Tom and Susan's Blog- Entries from 2017 to 2020This is a continuation of my blog updates from 2017 to 2020. I just moved these from the main blog page because it was getting a bit long. There is another page for the blog entries from 2021 and 2022. **Please note** that the city entries that are normally on the right-hand side have been REMOVED from the older pages so if you are looking for the city list, go to the main blog page. December 26th, 2020 Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends (and anyone else who may have stumbled onto our blog)! In this years Christmas 2020 blog, I cover how with all of the craziness of 2020, we attempted to have as normal of a Christmas as we could. I also realized that I never posted our Thanksgiving blog, so I've got it out here as well although it is pretty short. I'll take a couple weeks off of blogging and we will see what 2021 has in store for us. Hopefully, we will get back to traveling a little big ... maybe a beach trip as soon as restaurants reopen. We hope to get to Spain and Germany in the coming year, as well as getting back to visit friends and family in the US. Until then .... we hope everyone stays safe and healthy! December 20th, 2020 This was a busy birthday-weekend! Tom's birthday, Susan's birthday, and Lucy's 18th moiniversaire! Normally, we would have gone somewhere nice, visited a Christmas Market, ate an expensive dinner ... but not this year. As the French would say ... Les choses sont un peu compliquées (Things are a bit complicated). Most Christmas markets were canceled this year and restaurants remain closed. I guess we might have been able to find a hotel that is open (although most are not) but our only meal-option would have been take-out. Not really ideal for a fancy dinner. Perhaps things will be open by Valentines Day. Instead, we met up with a couple friends and just relaxed around town. We did take Lucy around to see the Christmas lights (I'll post that blog shortly) around town. Until then, you can check out Lucy's 18-month page in the Lucy Blog. If you want to go directly (since I'm creating a new page for each one due to the size of the original blog page, you can go here. November 20th, 2020 Happy 17th moiniversaire to our little Princess Lucy! I didn't put up her 16 month pictures last month and so I have both 16 and 17 months updated in the Lucy Blog. If you want to go directly (since I'm creating a new page for each one due to the size of the original blog page, you can go here. November 4th, 2020 I have updated my Burgundy 2020 blog to add Part 2, which includes more wine and a few more towns. October 25th, 2020 Just before the curfew was put in place, we did a week-long trip through a section of Burgundy (in French, Bourgogne). It used to be a region on its own, but it has been combined with another one to form Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. While Bordeaux is probably the most famous and well-known wine region in France, Burgundy is probably in the top few. We did a little wine tasting in 2 of the areas in Burgundy, as well as the normal sprinkling of towns, villages, and châteaus along the way. I have Part 1 of my Burgundy blog ready for you now, and I'll have Part 2 posted shortly. October 18th, 2020 I'm sure by now, almost everyone who reads this blog (assuming anyone does) has heard about the additional restrictions that have been put in place across France by the French government. These restrictions impact us here in Toulouse, and are every-changing, as you can tell from my mini-lockdown blog. October 4th, 2020 A little late, but at the end of August, we did a short vacation to a part of Brittany (Bretagne for the French). Brittany is really a huge area, and we had visited part of it last year. So we got another small section of Brittany this year, but we still haven't made it up to the Brest area. We talk about the various towns and beaches that we visited in our Bretagne 2020 blog. September 28th, 2020 Lucy is now 15 months and 1 week old (yea, I know, I'm a week late!) and so I've gotten an update to the Lucy Blog today. It includes a set of pictures and videos from her playing with various puppies ... on the beach, at puppy recess, and well as just playing in the park. We also have her in her new raincoat and up at the table at the end of dinner at one of our favorite brasseries in our neighborhood. September 21st, 2020 Our first year in France, we participated in a Fête des Vendages, or festival of the wine harvest. We skipped a couple years, but this year we participated again with a few friends. It was a great day with friends, food, and good weather. I have all the details on our Fête des Vendages blog. September 5th, 2020 Last year, we did a Corgi meet-up with several Corgis and their owners who live in and around Toulouse. We had another one at the end of August, and so I've made an update to the Lucy Blog for this meet-up. Different location and and a different set of Corgis. August 20th, 2020 Happy 14th moiniversaire to Lucy! It is not only her 14th month birthday, but today marks the 1-year anniversary of her arrival at our home. It has been an interesting year, to say the least. I've made a couple updates to the Lucy Blog, since I forgot to post her 13th month blog. So now you can see both and I have marked both as latest, so that it was obvious that those were both new! August 16th, 2020 As promised, the second part of our trip to Italy. This update has just one page and it is the city of Genoa. We stayed mainly in the historical center of the city and mixed tourist things with the main reason for the triop: the baptism. I hope you enjoy our Genoa blog. August 8th, 2020 A quick update, as we did a quick trip towards Narbonne to celebrate our wedding anniversary. No, it isn't in August .... but our April trip was canceled due to the lockdown. Once it opened, we re-set a date and headed down. It is currently the "best restaurant in the world" by TripAdvisor .... all of the dishes can be seen on our anniversary blog. August 3rd, 2020 Yea, I know ... a bit long between updates! I'll try to do better, and I'll start with today's update. We recently returned from a 9-day trip to Genoa, Italy. We went for a baptism but decided to not rush over and back. Along the way, we mapped out stops in various towns and villages in France and Italy. I'm going to break this trip into 2 entries: Genoa (part 2) and everything else (part 1). There are quite a few villages in Part 1, so I am going ahead with that one and working on Part 2, which I hope to post shortly. In the meantime, please go ahead and enjoy Genoa Trip Part 1. July 12th, 2020 A Lucy Blog update! I forgot to actually post her 11-month Lucy blog update, so I've included it here, along with her 1-year-old birthday blog. She's had quite a few puppy meet-ups lately with various friends ... old and new. She continues to go to group classes as well as puppy recreation at the dog-training location, but also is meeting up with others at various locations. As the heat comes, we have been changing her routine so that we go out early in the morning and late in the evenings, and she stays inside most of the day to avoid the hot weather. We'll have a busy summer .... we will head over to Italy in a few weeks (her first time outside of France!) to attend a baptism, but we will take our time getting there. We'll spend a few days in France on the way over, and then another 2 days to travel the 4 hours from the Italian border to Genoa. A couple days there and then a few days back through some villages that we haven't seen before. We will be back a few days and then head towards the Mediterranean coast for a belated wedding anniversary celebration. Another week or so back in Toulouse and then a trip up to Brittany. We are thinking of "escaping" the heat of the summer in Toulouse by doing a 4-6 week rental in Brittany, where it seems to always be cool in the summer. This will be our first short trip there to check out things, and if we like it, we'll look for a gite or holiday home that may be available for a month at a time for next year. July 4th, 2020 Happy Independence Day, America!! The 4th of July usually means fireworks and a BBQ in the US, and a picnic somewhere around the 4th here in Toulouse. However, this year things are a bit different. Our normal event in Toulouse was canceled and even the Bastille Day fireworks are canceled for the 14th of July. But we were lucky enough to be invited to a small gathering hosted by the US Consulate from Marseille. I also have another blog for the town of Villefranche de Rouergue which is one of the 100 Best Detours in France. Hope you enjoy! I'll have another Lucy blog update shortly! June 30th, 2020 Hard to believe it has been a month since I did a post! We went down to the Pyrénées for a few days. The mountains are only a couple hours South of Toulouse, but we just haven't ever really made it down that far to drive through them. We've been close, and actually taken a tunnel through them from Spain, but that has been it. We based ourselves in the town of Prades, and then visited 6 other places during our time there including a waterfall. You can read all about it and see the pictures of the various medieval villages (almost all of them being part of the Most Beautiful Villages in France) on our Pyrénées Trip blog. June 1st, 2020 Happy Whit Monday! Today is a holiday here in France, the Monday of Pentecost. The lockdown ends tomorrow for almost everything, but we decided to get away for the weekend. The catalyst was a picnic lunch at a vineyard nearby that I had seen on Facebook, but we decided