Seeking Tranquillity in France

Whether moving as a citizen of the United States or from any other country to reside in France, one of the first steps is to establish a French bank account. It’s very likely that in certain contexts…

Growing up I loved to read. There were always books to explore at home, many of them had been bought for my father when he was a child. Some of them I read over and over. I especially liked the books…

I’ve always enjoyed learning languages. As children my siblings and I were expected to learn French, at least up to a point. It was fun, and memorable—my sister and I recently spoke of those times an…

“There are three things which are real: God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.”—John F. Kennedy

I don’t recall precisely w…

Vivre dans un climat tempéré tend à éliminer les excuses pour quitter l’appartement et faire de l’exercice en raison du temps médiocre. Depuis que j’ai déménagé à Nice, j’essaie de profiter du climat…

Living in a temperate climate tends to erase excuses to get out and exercise because of bad weather. Since moving to Nice I’ve tried to take advantage of the pleasant climate to do more aerobic walki…

It’s one of those lasting stereotypes of life in France—coping with French bureaucracy. French residents and citizens complain about it, and it’s a commonplace among writers in the why-not-move-to-Fr…

A few decades ago while working in Massachusetts, I had an employee who was an Italian citizen, but a permanent resident of the United States. In fact, he was born in Italy to Italian parents who alr…

When I first began to work with computing technology—I needed a database to manage a combination of bibliographical and encoded musical information—I became acquainted with two consultants at my empl…

If you’re a relative newcomer to France, have a basic knowledge of French and want to gain fluency in informal daily conversation, there are many possibilities that do not involve a computer or mobil…

There is a large and growing cottage industry catering to people moving internationally, particularly from the U.S. to France. These range from individuals and couples who have moved in the past coup…

A question I hear frequently these days is, "Why did you choose Nice for retirement?” I hear it from residents of Nice most frequently (who probably can already guess some of the answers), but from o…

In several posts I’ve referred to my family’s departure from the U.S., which was motivated by an eminently practical concern: healthcare. Family health and well-being had not only become unaffordable…

We arrived in Dublin, Ireland in September of 2009 to begin new jobs at Ireland’s largest university, which at the time identified itself as “distinctly Irish.” We had never travelled in Ireland prio…

Living in France I still regularly hear stories about Americans’ experiences with healthcare—often focusing on the extraordinary cost of prescription drugs. The most recent tale involved a prescripti…

Growing up I found the notion of speaking languages other than English intriguing. The experiences of learning French in childhood, learning German in early adulthood, then coming back to French late…

Jack Howard (1875-1971) was a noted outdoorsman who made countless expeditions in the woods of northern Maine and New Brunswick to fish, hunt, canoe, and to photograph his experiences. He ultimately …

Chances are, no matter where you live, you expect there to be after-Christmas retail sales—an opportunity for merchants to sell over-stocked merchandise and to reduce inventory for an annual tax-rela…

On Christmas Day this year, 2024, we will mark our third Christmas as residents of Nice, France, a city that lies within the political region of Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur and, in historical terms, …

After working my way to Germany on a Norwegian freighter in 1975 I made an arbitrary tour through West Germany, travelling mostly by hitchhiking. This is what I remember of it.