For the past couple of days I have been visiting Fresno, where I lived for almost 30 years before moving to the bay area. I came to say some goodbyes. Everybody is sad to see us go, but excited for our big adventure.
It was hard to say goodbye to my 96-yr-old father (sorry to always refer to you by your age, Dad, but it’s so impressive). I showed him how to use Facetime and Words with Friends, and we practiced. My father loves technology (he wears an Apple watch!) and he told me he plans to celebrate his 100th birthday, so I have confidence I will be seeing him for quite a while longer.
My old friend Theresa had me over for breakfast, and had French music playing when I arrived. My friend Vernie sternly told me to stay away from the troublemakers in yellow vests, and hugged me hard with tears in her eyes. Today I sold my beloved car to my brother. I was sad to leave it, but he is good to his cars and I know it will have a happy life (silly, yes). I had my favorite pastrami and swiss sandwich for lunch (thanks, Geno’s).
Hopefully, the people who have promised to visit us in France will actually do it. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have friends to stay with in France who will show them around the Loire Valley?
Now I’m on Amtrak heading back home. Gliding through the beautiful Central Valley is making me melancholy. I moved here from Michigan with my parents at age 13 and began a new life, making friends and learning the California way of doing things, which wasn’t so difficult.
Now here it is 50 years later and I’m about to start over in almost every way. The challenges and difficulties, and the joys and discoveries, are waiting for us in France.
We leave two weeks from today. HOLY COW.
I’ve been reading David Lebovitz’s book, “L’appart,” chronicling his experience buying and renovating an apartment in Paris, where he moved after living many years in San Francisco. Something he wrote resonated with me: “I haven’t been a lifelong Francophile, one of those people who kept a poster of the Eiffel Tower by his bedroom window… I didn’t devour books about how effortlessly chic Parisians are, and never envied how French people could tie a scarf with a certain je ne sais quoi that I could never hope to achieve.” I, too, never thought much about France. I chose to study Spanish in school. France was as interesting to me as any other part of Europe.
It dawned on me that our decision to move to France was not so much to move to France as it was a desire to move away from our hectic life in Northern California, and to…somewhere different
The most obvious place to consider was Austria, where my husband, Bob, was born and has many aunts, uncles, and cousins. We’ve visited there many times and love exploring the Austrian countryside. But Austria somehow didn’t fit our goals. We knew we wanted to be able to use our new home as a base for further travel, so it had to be easy to travel from. Weather was a factor, not too hot or too cold, but the idea of real changing seasons was appealing. And housing prices were a consideration. The fact that we would need to learn a new language and culture was exciting and scary. Mostly exciting. Becoming bilingual has long been on my bucket list.
France was quietly waiting for us. I had visited my friend Connie there a few times without Bob, and when I returned home I always told him what a sweet life she has, and how simple and satisfying it must be to live there in the beautiful countryside of the Loire Valley, away from — but not that far from — the hustle-bustle of Paris. I was eager to return there with him so he could see for himself.
Last spring we took a trip to Europe, starting in Paris and ending five weeks later in Venice. We enjoyed a few days in Paris and then headed into the Loire to see Connie. She proudly showed us her life, introducing us to many of her friends and neighbors, cooking for us (a real treat as she is a former chef), and taking us on excursions through the lovely countryside, which, at the time was blooming with neon-yellow rapeseed.
After we left Connie, we couldn’t stop talking about our experience there with her. All the “what ifs” started then, and continued for the rest of our trip. We returned to California a few weeks later and resumed our usual routines. Surprisingly, our fascination with the idea of moving to France did not diminish. We eventually decided to return a few months later to spend more time exploring the crazy idea of moving to the tiny French village with which we were falling in love. So, in September we were back again, and had made arrangements to look at houses for sale, just to see what kinds of places might be an option for us.
When we stumbled upon a 300 yr old house for sale right in the middle of the village, we knew we’d found the reason to move. The house needed extensive renovations, but that was something that excited us, and once we found that house, we were sure of our decision to go to France and into a new life.
This is where my blog first picked up the story, and if you want to start at the beginning, you should scroll down and catch up.
As impractical as it may be just 45 days before moving to France, we are taking a break from the frenetic pace at home. Our happy place has always been Hawaii, what with it being an easy 5 hour flight from San Francisco. So, the remaining tasks at home are on hold for a bit.