to do the whole weekend, so we found a few other things to do in the area, that I've detailed in my Gaillac Weekend blog. We did a quick walk around town to try to get an idea of what may be opening up this week for restaurants and cafes, but unfortunately it was a bit hard with today being a holiday. We were able to stop by a couple places where they were inside cleaning and got when they would be opening up this week. While restaurants can open for eat-in tomorrow (Tuesday), a couple of them are not opening up until Wednesday or Thursday to make sure they have enough time to get through all of the required regulations. Note: I have moved all of the Lockdown blogs to a single page, since we anticipate this continuing for awhile. You can go to the full page or go to the individual days in the links for each day below. May 10th, 2020 My next-to-last Lockdown update on the lockdown page ... as France is gradually removing the lock-down starting tomorrow. It will be a busy week as we have quite a few things that we have noted that we need to do, but we weren't able to until the lockdown came to an end. April 23, 2020 A couple updates for today ... First is Lockdown, Day 38 on the lockdown page. Second is a blog that talks about our processing getting the French Carte Vitale, which is your French healthcare card (somewhat like a private insurance card). We don't have them yet, but at least there is some progress. Last, but definitely not least, an update to our Lucy blog for her 10th month birthday. April 15, 2020 Lockdown, Day 30. On the lockdown page, click here to directly to this day. April 5, 2020 Lockdown, Day 20. On the lockdown page, click here to directly to this day. March 26, 2020 Lockdown, Day 10. I've moved this to a separate page, click here to directly to this day. March 17, 2020 Lockdown, Day 1. I've moved this to a separate page, click here to directly to this day. March 14th, 2020 This blog will have a bunch of topics .... I'll start with Lucy's surgery. I've updated her Lucy blog with some pictures and descriptions, but in general, everything went well. The surgery was fine, then a week later, the bandage was removed and the vet said things looked good. Another week and the stitches came out and again, the vet said things looked good and she can return to normal activities. With that, we will have a play date with one of her friends (a border collie named Wanda) today and then puppy recess tomorrow morning. Right after the surgery, we found out that Tom's father passed away. Tom flew back to the US for a few days to attend the funeral as well as work with his siblings on starting to go through the belongings in the house. Last, the topic of COVID-19. We are safe-and-sound in Toulouse, so far. Life continues mostly as normal. Tom's gym continues to be open although they have made some changes. Some of the machines will be put "out of service" even though they work to make sure there is at least 1 meter between people who are working out. They are asking people to wash their hands more regularly, and doing more disinfecting. Most of the stores and restaurants are open, although the owner of the place we ate lunch today mentioned that he was just speaking with the owner of the restaurant next door (one that we REALLY like to go to), and that restaurant is going to close temporarily starting next week. Events have been cancelled and the grocery stores have less available. The market was full this morning and hopefully that will continue so that we can buy fresh meats, fish, fruits, and veggies. Feb 29th, 2020 Happy Leap Day! Lucy was scheduled to have surgery (sterilization) on Wednesday and so we decided to take 3 days and go to the beach before her surgery. This is the first time that she has experienced sand on a beach, and I must say, I think she really enjoyed it. We also did a couple seaside towns on the Mediterranean and the weather for the first 2 days was fabulous. All of it is on our South Beach Trip blog (not Miami South Beach, but beaches on the South part of France, heading towards the Spanish border). Feb 20th, 2020 This is a blog with a couple different topics. First is changes that the city of Toulouse did recently in the park behind our house, replacing the benches. Spring has also sprung and so we got a first glimpse of the daffodils. Basketball season is also here, and there are 2 different professional basketball teams here. The great thing about where we live is that quite a few of the pro teams play right next door! We got tickets and so we went to watch both a mens and a ladies professional basketball teams play. Another sport that we had watched before here is professional handball. We went to our first game when one of the players lived in our courtyard, and so we decided to go back this year (even though he is not playing). All of this Spring, Basketball and Handball blog. January 27th, 2020 We haven't done all that much over the past week and a half .... making some plans for smaller "vacations", visiting with friends, donating blood ... we also went to watch a mens professional basketball game with our local Toulouse team. We've also spent time with little Lucy, including coffee breaks (she doesn't get any), dinner out (she eats before we go), and her weekend puppy schools. All of this as she turned 7 months old this week. We grabbed a few pictures and videos of her that we have put on our Lucy blog. January 17th, 2020 We haven't done much traveling in January as the weather isn't really ideal. However, we decided to pop out of town for a couple of nights. We did a set of 4 different towns/villages within a couple hours of Toulouse. We started out in the tiny village of Vals, to see a rock church. We didn't see much of it as the upper parts were closed. From there, we headed to the village of Camon, which is listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France. We were able to walk around but only spent an hour or so, as there is nothing open during the winter. We stayed overnight at a B&B nearby, next to a cattle farm. The following morning, we headed to the town of Mirepoix and its Monday morning market. Being market-day, it was actually quite busy and there were lots of cafes and restaurants around the main square that was open. We did a bit of wine-tasting, specifically for Blanquette de Limoux and Crémant de Limoux before staying overnight at another B&B just outside of Limoux. The next morning, another Blanquette tasting and then a walk around the town of Limoux and a church just outside of town before heading home. January 1st, 2020 Happy New Year!!! We had a wonderful New Year's Eve this year at the home of some friends. I've also updated our Lucy blog to include a little as she is coming up on about 6 1/2 months. We are looking forward to a great 2020, with a couple of long vacations planned (without Lucy unfortunately) as well as multiple vacations within Europe that we will take Lucy with us in the car. Our first one is coming up in a couple weeks, just a short 3-day drive to visit a few towns/villages. We will also be planning a trip to a puppy-friendly beach to let her experience the sand. December 29th, 2019 Another Christmas has come and gone. This year, we stayed at home and had a special dinner for Christmas Eve, and then a big lunch on Christmas day with 2 of our friends who live here in Toulouse. We let Lucy start to open her gifts herself but decided to help when she was more interested in eating the wrapping paper than opening the gift! We also went to Germany to visit 2 different Christmas markets. We had planned the trip to Cologne early in the year as we had read that they have one of the better markets in Germany. Then we were talking with the facilitator in our French Conversation group and she mentioned that just South of Cologne, in Siegburg, was a medieval Christmas market and that also sounded fairly interesting. It was a fairly short train ride down and was interesting for a day! Hope you enjoy the Cologne blog, which covers the town, the market, and the famous Cathedral, and the Siegburg blog that covers the village and the medieval market. December 20th, 2019 Happy Birthday to both Tom (the 19th) and Susan (the 20th), and 6-months for Lucy! We didn't do anything special for either day, but we have an update to our Lucy Blog. We spent 1 birthday with Lucy at a restaurant for a normal dinner, her first time waiting under the table while we ate. She did an amazing job! Then the other night, we spent at home cooking a normal dinner. Christmas will also be a fairly low-key event, with special meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. The Cologne Christmas market will be posted shortly. December 9th, 2019 Two different topics this week. As we get closer to Christmas, I have My Christmas 2019 blog, where I have a bit of information on our decorations and preparations for Christmas. The other part of my update this time is a blog entry for the renovations to the Notre Dame de la Daurade church (Note that I updated this in 2022 with additional pictures from that year). We visited the church when we first arrived, but we didn't put up an entry because they were getting ready to close it for a multi-year renovation. They recently finished and had an open house this past weekend. I show a few before-and-after pictures to try to clearly show the amazing restorations. We hope you enjoy! Up next ... the Cologne Christmas Market! November 17th, 2019 Another Lucy Blog update! ... this time a couple days short of her 5month birthday. She is still cute as ever! We continue to go to puppy school, now Group level 1, and puppy