The Point Of No Return

Trois Fromages

A fellow expat friend and I were talking over drinks and nibbles the other night and out of the blue she asked me if I ever thought about moving back to the States.
I sat there for a minute, like a deer caught in the headlights, trying to come up with a response.

Of course, I think about it.
But would I ever really consider it?

We've worked hard over the years to live here and there are many things I love and take for granted in France.
  • fabulous, inexpensive healthcare and doctors and nurses who make house calls 
  • 600 + kinds of cheese!
  • unpasteurized, hand churned salt butter
  • amazing AOC wine from more regions than I can count
  • efficient train travel (unless there's a strike...)
  • numerous European countries at our doorstep
  • inexpensive monthly internet and phone packages
  • weekly outdoor markets with fresh, local produce 
Loulou




  • the café culture
  • long Sunday lunches
  • diverse regional cuisine
  • flaky, buttery croissants
  • a more relaxed pace of life
  • the history, art and architecture

    • Normandy

    On the other hand, there are many things I do miss!



  • family and friends, of course
  • stores open on a Sunday afternoon in case I need a last minute ingredient for dinner
  • hot sauce. So many kinds of hot sauce.
  • cheap fuel
  • not having to worry about having exact change
  • Dairy Queen (yes, I love Peanut Buster Parfaits - don't judge)
  • no foreign language mix-ups
  • long, wide stretches of empty beach
  • drive through banking
  • Trader Joe's (and its amazing selection of salsas)

    • Trader Joe's

    A Day on the Beach in California




  • a life free of endless paperwork
  • drivers who respect others (of course this is debatable, depending on where you live) 
  • not having to mentally and emotionally prepare myself every time I need to return something
  • having my groceries bagged up for me
  • good bagels
  • Mexican food

    • Three of my favorite things: chips, salsa and a margarita

    After thinking about her question some more on the train home to Normandy the next day, I realized that after 11½ years, a quarter of my life, I think we've reached the point of no return. We chose to change our lives and move to France and have managed to make it work despite the bureaucratic challenges and other headaches. We've learned to be more patient, flexible and very determined.
    There has also been a huge emotional investment. We have put down roots here.
    France is home.


    Komentar

    Posting Komentar

    Postingan populer dari blog ini

    Le Trèfle du Perche

    Gambar
    Walk into any fromagerie in France during goat cheese season (April to November) and you will be faced with a tempting array of wrinkly rectangles, fresh drums, blue mold covered cylinders, two-toned cones, grey pyramids, white diamonds, discs wrapped in leaves, and a distinctive four-leaf clover,  le Trèfle du Perche. In the French cheese world, this one is fairly recent creation. Back in 1999 a group of 7 artisan cheesemakers in the northern part of the Loire Valley and the southern part of Normandy established  l’Association des Fromagers Caprins Perche et Loir  (after numerous meetings involving copious amounts of local cheese and wine I like to think) and created a new goat cheese. Their goal was to come up with a fromage de chèvre that would be instantly recognizable and that would become associated with their region. During its inception, one of the members spotted an unusual, four-leaf clover shaped clay cheese mold in a local rural museum and the rest is h...
    Baca selengkapnya

    Judging The Best Baguette In Paris Competition

    Gambar
    It's not every day that you get invited to spend an afternoon sitting in a small room overlooking the Seine with an MOF or two, the president of la Chambre professionnelle des artisans boulangers-pâtissiers de Paris ,  a delightful fromagère, Djibril Bodian,  the winner  of last year's Best Baguette in Paris competition and, most importantly, two long tables lined with baguettes. 155 baguettes to be exact. To be tasted by only 15 of us. A seemingly endless and daunting task, yet it was taken very seriously. We inspected, sniffed, poked, prodded, chewed and tasted 71 baguettes each over the course of the afternoon. The tasting wrapped up around 6:45pm, the final numbers were tallied up and the winner was called just after 7pm. Then the bottles of Champagne came out, I'm sure with the goal to both toast us for our efforts and to get the flavor of bread out of our mouths. Baguettes, as far as the eye can see! As I mentioned in my most recent post , the jury is made up of mai...
    Baca selengkapnya

    Holiday Rentals In France

    Gambar
    Our old house in Normandy, which is now a charming rental cottage . We highly recommend this place! For the first 10 years that we lived here, whenever I was visiting the U.S. and met someone new, they would inevitably ask me where I lived. When I would reply that I lived in France, their response, every single time , would be, "so how long have you lived in Paris ?" I always found that pretty funny. It's like telling someone that you live in the U.S. and they respond by asking how long you've lived in New York City. But I get it. Paris represents "France" to most foreigners. However there is much, much more to  l'Hexagone  than Paris! And over the years we've been fortunate enough to live in a few regions and have enjoyed exploring a good chunk of this beautiful country on many of our vacations. I know that once you've chosen where to go, picking where to stay can be daunting. The sheer number of holiday rentals out there is crazy, so I thought ...
    Baca selengkapnya