Meanwhile, preparations are being made for our arrival in France. The owners of the house we will rent are clearing out closets and moving furniture around to allow for us to store some things. Once our shipping container arrives, sometime in June, we will be able to move some of our furniture into the house. We already have commitments from friends and family to visit us at the rental house in May, July, and September. Our new car has been received by the dealer and is awaiting our arrival. Our new banker confirmed our account is ready to receive funds to be transferred in preparation for the house purchase. All these balls we’ve been juggling are starting to fall into place.
As far as our house, the purchase is still not final. And this week when I pestered our architect with too many questions about the status of our house plans, I received a terse response reminding us how busy he is and offering to turn our project over to someone else. Sigh.
It will all happen eventually. It’s time now for the beach.
We have 60 days left before we board that flight to France to begin our grand adventure. The days are going by so fast now that it feels like we are on one of those moving walkways at the airport and somebody sped it
Some big things recently have been checked off our seemingly never-ending list of things to do before we move:
- Sell both cars (and to buyers who can wait a while for them)
- Schedule movers
- Obtain our French visas
- Sell our house
That last one is a really a biggie, obviously. We were planning to list our house next month, hoping it would sell quickly. Turns out it sold before we were even ready to list it. We were approached by buyers who made an attractive offer that we couldn’t refuse, so now we are in escrow. What a relief not to have to worry about that anymore. We signed the papers for the sale today, and it was bittersweet. I love this house so much and it will be hard to leave it.
Meanwhile, the purging continues. It’s of course quite painful but cathartic to go through all your worldly possessions and toss a good portion of them out. Or donate them. Or take them to a consignment shop. Or give them away. Just having to make the decision about how to part with these things is exhausting. Decisions are made a tad bit easier when you hold an item and think, “is this important enough to send in a shipping container to France?” I’m trying to channel Marie Kondo and focus on whether an item sparks joy. Yesterday we took out a favorite plant, a huge succulent, to take to a friend, and before we left with it I quietly thanked it for giving me joy for many years.
Recently I’ve become hyper-aware of things we are going to say goodbye to when we leave the US. Some things won’t be missed. But many things will be hard to leave behind. I know there is a whole new world waiting for us in France, many wonderful things that we don’t even know about yet, and we will enjoy the discovery process. In the meantime, I am starting to mourn the people and things we will leave here.
Along with all the other stuff (a LOT of stuff) we are dealing with in preparation for our big move, we had to wait until just the right moment to apply for our French visas. You can’t apply for a visa until you have purchased plane tickets to France, and no longer than 90 days before your departure. Since we are not just visiting France on a holiday, and plan to live there indefinitely, we need to have visas, which are required when you stay more than 3 months. We spent quite a bit of time researching what hoops we were to jump through in order to be granted visas. There is a lot of information — and misinformation — online about this, but, being overachievers, we compiled a huge stack of every possible piece of paper that might be asked for in the course of our application process. As of summer 2018, instead of applying at the nearest consulate, all visa applications are handled by VFS (Visa Facilitation Service), a processing service with offices in major US cities. You start here: https://france-visas.gouv.fr/en_US/web/france-visas/ma-demande-en-ligne
So, you make the initial request online for an appointment to apply for the particular visa type, then start getting nervous while compiling your papers and waiting for the appointment day to come. In our case it was about 2 weeks later, in San Francisco.
Covering our kitchen counters as we made copies and assembled packets: a completed visa application, passport-sized photos, birth certificates, copies of airline tickets, proof of travel insurance (at least 4 months to cover us until we are covered by the French healthcare system), proof that we have a place to live (in our case, a copy of our rental house agreement), proof that we can support ourselves while living in France (copies of our bank statements suffice), letters promising not to work while living in France (so that we don’t take a job away from a French person), letters stating why we want to move to France (because we want to, that’s why), copies of our marriage license (and also divorce decrees, just in case), FBI background checks (yes, really), and anything else we could think of.
We carefully assembled the packets in the proper order and triple-checked them for completeness. We had a stack for each of us, then a stack of backup papers that might also be asked for, and duplicates of all of that, labeled, clipped, and
We sailed through with flying colors. It turned out we had everything she asked for, and she complimented us on our organization. Yay! I wish I had brought her a cookie after all. After our appointment we treated ourselves to a nice lunch in San Francisco.