recess each week. I'll have a couple blogs upcoming with some touristy-things. We have a busy couple of weeks ahead of us ... with Beaujolais Nouveau and Thanksgiving upcoming. November 5th, 2019 Lucy continues to grow, and we take her to puppy recess and classes so that she can socialize with other puppies. Our Sunday-after-Halloween plans fell through due to the weather, Lucy ended up feeling a bit sick. She was okay on Saturday but woke up feeling sick. She didn't want to do anything, just lay around the house (no playing, no nothing). We took her to the vet on Monday (thank you to our friends David and Annie) and she is now on the mend! Read all about it in our Lucy Blog. November 1st, 2019 People sometimes ask me about Halloween and Thanksgiving in France. While Thanksgiving remains an "American Expat" thing, Halloween is starting to take hold in the French communities. I think it is more for adults here, maybe just another reason to have a party. And, unlike the US, November 1st is a holiday here (All Saints Day) and so most people don't have to get up and go to work the next day. We didn't do anything for Halloween, but I do have a short blog from a month or so back. We made a quick trip over to the town of Najac, which is another of the Most Beautiful Villages in France. It is an interesting town, literally built on the top of a steep hill overlooking a river. You can check out the main square and buildings, that date back to the 13th century, in our Najac Blog.
October 24th, 2019 I know this is a quick blog entry, but I felt I had to actually talk about this ... a POSTIVE experience with the French government! Everybody talks about how hard all of the French bureaucracy is, and in some cases, it is very difficult. But every once in awhile, you actually have a great experience and you want to talk about it, which I did in my French bureaucracy blog. (it is actually a really short blog). October 20th, 2019 Happy Birthday Lucy!! 4 months old today!! Today was also the Toulouse Marathon and since it would be a zoo near our apartment, we decided to spend the weekend out of town, specifically in the Gers (the department just West of us). A few little villages, a nice relaxing weekend .... all of it our Gers Weekend Blog. We hope you like it! October 17th, 2019 Coming on on Lucy's 4 month birthday this weekend, and I decided to do another update to our Lucy Blog. She's had a couple of busy weeks, including individual puppy training classes once a week and playing with other puppies at Puppy School each Sunday morning. This week she also had a few other new experiences! We did a Corgi Meet-up for a set of Corgis that live in-and-around Toulouse, and she also got her first pet grooming. Needless to say, she enjoyed the Corgi meet-up a LOT more than the pet grooming!! All the details and pictures on our Lucy Blog. This coming weekend, she also gets another new experience ... her first weekend away from home! I'll do another blog next week on it, but we are spending the weekend out in Gers (the region next door to us) in a Bed & Breakfast out in the countryside. This will be her first night sleeping not in our apartment since we brought her home and also her first car ride more than about 30 minutes since the long trip back to Toulouse. Stay tuned!! September 25th, 2019 Another update to our Lucy Blog for Lucy's 3 month birthday (it was a couple days ago). She keeps growing (our neighbors keep mentioning it), and she continues to go to puppy training. Each week, we have 1 individual course and then a puppy school. The puppy school really is more just socialization and playing with other puppies that are roughly the same size. This week, she finally got other puppies her own age (although NOT her size) to play with ... previous weeks she was always playing with puppies that were a few months older and usually a little larger. We continue to work on her separation anxiety training, and we may try to take her to one of our favorite local cafes tomorrow to see how she does sitting inside under the table while we have a coffee. September 7th, 2019 This week's update is to our Lucy Blog. She is now 11 weeks old and has started individual obedience classes at a trainer a bit North of Toulouse. She is growing ... a few people who know her in our apartment building keep mentioning how much she has grown in the last 2 weeks since she came home. Her first "puppy school" is tomorrow, so this will be very interesting. A few pictures in our Lucy Blog although we try not to get TOO many pictures of her! August 23rd, 2019 It has been over a month since my last entry, but we have been quite busy. We spent almost 3 weeks in the US visiting friends and family, as well as a few "tourist" things. We first headed to visit Susan's mom, where we just happened to get a peek at a B2 Stealth Bomber flying overhead. Then we flew to Atlanta and headed to North Carolina, stopping to take a tour of the BMW factory near Greenville, SC, and then a day in the NC mountains in Asheville. After visiting with friends and family in North Carolina, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, we had a couple days in New York City before heading back to Toulouse. July 20th, 2019 Today, we are introducing our little Lucy to everyone, on her 1-month birthday. Lucy is our first "child", and she is 1 month old today! She still hasn't come home yet, and it will be another month before we actually see and hold her ... but we have gotten a few pictures along the way. I have documented what we know of her first month in our Lucy Blog, the first of what I am sure will be lots and lots of Lucy Blogs in the future. July 14th, 2019 While Americans call it "Bastille Day", in France, it is called la Fête nationale. It is the anniversary of Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, a turning point of the French Revolution, as well as the Fête de la Fédération which celebrated the unity of the French people on 14 July 1790. Here in Toulouse, there are several things planned, like a small military parade (that we didn't go to), a big concert this evening that is free of charge along the banks of the Garonne (that we won't go to), and they set off fireworks over the Garonne River (that we WILL go to tonight). So .. while nobody says it here ... Happy Fête Nationale! While I have no blog for the events of today, I did make a change this morning that I wanted to post. Yesterday, I posted a blog for one of "The Most Beautiful Villages in France" and today I have another one, for the village of Puycelsi. I also moved some links for older information (older apartments) down to the bottom of the right-side and added a link to a new page that I created. This page, "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France", lists all of the current villages on the list within mainland France and I've added links to the ones that we have gone to, which links to our blogs for each. July 13th, 2019 There are 155 (or so) small villages in France that are listed as "The Most Beautiful Villages in France". We pulled the list and have decided to try to visit all of them (some we have already visited even before we knew about the list). Just a couple hours outside of Toulouse ... just a little day-trip, is the village of Bruniquel, which is not just a really interesting little village, but there is also a prehistoric cave that was discovered in 1990. All about it (including a link to a video about the prehistoric cave) in my Bruniquel blog. I hope you enjoy! July 7th, 2019 Finally got the Brittany Part 2 blog completed, which is good since I have a couple more than will be coming only very quickly. We also have been working on getting things ready for our new puppy, Lucy, to come home with us in August (when she gets to be 8 weeks old). More on Lucy later :-). June 23rd, 2019 Back from a 2-week drive through a part of Brittany, and I've gotten about 1/2 of the blog done, so I've split it into Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1 covers several towns and cities, including Jonzac, Nantes, Combourg, Cancale, Dinard, and Auray. A bunch of small villages, a seaside resort town, as well as the 6th largest city in France. All of it in my Brittany Part 1 blog. June 9th, 2019 Sometimes we say "we never win anything". Well, we can't say that anymore! We were at the Ryder Cup last year and entered a drawing at one of the travel booths, and we WON! Go figure! And in fact, this ended up being something we could actually use. We won a nights stay at a hotel in Biarritz and 2 rounds of golf at a course nearby. So we waited until the weather turned nice and headed over there. On the way, we stopped at Tarbes (although we were told there wasn't anything to see). Then we saw a couple of sights in Biarritz, including the lighthouse and got in a nice round of golf. On the way home, we stopped in Lourdes, which we knew almost nothing about, proving that we are terrible Catholics! Hope you enjoy the blogs! June 5th, 2019 Every so often, we get questions about why we retired to France, why we selected Toulouse, and various other things like why we chose to buy vs rent and apartment vs house. So I thought I would jot down my thoughts on a variety of subjects in our Retiring In France blog. I also end up seeing lots of posts in forums about "can I live in France on x amount per month". My answer is always the same ... it depends. In general, I think the costs are about the same if you are keeping the same lifestyle and same housing concept. For example, if you move from Chicago to a tiny village in France, you will pay a lot less for housing. If you move from