French Laundry
I have been doing laundry for many years, for five people, but in the past few weeks I’ve learned my most expensive two lessons. First of all, never put a king size velvet and silk Pottery Barn quilt into your French washing machine whose capacity is 8 kilos. Just because you can stuff it in […]
Pharmacie de Garde
I learned something new today because my son woke up with flaming red, goopy, oozing, crusted over eyes. Common sense told me pink-eye, but if you live in the south of France you feel a bit paralyzed on Sunday if you need to do anything other than eat a good lunch. Almost everything, but restaurants, […]
Week in Photos: St Tropez, Eze, Monaco, St Paul de Vence, San Remo
With family in town, we spent the week exploring Biot, Saint Tropez, Eze, Monaco and Saint Paul de Vence in France/Monaco and San Remo, over the boarder in Italy. Gallery des Arcades in Biot. This is a great restaurant that serves a mix of Provençal food with an Italian flare. If you can, grab a table […]
Week in Photos: April’s 39th and New Dog- Pascal Didier
This week we celebrated April’s 39th birthday by purchasing a new dog- Pascal-a wirehair Fox Terrier. He is our first family dog and our 2nd family pet, after our cat Fluffer. Pascal enjoys playing in the grass in our garden. Pascal is being introduced to the boulangerie on April’s birthday.
Flying From France to Los Angeles to Get a VISA and Back Again
Harper and I left Nice on Sunday morning and flew through Munich to arrive later that extra long day in Los Angeles. We passed through customs, grabbed our bags and hopped on a bus to get our rental car. We were in a hurry to find In n’ Out Burger and then the Hotel Shangri-La […]
Understanding French Holidays
Tuesday, May 1st was the start of many public holidays in France. As an American living in France, I don’t really understand the importance of these holidays to the French, except that I don’t have to go to work- which is very nice. The first being La Fête du Travail or May Day, which is […]
Obtaining a French Long Stay Visa and a Visit to the French Consulate in LA
I will start off by stating: this is not a guide on how to get a French Visa, I wouldn’t dream of dragging you through everything we have been through in a blog post. Rather, this is a condensed version of our experience during the week we traveled to obtain our visa. If you are […]
Week in Review: Ikea, Antibes, Yacht Show
We must be in the rainy season in southern France as it has been cloudy and rainy more often than sunny for the past several weekends. Instead of spending the entire Saturday indoors, we decided to find something to do away from the house. After resisting for more than two months, I finally gave in […]
Week in Review: Easter, St Paul de Vence
My assumption that it doesn’t rain that often in the Cote d’Azur was definitely wrong. The last few weeks seem to be filled with more cold, rainy days than warm, sunny days. I’m not really complaining, just admitting that my knowledge of the weather here was either wrong or the rain we are experiencing is […]
23 Tips (and growing) for Visiting Tuscany
1. Make time to see attractions at sunset or at night. If you are taking photos, the best light is often in the last hour of the day. If you can, visit popular tourist attractions after 9pm to avoid crowds and get a different perspective. Sometimes seeing things at night can be a new experience […]
Five Days with Toscana
Shhh… Don’t tell my wife. I’m in love with another. She is natural beauty, with dizzying curves that are hard to miss. Her knowledge on the subjects of art and culture have made her very influential and she maintains incredible collections at the Uffizi and Pitti Palace. I’m not the first to love her, other […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 5- Siena
Our last full day in Tuscany and there is no doubt that we want to spend more time here. We’ve covered a lot of ground but there is still so much we could do. Today our focus is on Siena, but as discussed in an earlier post we are being pulled toward spending more time […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 4: Chianti
Another day, another enchanted morning at Villa Collina. This morning I drank my espresso sitting in front of the Il Campanile chapel as I watched the sun climb out of the valley below. Our day in Val d’Orcia was amazing, but tiring, so we decided to take it easy at Villa Collina before venturing out […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 3- Val d’Orcia- Montalcino, San Quirico d’Orcia, and Pienza
Our third day in Tuscany began with an amazing sunrise from the top level master bedroom of our villa. Opening the windows wide we could lean out and hear the quiet, and feel the crisp morning air. While looking out the open windows, I felt connected to another time and place. One thousand years ago […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 2- Pisa to San Galgano
Twelve hours after arriving in Pisa, we were up and enjoying our second day in Tuscany, fresh-brewed Italian cappuccino’s in hand. Fear not fellow American’s who rely on the consistency factor of Starbucks, if you order a cappuccino in Italy, you get a cappuccino. In France, not so much. After enjoying an Italian style buffet […]
Five Days in Tuscany: Day 1- 178 Tunnels to Pisa
After weeks of planning and anticipation, we hit the road to Tuscany on our first overnight road trip since moving to France. We were on the road shortly after 4pm, with our destination set for Pisa- only 390km away. Our goal was to arrive in Pisa before sunset so that we could see the city […]
Week in Review: Flea Markets, Gardenshops, and Le Blanc Manger
After weeks and weekends of non stop exploring, week seven turned out to be a much slower week- no major travel plans, no major activities, no major French surprises, and honestly nothing that exciting to report. I think it is safe to say that France is slowly starting to feel more like home and we […]
Week in Review: Paris-Nice 2012, London in a Flash
Six weeks in France are in the books and it seems like only yesterday that we were arriving to a surprisingly snowy Côte d’Azur. The idiom is definitely true: time flies when you are having fun. There is so much to take in, to learn, to do, to see, to eat, to buy, and to share […]
How to Travel and/or Move Internationally with an AT&T iPhone
Having recently moved to France from the United States, I have been forced to deal with international service options for my iPhone 4s and my wife’s iPhone 4. I’ve had an iPhone since late 2007 and AT&T has always been my service provider. Until I traveled to Europe during the summer of 2011 I […]
Week In Review: AT&T Sucks, Unlocked iPhones, Monaco, and Italy
It is very safe to say that I strongly dislike AT&T. I was never a fan of them living in the US, but now that I am overseas I have complete disdain for them. I’ve been to France three times between June 0f 2011 and now, for a total of about 7 weeks, and my AT&T […]