Then we went home and waited. Just because she was satisfied with what we presented to her didn’t necessarily mean that we would receive our passports back from Washington DC with the visas in them. But, 9 days later we did just that. What a huge relief. We high-fived ourselves for a job well done. Mark that huge task off the list. Whew.
100 days from today, we will board a plane for our move to France. This is the first time we’ve bought one-way tickets anywhere.
It’s been interesting to see the reactions when we tell people we are moving to France. People in France seem to think California is all Hollywood, warm weather, beaches and blue skies, and ask us why in the world would we want to leave that.
For some reason, many people we’ve spoken to in California confuse France with Paris. They say, “Oh, you’re moving to Paris?! How exciting!” Um, no. We are moving to rural France. Peaceful and bucolic, certainly, but not terribly exciting.
Don’t get me wrong, we are thrilled about taking this massive step into a new lifestyle, and can’t wait to call this beautiful part of the world our home. But we’ll be miles from Paris (182, actually), and there are few similarities between living in the two places. It’s definitely France, with all that comes with it. We will struggle with learning the language, the metric system, their rather archaic ways of doing simple things (more on that later), the high gas and electric prices, and so, so much more. But we will enjoy getting to know the sweet and friendly people, revel in the fact that we are buying and renovating an amazing old house that was so reasonably priced we could practically put it on our credit card, and love exploring the network of charming small towns that each have something unique to offer. We will learn to cook with seasonally available products, and attend farmers markets to buy from proud local farmers. We might not understand the tradition of closing businesses at lunch time, even the large Home Depot-type stores, but we will embrace the French ways of doing things.
After all, it’s our choice to move, so we must accept the cultural differences, along with the happy routine of buying fresh bread every morning at the little boulangerie just a two-minute walk from our front door.
We’re in Le Grand-Pressigny to get some things in order in preparation for our move, which, by the way, has been scheduled for April 2, 2019. We bought one-way tickets to Paris. Scary! After that, our flights will be round trip, but originating in France. So far, we’ve managed to open a bank account at the (one) local bank, dropped off papers at the notaire (the house purchase is still not complete), met with our contractor, and will meet with our architect later this week. It’s all moving along.
Selling up and moving on.
One big thing to take care of is selling our house in California. Fortunately, our realtor is a very good friend whom we trust completely, so we’re relying on her to help with some logistics. She hopes to start showing it to local agents and clients in February, and is confident it will sell quickly. It is a fantastic house with a gorgeous view, and we’re optimistic it won’t take long.
About packing and transit.
Now we have to figure out when to schedule the moving truck, allowing at least a few days leeway before we leave California, just in case they have a problem and need to adjust our packing date. Because this is an international move, the moving company will not insure our belongings in-transit unless they do all the packing. The guy told me, “just answer the door with your cup of coffee, let the guys in and stand back. They will do everything.” That’s a little daunting. When you pack your own stuff to move, you know, for instance, that your favorite shoes were put in the box with the coats because they happened to be near that closet when you packed. Or that your precious vintage glass measuring cup (I do have one) was wrapped carefully and put inside something else to protect it. I am envisioning that ginormous pile of miscellaneous boxes being unloaded in France. Yikes.
As far as transit time, we’re told it will take approximately 8 weeks to get to France. The ship will arrive in Rotterdam, Netherlands, then the shipment will go by truck to France. I have no idea why that routing, but there must be a good reason. (I just looked up Rotterdam and learned it is Europe’s largest seaport.) When our stuff arrives in Le Grand-Pressigny, it will go directly into storage (we found an excellent local storage facility that was formerly a furniture factory), because we will be renting a furnished house while ours is undergoing renovations. We’re hoping that we will be able to get to some of our things easily so we can have appropriate clothing etc for the year that our things are in storage.
Our year in limbo.
While we wait for our house to be transformed, we will be renting “Les Balcons,” a sweet old house in town. We’re told it will take a year for the renovations. Actually, the contractor said, “no more than a year,” so that’s something. This house is just a few minutes walk from our house so we can keep an eye on the ongoing project.
Back to dreaming.
While all this planning and arranging is happening, I’m still happily flipping through Pinterest images of all things French farmhouse related. It’s been fun to dream, and we now have some good ideas for the new house when the time comes. If it would all just hurry up and start happening!