a tiny town in Missouri to one of the 4 largest cities in France, you will pay a lot more. You will pay more for gas but less for wine. Some food is more expensive, some is cheaper. But anyway .... hopefully you will enjoy the blog. June 1st, 2019 The weather is finally turning nice here, in the 80's now and I am no longer worried that it will be too cold on the balcony at night for my flowers and herbs. This weeks blog covers Lyon, which we went to in 2007 but decided to spend a long weekend there again. It is a fairly short train trip there, and we were able to see a lot more this trip than we did last time (along with some of the same things). There are 4 "day" blog pages along with a separate page for the Cathedral, all linked from our main Lyon blog page. May 17th, 2019 Just when I thought Spring had finally sprung in Toulouse, it has turned cold and rainy again. We had GREAT weather for the weekend, when we went to Cahors (below). In addition to Cahors, we spent 1/2 a day at the Strawberry Festival in Nabirat and walked around the medieval city of Domme before heading back to Toulouse. Then we had the opportunity to have the daughter of a friend of ours, who had just finished a semester abroad studying at a University in the Northern part of France, stay with us for a couple days. It was nice to be able to share our adoptive home with someone from the US! May 11th, 2019 This weekend, we are out of town doing a couple things. This blog will cover the town of Cahors. It is another Gallo-Roman city that has changed over the centuries. We first spent a day driving through the Cahors wine region (they have their own Cahors AOP), stopping at 5 different vineyards to do tastings. The majority of the wine is red, primarily with Malbec grapes. In fact, to be considered a Cahors AOP wine, it must be made up of a minimum of 70% Malbec grapes. The additional up to 30% can be either Merlot or Tannat (or a combination). May 8th, 2019 One of the things that we have always said was a benefit of retiring in France is the ability to travel on a minutes notice whenever we see a great deal on a flight or train. It took a couple years to do it, but we finally did. It wasn't on a minutes notice, but it was a great deal on a train. SNCF (the train company) is having an ongoing promotion to sell tickets on trains that are not full, where for the "next" 3 weeks, you can purchase a ticket on certain trains to certain locations for 1 euro per person each way. You aren't guaranteed to get a ticket or a ticket at that price on any given train/date, so if you *have* to go somewhere, you have to buy it in advance. But for us, it worked out nicely that we found round-trip for roughly the right number of days for 1 euro each way per person. The destination? Perpignan! April 20th, 2019 With the weather turning nice, we decided to restart our day-trips to small towns and villages nearby Toulouse. This weekend, we decided to head a little over an hour North-West to the village of Lauzerte, which is listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France. It is a hilltop village that used to be a castelnau, or a town protected by a castle. Hope you enjoy our Lauzerte blog. April 7th, 2019 A month since my last entry, but we have been out of the country without the computer. We did an almost-2-week trip to South Africa and Swaziland (in fact, now called the Kingdom of Eswatini). It was a package tour from a company called Gate 1 Travel, and covered Cape Town, Swaziland, Johannesburg, and had safari game drives in 2 different locations. I actually have been able to get all 11 days finished so they are all available at the same time! We took almost 2,000 pictures and had to whittle it down quite a bit. Hope you enjoy our 2019 South Africa Safari Blog. March 2nd, 2019 Today is the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the Concorde supersonic jet. It was a joint French-British project with the first prototype, 001, being built in Toulouse. We took this opportunity to spend the day at Aeroscopia, an aviation museum near the airport and adjacent to the Airbus factory (well, one of them). There are 2 Concordes there: one inside that you can walk through and another sitting outside. Take a peek at them in our Aeroscopia blog. February 17th, 2019 I have actually been very bad at getting blogs up in a decent amount of time. Part of it is that we had so much going on last year, and the other is that I do try to write a bit of information with each of them, so it takes me a bit of time to sit down and actually get all of the information together. So with that, I have 3 more blogs that are ready although you will be able to tel that they are not from February ... as we are wearing shorts! But here they are .... we did an Olive Festival in Mouries, as well as a few hours in Aiges-Mortes (part of the Camargue), and finally, the town of Lectoure and a chateau in Gramont. February 15th, 2019 One of the great things about living in Toulouse is the number of great restaurants that we can go to. We try to go to different high-end (gastronomique) restaurants for special occasions, and for our birthdays, we went just a few blocks away to Michel Sarran. Those of you who live in France may have heard of him, especially if you watch the French version of Top Chef, where he is one of the brigade leaders. If not, he is a French chef from SouthWest France (Gers specifically) who opened a restaurant in Toulouse in 1995. This restaurant got its first Michelin star in 1996 and its second in 2003. You can get a view of our meals in our Birthday Blog. February 3rd, 2019 Just a little entry, no link to a bigger blog today. We spent the weekend painting (yet again) but I think we are done with all of the major painting. A little bit of touch-ups here and there, but no more rooms left! Yeah!!! We also went to see the movie Shane (shown with the French title of "L'Homme des vallées perdues" or "The man of the lost valleys) at the Cinemateque in town. We love the Cinameteque in that we can see older films on the big screen .. this one from 1953. We also took a break Saturday night and went to see a ladies professional basketball game, the Toulouse Metropole Basket team. What is great is that they are a short walk away and we understand the rules (unlike Rugby). There were 2 Americans .. one on each team, playing in the game. Living in Toulouse gives us the opportunity to watch professional sports of a different kind than normal ... Rugby is HUGE here, HUGE! They also have a soccer team, handball, ladies basketball, and volleyball. Not really any college sports in Europe, but lots of smaller professional leagues. Tomorrow is a big shopping day for us ... we need to try to find the final things for the apartment ... a set of curtains, a couple rugs, one more storage cabinet ... a couple little things as well. And then .. hopefully ... the weather will turn nice and we'll be back playing golf! January 30th, 2019 We try to go to a Christmas market each year in a different city. Last year it was Lille (a bit disappointing), and this year it was Strasbourg. It was a bit of an odd trip, since the night before we went there, there was a terrorist attack in the Christmas market. Needless to say, the trip was a bit odd, a bit eerie, but nonetheless, interesting. We make comments about having to continue with our lives, even with terrorist attacks, and this was one of those times that we talk about. Regardless of the attack, we went ahead and got on a plane the next morning and tried to make the best of it, not allowing the terrorists to affect our lives if at all possible. We eventually were able to take advantage of the Christmas market in Strasbourg, with is dubbed the "Capitol of Christmas", as well as another Christmas market in the nearby town of Colmar. All of the details and pictures in our Strasbourg blog. January 26th, 2019 Finally, the apartment is far enough along to have "the final reveal". It isn't 100% done ... still a little work to do as well as a few more things to buy. But ... done enough to to show pictures to our friends and family. You can go directly to the final reveal if you have read the others, or start at the beginning of the renovations. January 12th, 2019 After spending a few days not feeling well, I have finally finished the blog for our Southern Italy trip, and now I have part 3 (the final part) of our Southern Italy blog up and available which includes Naples and Herculaneum. January 6th, 2019 It has been a month now since my last blog post and a lot has happened. We had wanted to be in our new apartment by Christmas ... that didn't happen. We had already given our notice so we moved between Christmas and New Years even though the apartment was not finished (and still isn't) and we had almost no furniture (still missing some). The final apartment pictures are still coming ... patience! But for this blog entry, I will let you experience and enjoy the Chinese Lantern Festival in Gaillac. This is their 2nd year and the lanterns are different than those in the Chinese Lantern Festival that they have back in North Carolina. December 6th, 2018 As promised, I have another update on the apartment, with the kitchen countertops, as well as most of the bathroom and the bedroom. You can go directly to Part 4 of our Renovations blog if you have read the others, or start at the beginning of the renovations. This may be the last blog entry before Christmas, as we will be extremely busy getting the apartment finished AND moved in before the end of the year. December 2nd, 2018 I realize it has been a couple of weeks, but it has been a busy