Moving to France

This fall Brian and I are planning a trip to France to scope out places to live. When I lived in Montpellier about a decade ago, I promised that one day I would move back. Luckily, Brian was on board with the plan.

Over the years we’ve visited some potential cities. In first place is Nantes, an artsy, whimsical city in Brittany. We decided against Montpellier and Tours, and Paris is too magical to sully with the daily business of living.

This year we’re planning to see Strasbourg, Lyon, and Bordeaux. While I’m just now starting to plan that journey, I thought I’d share an old blog post about my arrival in France the first time I lived there, back in 2008.

Bienvenue en France!

Originally posted September 27, 2008

I arrived in France two days ago after a 29 hour journey just to find that the train station at which I arrived had no elevators and hence, although jet lagged and otherwise completely worn out, I had to lug all 200 pounds of my luggage downstairs, across an underground tunnel and then upstairs to the opposite platform where thank goodness, someone was waiting to take some of it off my hands.

The first words she said (after “Are you Terayza?”) were “We were worried about you.  The train came and went twenty minutes ago and there was no sign of you.” To which I replied, “Unh.”  I didn’t have the energy for anything witty (or coherant, actually).

Once we were packed into the car and on the road, she laid out her second sentence: “We thought you were going to stay in the high school dormitory but in fact, there is a problem.”  To which I made no reply.  (I was just about catatonic at this point.)  But from the rest of the conversation I did understand that the dormitory was in fact, a problem.  For starters, it’s a boys dormitory.  Secondly, curfew is 9pm.  Thirdly, the dormitory is not open on the weekends, I’d have to pack a weekend bag and crash somewhere else.  Needless to say, I didn’t argue when they told me they had made other arrangements for me.

So, while I’m technically homeless it hasn’t been too rough.  The teachers are all very nice and willing to help and there have been a number of rooms offered to me.  So for now, I’m staying with the art teacher (who bears an uncanny resemblance to my aunt Ginger, so it’s literally like staying with family :p) while I consider my other prospects.  Once I decide on a place, no doubt I’ll post some pics.

More to come on the actual city and my schools.  I’ve got some rooms to go look at now. a bientot!

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…And the rest is history!

What does an expat teacher in France eat? Why, copious amounts of cheese, spaghetti and canned mushrooms topped with an artery clogging amount of red pepper pesto…of course. Is it weird that I still think this looks pretty tasty?

Want to know more about my time in France? I discovered a few things about kissing.