If I could live my life like a TiVo, I’d be hitting that fast-forward button right now and bypassing the next few months before we move to France. Even though we are planning to ship a huge container full of our stuff to France, we have loads of things we must get rid of before we go. Like every thing we own that plugs in. It’s not just a matter of the plug that goes into the socket. France’s electric system is 230 volts and the US runs on 110 volts, so you can’t just convert the plug and hope that your blender will make your margarita. Nope, every electrical thing we own has to be sold or donated. Now think about that for a minute. Everything that plugs in…my Cuisinart that I’ve had and loved for close to 40 years, the toaster, the blender, rice cooker, egg poacher (don’t judge), waffle iron, Crock Pot and Instant Pot (of course I have both), and every other electrical kitchen gadget I apparently can’t live without, all the power tools in the garage, and my zillions of small fans around the house that keep me (and my mood) at a cool temperature. My beloved sewing machine :::sniffle:::: that was a gift from my parents, and my favorite clock radio that fits perfectly on my tiny bedside table. We’ve been told we can take our lamps and just use a plug converter, and switch to French lightbulbs. Fortunately, our computers and cell phones are not a problem, but we’ll need to buy a new printer and monitor asap in France. Thinking about what to do with these things is a black cloud hanging over me. Eeeeeek.
Hopefully, someday soon, this will be me, except in female form.
We may be dreaming, but we hope to be living in the new house by April, 2020. Our plan is to move to France in April, 2019 and be settled into a nearby rental house before the extensive renovations begin.
The architect’s crew spent five hours measuring every inch (or centimeter) of the house and property, producing a detailed set of drawings of how it looks now. This is one of their initial drawings. The structures on the side are utility rooms and a few chicken coops. The property is quite large and there are several more structures that are not attached to the house. The architects are now working on plans for a master bedroom and bath annex, and the expansion of one of the outbuildings into a small garage.
The next step is to submit those plans to Bâtiments de France, the agency who governs any exterior improvements on structures in an historic area. Then we wait. We’ve been told it can take months to get the approval. Their mission is to “ensure the good integration of new buildings and transformations around protected monuments,” and since our house is about 300 feet (91 meters) from historic Chateau du Grand-Pressigny, we must follow their guidelines.
After seeing what we nicknamed the Village House, we gave ourselves a few days to ponder if this was what we really wanted. While we looked at a couple more houses, our thoughts kept swirling around this house and the potential it held. We returned to the house a few times more, once with an architect who was miraculously available at short notice and drove 90 minutes the very next day to meet with us and go through the house, and another visit with a local builder whom we would most likely be using for the much-needed renovations. Both of these professionals gave the house a big thumbs-up and were not fazed by the amount of work it needed. We talked about building an annex on the side, adding a master bedroom, bath and closet.
As it stands now, the house has just two bedrooms and a tiny bath on the upper floor. But it has several surprises. The first is an unfinished space just off the kitchen that could become a pantry, laundry room, and/or bathroom. It’s pretty rough looking, but quite intriguing (use your imagination, with the appropriate finishing, it could be something great). From the kitchen, through that door in the back, is the space we’re calling the cave.
Another diamond-in-the-rough is the attic space. The creaky and cobwebbed stairs are in place to get up there, but it is apparent the space has never been used for anything. My thoughts immediately turned it into a beautiful guest suite, with a spacious open-beamed bedroom, bath and sitting room spanning the entire top floor:
One more great feature of the property is the numerous outbuildings. In addition to the chicken and rabbit coops (which we wouldn’t use), there are several other storage spaces. One could be expanded a little and made into a single garage, another contains a big surprise that made me squeal with delight when I saw it:
A huge old apple press! I don’t think we could use it, but it sure is great looking. There is also a nice collection of old tools.
One week after our first visit to the house, we made arrangements with the owners to meet again to discuss a offer. This time we were met by 7 of the 11 owners. We had a little speech prepared and with the helpful translation services of our friend Connie, we carefully presented our offer, assuring them that this was to be a full-time home for us, not a holiday house, and we would take good care of their family homestead. They seemed to like that, and a price was agreed upon. We shook hands all around, and that was it, the very first step of our next chapter. A few days later we went to the notaire’s office (a notaire is a real estate lawyer, and the only way you can buy a house in France) to fill out the first of the forms involved. We’re slightly terrified of what we’re getting ourselves into, but ready for the challenges and eager to get going. Wish us luck!