couple of weeks and, therefore, my blogging time has been limited. I had put up Part 1 of our Southern Italy trip a few weeks back, and now I have part 2 of our Southern Italy blog up and available. It takes us from Martina Franca to Sorrento. Naples, including Herculaneum, will be Part 3, which I am working on now. I'll also have another update this week on the apartment, with the kitchen countertops and (hopefully) backsplash, as well as most of the bathroom and the bedroom. November 14th, 2018 Another update on the renovations with a Part 3 of our Renovations blog. This includes the wood floors in the living room and kitchen (eventually also in the bedroom and entry way), the majority of the kitchen (no countertops yet) and the air conditioner. It really is starting to come together! My next update for the renovation will be in about 2 weeks after the countertops get installed and hopefully most of the bathroom is done. October 30th, 2018 I am trying to be a bit more timely in my blog posts, so I have been working diligently every evening either before or after dinner to ensure that I am able to get the blog up in a timely manner. We are spending 2 weeks in Italy, which I'll segment into 2 parts. You can start now with Part 1 of our Southern Italy blog. October 24th, 2018 Last month, I started the blog with our "new home" in Toulouse with Part 1 of our Renovations. Well, here we have Part 2 of our Renovations blog. This takes us past all of the demolition work and through the majority of the new electrical work. We are now on vacation for 2 weeks and so we won't see anything for a couple more weeks. Hopefully we'll have lots of changes in the next part of the blog. October 22nd, 2018 Today, I have a short blog on the town of Castres, which is about an hour away and we stopped at during our trip to Mazamet for the Tour de France. I'll get another quick update out shortly on our apartment renovation progress, and then we'll be on vacation for a couple of weeks in Italy. October 11th, 2018 Last week I wrote about the Ryder Cup 2018, that was held outside of Paris. In fact, there were 4 other places that we visited within this trip. While the drive was about 9 hours, we did it in 2 days, stopping mid-way to see the sights of a couple cities. Then we took a day to visit Versailles itself (not the Chateau), and one day in Paris doing some shopping and visiting with a friend. You can read the deals in 4 different short blogs: our Clermont-Ferrand blog, our Versailles blog, our Paris-during-the-Ryder-Cup blog, and a Limoges blog. October 4th, 2018 We've been gone a bit over a week, up to the town of Versailles (the one with the Chateau) just South of Paris. We were volunteers for the Ryder Cup golf competition between the US and Europe. This happens every 2 years and it alternates locations between Europe and the US. Since this year it was "just a drive" from us, we decided to sign up as volunteers and got selected. We spent the whole week, working a practice round and then all 3 days of the actual competition. Europe prevailed and (I'm guessing people will be upset with me on this one) but I am quite happy, as I was rooting for Europe. Yes, I am American, but Europe is now "my home" and so I look at this as people who move from one city to another in the US and they *now* root for the local NFL team. Anyway ... check out my Ryder Cup 2018 blog. September 21st, 2018 I posted a picture the other day on Facebook a week ago that showed a set of keys ... the keys to our new apartment. We completed the purchase of our "new home" in Toulouse and the following Monday, our renovations began. We aren't doing the renovations ourselves ...we have a set of people who will be doing different parts of it ... we'll paint the walls at the end ourselves. I had been asked to provide pictures ... so here it is ... the start of my Our New Home blog. Mind you, this is Part 1 of probably 5 or 6 parts ... I start with where it is and what it looked like when we bought it (don't freak out too much!) Then I have a page (if anyone is interested) on the process of buying property in France, and then START of the renovations. I show what the overall plan is, and then Days 1-5. Then we headed out of town for about 10 days, so I will pick back up again with like Day 12 (they don't work weekends). September 16, 2018 A couple weeks ago, we headed up to the town of Jarnac to meet up with some people who we hadn't met in person before, but we had talked to for a couple of years within a forum for English-speaking people who were living in France (or wanted to live in France). They had a get-together before a couple of them headed back to the UK for the fall/winter, and so we decided to join them. Before and after, we stopped by the town of Saint-Emilion, that is part of the Bordeaux wine region. We did some wine tasting as well as seeing the medieval town. All the details in our Saint-Emilion blog. September 8th, 2018 Today was a great day! This morning, we received our French driver's licenses after submitting our request to exchange our US licenses for French ones over 6 months ago. Other than the delay, it was actually a very smooth process. I wrote a bit about the process, as well as differences in driving in France compared to the US, in our Exchanging our Licenses blog. September 2nd, 2018 Another semi-short blog with a road-trip, this time to the town of Auch. Not tons of things there, but a quaint little downtown with a nice cathedral with some famous stained-glass windows, and a house where Henri of Navarre (the future King Henry IV) stayed in 1578 with Queen Margot and Catherine de Medici ... all in our Auch blog. August 25th, 2018 Still not a pickle festival but another interesting festival today ... the Purple Garlic Festival at the little village of Cadours. If you don't "get" the pickle reference, you will when you read my Cadours Purple Garlic Festival blog. August 20th, 2018 To try to get out of the heat of Toulouse without air conditioning, we headed North to Wales for a couple weeks. We had never been to Wales, there is great golf, castles, and (supposedly) cooler temperatures. In fact, we ended up in the middle of a heatwave and drought in Wales, where there hadn't been rain in 50 days and almost no rain the entire summer. So while the golf was still great, it was a bit challenging. We only did the Southern part of Wales, but did the entire coutry from East-to-West. Get all of the details in our Wales blog (warning: I have all 14 days up at the same time, but links between each page). August 13th, 2018 Happy Monday! We were lucky enough to see an add for an Open House at a vineyard nearby, just about 45 minutes North-East of here. So we set out early Saturday morning for a guided visit, a tasting, and a wine class. It is a small, family-run vineyard and while everything was in French, we think we understood a good portion of it. Another reason why we love living in SouthWest France! Check out our Wine Open House blog. August 8th, 2018 We are in the middle of a heatwave here ... a week or so where it has been in the 90's every day. I know, for most of our friends and family back in the US, this wouldn't really be anything unusual. But here, while it is generally warm, it isn't quite this hot. And to make matters worse, most of the heatwave has been endured WITHOUT air conditioning. Our rental apartment doesn't have AC, nor do a large percentage of restaurants and coffee shops. We have managed to stay cool by hanging out at Starbucks in the afternoons, as they have REALLY GOOD air conditioning! I have a quick blog of a nearby estate where they had an open house with a few activities. Check out our Domaine Rochemontès blog. July 24th, 2018 I realize that you are all now shocked that I could do another blog entry the next day! But this morning, while sitting watching today's stage of the Tour de France, I was able to get MY blog of the Tour de France ready. We took a weekend and did a quick trip out East to the town of Mazamet, which was in the middle of Stage 15. A little note, today's stage was interrupted outside of Carcassonne by protesters (farmers) who are trying to throw hay bales into the path of the riders. Seems the peloton got accidentally hit with pepper spray when the police sprayed the face of a protester and managed to hit half the peloton while he was at it. You can see my pictures, a video, and sunflowers in my Tour de France 2018 blog. July 23rd, 2018 FINALLY, I have the last section of our Portugal trip up ... this one covering the last few cities in Portugal, then a couple in Spain before crossing the Pyrenees back into France. You can go directly to the Final Section of the Portugal blog directly (or start at the top). July 5th, 2018 The third section of our Portugal trip up ... this one covering the first few cities in Portugal. You can go directly to the Third Section of the Portugal blog directly (or start at the top). June 26th, 2018 A bit slow again but I now have the next section of our Portugal trip up ... this one covering Spain (yes, I know, we will get to Portugal soon!). You can go directly to the Second Section of the Portugal blog directly (or if you missed the first section, you can start at the top). June 10th, 2018 I've been a little delinquent in my blogging, but I think I'm back on track :-) We did a semi-long vacation driving from France, through Spain, into Portugal, back through Spain, and through the Pyrenees. We have LOTS of pictures and info, so I'm going to put it out in small chunks. I've finished the first chunk, which takes us from our home in Toulouse, through Pau and out to the