…and finding joy everywhere
Ralph and I are less than three months away from the big move to France! Finding somewhere to live was obviously a huge piece of the puzzle, but once we found the house, it was time to turn our attention to the next critical phase: visas. For long stays, France requires you to apply no […]
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Our visit is coming to an end, and as I sit at the Bordeaux airport (which, fun fact, is both tiny and surprisingly janky), I find myself reflecting on the last few days. We’ve crossed off some major milestones with this logistics-focused trip — opened a bank account, secured home insurance, and got to know […]
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A couple of months have passed, and now we are back in Castillon to see La Maison de L’Amiral！ It was a long day flying from Stuttgart to Barcelona to Bordeaux, but we made the most of it with Spanish tapas for lunch in the airport. We decided not to rent a car to force […]
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It’s been a week since we got the news from the realtor and each day it sinks in just a little more. The offre d’achat has been countersigned and we are charging along. For once, everything is clicking into place, and it’s such a relief! There have been many times in my life where I’ve […]
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After viewing thousands of houses online, reaching out to dozens of realtors, and visiting 20 houses all over France, we signed a contract! It turns out that our “unicorn” has a name – La Maison de l’Amiral (The Admiral’s House). It’s better than anything we could have ever imagined. It sat vacant for 25 years […]
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I couldn’t sleep at all Wednesday night after seeing the house in Castillon-la-Bataille! I google mapped my way around the streets, taking stock of all the shops and restaurants. I learned about the town and got excited to see they’re involving the community to gather ideas for improvement (design thinking!). I found a swimming beach […]
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What a difference a day can make! Yesterday I was chatting with some girlfriends and the topic of toiletries arose. As in “lawd have mercy how did we end up with all these things?!” That must have stuck in my craw because I woke up at 0400 thinking about all our toiletries, bedding, and other […]
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Ralph and I covered a lot of ground the last two days and we even found a contender! More to come on that (decisions, decisions) but here’s what we’ve been up to… Yesterday we left Pau and met up with two new friends, Mykle and Doug, to get a tour of Oloron-Sainte-Marie. They relocated to […]
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Tomorrow, we’re off to explore southwest France! After our last househunting trip, I decided to switch things up and look at the region first instead of a house that caught my eye. So why not check out an area where just over an hour’s drive will take you to the mountains in one direction, or […]
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Some people leap into the unknown, while others take a methodical approach. I fall somewhere in between. When we first started considering the possibility of living in Europe permanently, my curiosity led to dozens of questions. They ranged from straightforward ones like “Which countries could I see myself living in?” to more complex considerations like […]
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Delightfully Disoriented 
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