I will stop by our favorite boulangerie- Masion Vacher in Chamalieres- on Saturday mornings before we head to the outdoor market. The bread is usually still warm, and we normally buy two of their special "fanette" baguettes because we know one will mysteriously disappear while we are strolling through the market!

10 Things I Love About France...#10

Hello! Hopefully all of my faithful readers have not given up on me! We are now back in France after our month-long trip to the US. We had a really great time (well, I had a really great time, Matthew had to work 3 out of the 4 weeks!). It was especially nice being home for Christmas. Last year my mom came to France for the holidays, and that was wonderful... but there is something so special about being surrounded by family and friends during the Christmas season.

We have been back for almost 2 weeks, and everyone keeps asking me how I feel about being back. Was it hard to leave the Us and come back to France? Was it wonderful being back "home"? Have I adjusted back to "French" life? The answer to all of the above is 'yes'. Yes, it was hard to leave the US. Yes, it was wonderful being back in the US. And, yes, I am back in the swing of things, in fact it feels like the trip to the US is just a distant memory already!

I know that many of you will think that I have nothing to complain about, given this amazing opportunity to live abroad. And, I tell myself that constantly, because I am truly thankful for this experience. However, the truth is, it can be very hard living in a country where I don't speak the language very well and I am far away from family and friends. And, as I am alone in our apartment, staring out at yet another freezing cold, dreary, gray day, I have decided I need some positive thinking!

So, I am starting a series of 10 posts. Each one with something I love about living in France. Here we go with #10:

#10: The French Health Care System
Since this is already kind of a long post, I decided to choose a topic I have already blogged about. If you feel like reading some more, you can click here.

Check back tomorrow for the #9 thing I love about life in France!