coast, with Bayonne, Biarritz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and Hendaye. I have a base page for the trip, our Portugal blog page, that I'll update as I get more towns available. May 22nd, 2018 What to do on a dreary Saturday? A short road-trip up just North of where we play golf to the town of Grenade. They have a market every Saturday morning that a friend of ours told us about, so we decided to do a bit of shopping. There isn't much in the town, but what we did find, we documented in our Grenade blog. And a preview of coming attractions, we are heading to Portugal and will be posting blogs of various cities and towns in France, Spain, and Portugal .....watch this space! May 10th, 2018 This week has been a little odd, as it had 2 different holidays. May 8th (End of WW II) and May 10th (Ascension), and being just 1 week after the huge May 1st holiday. Each holiday was "less" celebrated by stores and restaurants, but there were some that took the whole week off and were closed. On Tuesday, we decided to do a road-trip to Revel and Sorèze which was nice, although we hit a 'snag' *not* based on it being a holiday. Details in our Revel blog and our Sorèze blog. May 4th, 2018 A short little entry today for my Fete du Travail blog for May 1st. It covers the Fete du Travail, along with the parade here in Toulouse and the tradition of giving out Muguet. April 28th, 2018 I've probably said this before, but one of the things we really like about living in France (well, probably Europe in general) is the ability to see actual Roman ruins all the time. Another Saturday and another road-trip to see some Roman ruins and a Cathedral. This time, about 90 minutes away to the town of Saint-Bertrand-en-Comminges. Full details in our Saint-Bertrand-en-Comminges blog. April 22nd, 2018 I'm working on getting caught up on a few things that we did last year but that I didn't have time to get put up on the blog before now. One of the nice things about Toulouse is that there are multiple different professional sports that we don't really get in the US. Now, mind you, they really don't have the concept of "college sports" here, either. So for example, there is professional handball and volleyball here, whereas in the US, you would really be more likely to get handball and volleyball at the University level. We had the opportunity to see several new sports for last year, most through free tickets received for donating blood during a big blood donation campaign. In our Toulouse New Sports blog, you can see volleyball, handball, wheelchair basketball, and rugby. April 15th, 2018 Wow, only 3 days after my previous "short" blog entry, I have another one! This one comes from yesterday, and was for the Toulouse Carnaval parade. I realize that traditionally, Carnival happens before Easter, but here it takes place a bit later. Our French conversation facilitator mentioned this a few weeks back, and said that Toulouse has it later so that the weather is better :-). We took a few pictures and some videos, which you can check out in our Toulouse Carnaval 2018 blog. April 12th, 2018 I realize it has been almost a month since my last entry, but there is a reason. We learned of the death in the family and ended up going back to the US rather quickly. We had planned a 2-week vacation the end of April anyway, so we ended up working to cancel the various pieces of that vacation and then booked new airplane tickets, a rental car, and a hotel. We also extended the trip to almost 3 weeks to add some additional time with my mother and the funeral (it was her companion/partner/boyfriend/significant other who passed away. After that, we headed in a loop to see various friends and family, as well as doing some work around some rental property that we had just closed on. We are now back home in Toulouse and dealing with additional issues here. There was a large wind-storm (2 of them actually) while we were gone and we came back to a water leak in the roof. So having to now work between the building "home owners association" (the closest thing to explain what it is) and the owner. The roof itself has to be fixed by the "building" management and then the owner gets someone to fix the interior damage. A bit different than what we are used to, for sure!. March 14th, 2018 Another road trip, this time to the medieval fortress town of Carcassonne. We went there in 2010 but the weather was terrible, so we decided to pop over there ... an hour-ish by the toll road, 2-ish by the non-toll roads. We went out the "scenic" route but came back on the toll road. We also decided to do both the lower city (which was fortified with walls itself) as well as the medieval Citadel up on the hilltop. Much better weather this time, and we got to see a lot more ... which I've detailed in our Carcassonne 2018 blog. March 5th, 2018 Growing up, I used to love my salads with Roquefort dressing but I never really knew much about what it was other than blue cheese. I didn't realize that to use the name "Roquefort", the cheese MUST follow a set of requirements set forth by French law, including being aged for at least 2 weeks in a very specific set of caves in an area 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) long and 300 meters (980 ft) wide. This area, and the town of Roquefort, is only a few hours away, and so we took time on Saturday to make a day-trip of it. All of the details in our Roquefort cheese blog. February 14th, 2018 Happy Valentines Day! February 10th, 2018 It's been a fairly cold January and early February, even getting snow in Toulouse the other day. We attempted to travel South to find a bit warmer temperatures the beginning of February, but Barcelona seemed to be just as cold as Toulouse! We had visited Barcelona once before, in 2007, and so while we did go to the Sagrada Familla again (it is still under construction), we tried see things that we hadn't last time. All the details in our Barcelona Blog! January 21st, 2018 It has been a yucky week here in Toulouse .... overcast, gloomy, rainy ... but better than our friends and family back home in the US where I think most of them are enduring cold weather and even SNOW. At just a bit before noon here, it is a 55 here although it is only going to add another degree I think, high forecast 56. I suspect the snow in NC will melt today as the forecast is to be in the 60's for a couple days. Since I didn't want to venture out too much in the rain, I took some time to reorganize the back-end directory structure for this blog ... I think I have re-linked everything properly on this page, but if you happen to have pages linked directly, the link may have changed (and I didn't bother with doing redirects, sorry, I *AM* retired you know!). If you find anything missing/wrong, please let me know. Other than that, we have just been enjoying spending time with our friends here ... last night we were invited over to the home of a couple of French friends that we play golf with to share in a couple galettes for Ephiphanie, Galettes de Roi ... Tom found the little prize in BOTH of them, and got to be king for the evening (although he didn't wear the crown)! I must say, I really enjoy having such a diverse set of friends here, French, British, Italian, Portuguese ... some working, some retired ... all are amazing people who we have been very lucky to have become our friends here! January 17th, 2018 We stayed at home over the holidays, but then headed to Paris soon after the first of the year. We figured that by then, all of the "tourists" would have left to head back home and start work/school. Since we lived there, we didn't really need to do the normal tourists things, but we did do a few things (like a cruise on the Seine because it came free with the hotel. We also had a great time catching up with friends who still live there, as well as strolling through our old neighborhood and seeing what had changed and what had stayed the same. All the details can be found in our Paris 2018 blog. January 5th, 2018 My first blog of the new year, and this one is a bit short. New Year's Eve in France has some key "staples" for the meals, one of which is shellfish. If you have never gone to an open market in France on New Years Eve morning, you are in for a shock the first time you go. The amount of shellfish available (and the mass of people buying shellfish) is amazing. A few pictures can be found in our New Years Eve Market blog. December 27th, 2017 And one last quick block for the end of the year with a couple pictures of the Christmas decorations in Blagnac. December 24th, 2017 Our first birthdays in France have now come and gone, and we think we did pretty good at picking a special place to go. It was a bit of a drive (4.5 hours) across France, purely for dinner. Yep, we drove 4.5 hours out and 4.5 hours back to have dinner at a restaurant. You are probably now wondering what we were thinking!! All the details can be found in our Birthday blog. December 16th, 2017 Christmas Market!! You'll see 2 different Christmas markets this year, the first being this blog for the Toulouse Christmas Market. It opened the end of November and runs through Christmas and has a variety of chalets. It is actually quite large, taking up almost the entire Place du Capitole. We've also included various lights across the city, which they started putting up last month but just turned on last week. We haven't quite mastered dark pictures with the iPhone, so you'll have to bear with the less-than-ideal pictures in our Christmas lights and market blog. December 7th, 2017 Another short blog today (sorry). There is a good special exhibit at the Musee Saint Raymond Toulouse for a couple months, dealing with Greek Rituals. Most of the pieces are on loan from the Louvre and I think they did a really good job at making it as interactive as possible, to really put the objects in context. Sometimes it is hard to really imagine what life was like if you just see a bowl or a basket. Details in our Greek Rituals blog. December 5th, 2017 Just a short blog today ... but then again, what we went to was only a couple hours. Toulouse has an Opera right downtown, and we decided to take in a show before the end of the year. We picked a Puccini opera (I think it is somewhat ironic, since in Paris, we lived on a street named for Puccini!). It was a nice show and we were able to get a better view of the interior of the Opera itself. While it isn't as lavish as the Opera Garnier in Paris, it still looked like a typical French theater. Details in our Opera blog. November 23rd, 2017 Happy Thanksgiving! This is our first Thanksgiving in Toulouse and guess what? No Turkey! We are meeting up with some friends for coffee and lunch, and then doing a nice Vietnamese crockpot meal. We are also meeting friends on Saturday (although chicken not turkey) with some more traditional Thanksgiving items. There is an "American Thanksgiving" meal on Sunday afternoon nearby, but we had already booked an Opera for that day, so we will skip it this year. Perhaps next year. Here, Turkey is a Christmas thing, so perhaps you'll see a Christmas Turkey blog. I do have another blog ready .. this one is from a couple weeks ago (prior to the hospital visit) to Milan Italy. We got recommendations for meals from both an Italian friend of ours here in Toulouse (Valentina) as well as a colleague of Tom's who lives in Milan currently. We did all of the "tourist things" since this was our first time in Milan. All of the details ... the Last Supper from Da Vinci and the Duomo ... see our Milan blog. November 20th, 2017 So, it has been awhile, 3 weeks or so, since I last updated, but I have an excuse. I'll start with .. we now have working internet! We went down to ADSL instead of Fiber and got it installed and working. It is a bit slower than we like, but it at least works. We also have a TV package with a lot more channels, including CNN. The head of the homeowners group has been talking to us, seems a neighbor also in the courtyard went through the same issues and he now has a key to the "private storage room" so we could (in theory) move up to Fiber. We are still discussing :-) The other interesting situation that arose was my need to seek medical care. Nothing serious really ... I slipped with a knife and cut my finger. Normally .. they just stop bleeding but this one didn't ... not after 5 or 6 hours (when you stopped applying pressure). I took to Facebook to ask people where exactly you can go on a Sunday evening. First stop was what they call "SOS Medecins", which is a small office with a Dr. Seems they mainly do sicknesses, since one look and he said "um...no" and sent me to a clinic across the river in Saint Cyprien. A metro ride and 3 hours at basically an emergency room at a clinic, and I had 3 stitches in my finger. He gave me a prescription for some things at the pharmacy (benadine, bandages) and told me to change it every 2 days and go get the stitches out in 12 days from "my normal doctor". On Friday last week, we went over to a "general doctor" nearby and got the stitches out, along with another prescription for vaseline and an antiseptic, which she said to use daily for about 2 weeks. Now ... how much did all that cost? Well .. the SOS Medecin guy didn't charge me at all. The Emergency Room wouldn't take any money and so far, 2 weeks later, I still haven't seen a bill in my mailbox. The doctor who took out my stitches charged me the normal visit charge .. 25 euros. The total for the 2 pharmacy visits was also around 25 euros. And all of this will get submitted to my medical insurance which says they reimburse 100% with $0 deductible and $0 co-pay. October 29th, 2017 Hopefully we are getting closer to working internet ... but we did take a road-trip on Saturday about an hour South, to the town of Foix. It was a nice time, although once we got to the Tourist Office, we found a few other things in the close vicinity that would have been nice to see but we didn't have enough time, so we'll be doing another road-trip next summer (some of them are better for warm weather). Anyway, the details of this medieval village with a castle up on a rocky outcrop are in my Foix blog. October 23rd, 2017 So it has been awhile since I've done a blog, partly because we are *STILL* struggling with our internet. This weekend was the Toulouse Marathon, and we volunteered. We worked both Saturday and Sunday doing different things. We wrote up everything, along with pictures of the winners at a cocktail party for the volunteers in my Toulouse Marathon 2017 blog. October 8th, 2017 Unfortunately, this may be a rather dull, boring blog entry. Our internet is *STILL* not working! Here is the whole story ... when we got this apartment, it came with internet and the télévision numérique terrestre, basically 25ish "free" television channels that anyone/everyone can get. For people renting short-term, this is sufficient. However, we were told that we could "upgrade" and pay the different into a better plan. Great ... so we moved into the apartment in July and in August, the agency we work with said that upgrading was "too difficult" and that we should just get a plan in our own name. They accompanied us to the same company that has service here already, and we signed up. We had 3 different appointments with 3 different technicians to install Fiber in the apartment ... no luck. So then we canceled. Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding and the owner turned off the internet service. For about 3 weeks, we were just using our phones as hotspots for the PC and iPad. So then we spoke back with our original agent, and after also talking to the president of (basically) the home owners group, we decided that we would try Orange fiber service. So we went through the same sign-up process and had the first appointment. It was a bit better, but still didn't get it installed. We were able to have our agent come over and speak with the technician. Seems they have to string the fiber from the other building (we are a secondary building in the courtyard), through the basement, and to something on the ground floor. Here, they need to have us get an electrician and install a door so that they can have access. Then they will have to string it from there to the 1st floor (how, I don't know) so that it can go into the various outlet areas in the living room. So we are waiting for the agent to get someone to come do that work. Oh, but it doesn't stop there ... then they also said they would need access to a specific door in the basement of the other building, which is actually (we found out later) a private cellar/storage area and is not accessible. So it will be interesting to see what happens when the Orange technician comes back. In the meantime, Orange has provided a 4G hotspot that we can use ... with 10G of data ... and when we run out of that, we have to take it back for a new card (geez!). That works for the PC and iPad, but not for our Vonage phone, which works only off cable and not Wifi. So .. stay tuned to see when/if we actually get internet! September 25th, 2017 Wow, such a quick turnaround time on a blog! Yesterday (Sunday), we joined a set of friends from the AIT (American's in Toulouse) for the Fête des Vendanges Solidaires at a Chateau about an hour-ish SE of Toulouse. This was our first "grape harvest" and it was for a really good cause, a group called Autism 31 (31 being the department number for Haute-Garonne, which is where Toulouse is). We got to harvest grapes and then wine tasting, lunch, and fun with friends. It was a really well-organized event and we had a great time (along with great weather), so we are thinking of making this a yearly event! Full details and pictures, including the actual harvest and the AMAZING views from the fields are on our Fête des Vendanges Solidaires blog. September 23rd, 2017 Our internet is *STILL* not working ... thank goodness we have 100 gig data plans on our phones :-). Not sure how much air-time the French Labor Law (Code du Travail) changes have gotten in the US, but it is one of the major things going on right now. Various days, there are strikes and/or protests around France. Here in Toulouse, we have had several demonstrations, including one today (which we saw on the road coming back from shopping) and one the other week, which we took pictures of for our Code du Travail Strike blog. There have also been road blockages on some of the major motorways (so we are attempting to drive on some of the smaller roads when we have to drive), and we get to watch pictures of the protests going on in Paris on TV. September 10th, 2017 I'm a little slow getting this one out, but I have an excuse ... our internet has been not working since we got back from our last road-trip ... and using the iPhone as a personal hotspot is a bit odd. However, here it is ... we did a 3-day road trip to Montauban, the Gorges du Averyon, Cordes-sur-Ciel, and Gaillac last week. The catalyst for the trip was "winning" a free canoe trip (3 hours for 2 people) from the tourist offices that were setup in Toulouse near Capitole just after we moved here. So we wanted to go ahead and use that and so we picked a couple towns nearby. Things didn't really go exactly as planned (and we found out that we planned poorly as well) ... read all about it in the Canoeing blog. September 2nd, 2017 Today we decided to head just outside of Toulouse to Plaisance du Touch and go through the African Zoo Safari park. We saw it on our way to play golf one day and so we decided to pick a day and head back. It wasn't too crowded and was a nice weather-day, so it made a perfect little get-away. The website says to give about 3 hours, which is about right. There are a couple of shows to see (Sea Lions and Birds) so make sure if you go, you pick times so that you can make the shows. You start in the car going through a semi-free section. Some of the animals roam around while others (the more dangerous ones) are kept in enclosures. Then after that, you park and head into a more normal "zoo" part. All of the pictures (although not that much commentary) can be found in our full African Zoo Safari Park blog. August 27th, 2017 The Plage! That is ... The Beach! Today is the last day for the main section of the Toulouse Plage, which include 3 different areas for relaxing and activities during the summer. The closing of this somewhat indicates the end of summer and the fact that la rentrée is upon us. "La rentrée literally means "the re-entry". In August, most of France goes on vacation and the cities empty out. We stayed here in Toulouse and saw many businesses, stores, and restaurants closed for 3-4 weeks. We also found out that this is also the time for these same stores and restaurants to do their renovation work. Then in September (September 4th this year), la rentrée signals the return to normalcy ... students and teachers go back to work and everyone else goes back to work so things are open again. So ... anyway ... I wrote up a little Toulouse Plage blog, as we had gone on the Ferris wheel at one of the plage locations and got some good pictures from high atop the city. August 21st, 2017 It was quite a busy weekend. We did a day-trip on Saturday to two villages within an hour South of Toulouse: Rieux-Volvestre and Muret. Rieux-Volvestre was a quiet little medieval village while Muret was a bit larger and had more going on. We are still within the summer vacations, so even Muret was a bit quieter than probably it will be in another 3 weeks after "la rentrée" or the "re-entry" from the August vacations. You can read all about these two towns in my Rieux-Volvestre blog and my Muret blog. Then Sunday, we stayed in town but went to the outskirts to visit the ruins of a roman amphitheater, as well as a roman thermal bath complex. Toulouse was a very important Roman city and there are ruins found here and there throughout the city. Many were only found somewhat recently during construction projects, like underground parking garages, metro stations, and apartment buildings. The amphitheater has been known about for quite some time, but the thermal baths were found, and excavated, in 1968 when they broke ground for the foundation of an apartment building. Even today, you can only visit them through a guided tour as they are literally in the basement of an apartment. You can read all about both in my Roman Amphitheater and Thermal Baths blog.
August 14th, 2017 Just a quick little blog entry today. We are officially members of a golf club here in Toulouse! We played one round at 5 different courses: 2 that are individual clubs and 3 that are owned by a group called UGolf. They were all unique, some being hillier than others, some being in better shape than others. At the end, we decided to join the UGolf clubs (you actually join with a membership that allows you to play at 4 different courses around Toulouse). We chose the 5/7 membership since we don't really think we will play on weekends. At one of the courses, we played with a very nice couple, Marie and Michel, who also are members of UGolf and we are planning to play with them again next week. If you are interested in the courses, you can look at the UGolf page (http://jouer.golf/nos-golfs-jouer-au-golf-ugolf/) of courses and look at the ones under Sud Ouest. The courses that we can play are Toulouse La Ramée, Toulouse Seilh, Toulouse Téoula, and étangs de Fiac. Seilh has 18-hole courses .. a "normal" one and then a "compact" par 64 course. Fiac is a bit far .. about 45-50 minutes from Toulouse so we probably won't play that one too often. August 9th, 2017 Our first "festival" in France is this week ... we joked with friends who asked us about what we would be doing in our retirement and I would say "play golf, drink wine, go to pickle festivals" ... not quite a pickle festival, but we happened to find out about a Pink Garlic festival (yes, Pink Garlic, never heard of it before, but it is "famous" in the town of Lautrec) and decided to pop over for a day. Lautrec is a little medieval village about an hour from Toulouse and so it was an easy little road trip to start. We detailed the drive, the village, and the garlic festival in our Lautrec Pink Garlic Festival blog. July 31st, 2017 And here we big goodbye to the month of July. It has been relatively hot here, although drier than in Cary, and less humidity. We've gotten all moved into our new apartment and are even starting to buy flowers and herbs to grow on the railing of the windows. This week, I have a Market Blog. One of the things that we like about the "lifestyle" in France is the markets. There are multiple markets here and it is different than in Paris, in that while there were markets in Paris, you could actually buy from stand-alone stores and not really go to them. However, while there are butcher stand-alone stores, in general, there are no Fishmongers or fruit/veggie vendors outside of the markets. We try to do about 80% of our shopping at markets ... only getting a few things at a supermarket (yogurt, milk, cereal, etc). There are even épiceries where you can buy spices by the 100grams and put them into your own little jars (which we bought the other day). Full details in our Market Blog including descriptions and pictures of an actual day in the various markets. July 23rd, 2017 We've been here now 3 months and our first lease ended and we moved to another apartment this week. We had done the first apartment "sight unseen" and knew it was a short-term apartment as it was a studio. We needed a larger apartment, with parking, and space for what little we shipped from the US. Monday was "Moving Day #2" including picking up our new (used) car. I've got it all detailed on our Moving Day blog. If you JUST want to get to the apartment, you can go directly there in our 2nd Toulouse Apartment blog (also linked on the right under Personal Stuff. July 15th, 2017 We spent our first Bastille Day in Toulouse in town. Although we missed the parade because we were watching the televised coverage of the parade in Paris, we did head out after dinner to watch the fireworks. They were shot from barges in the middle of the Garonne. Full details on the Bastille Day 2017 blog. July 9th, 2017 We did a 3-day weekend trip over to Bordeaux the other weekend. Interestingly enough, we never got to Bordeaux during our 2 1/2 years of living in France previously, so this was all new to us. It is the wine capitol of France and most people will recognize the city name as a type of red wine, although they also make white's in the Bordeaux area. We didn't do any vineyards this time, focusing on the city historical sights .. although we DID throw in quite a bit of wine, wine education, and wine tasting. Our full blog starts here. July 4th, 2017 We spent our first 4th of July in Toulouse, although we did attend a little picnic/BBQ slightly outside of Toulouse on the 2nd with the Americans in Toulouse (AIT) and France-Etats-Unis (France-United States) groups. It was a nice BBQ, with as much typical "American BBQ" food as we could get (hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, corn on the cob, and watermelon). Of course, instead of beer, we had wine (we ARE in France!!). It was nice to see a set of friends that we've met since we have moved here, as well as meeting others who are living here. Pictures along with a video are posted in our Independence Day 2017 blog. June 19th, 2017 We've been here now about 2 months, and I thought I would add a blog about the things that we like and don't like .... The likes are pretty long ... Toulouse is a great walkable city. You can walk from the South to the North within the HyperCenter in about 20 or 30 minutes. The majority of the roads within the HyperCenter are pedestrian-priority, which means that while they can have cars on them, many of them you have to have a keycard to get the barriers to drop. This allows for deliveries but keeps them mainly pedestrian. There are TONS of things to do, especially (we have found so far) in the summer. This past week, there was a 4-day archeological festival where there were lots of free things all around France, for example, a discussion and walk to look at 2 specific places in Toulouse where there are remnants of the Roman ramparts (city walls). For about 4 weeks, there is a Coen brothers film festival (you have to pay for the movies) where they are playing almost every Coen brothers movie. Starting next month is a 6-week Cinema en plein air (open air cinema) festival where they show movies outdoors. They had a similar thing in Paris when we lived there. They are showing French, American, Italian, and Spanish movies, all in Version Original (original language) with French subtitles for anything not French. You have to pay for these as well, but it is somewhat unique to see them outside on a great bit screen (they start at like 10:30pm because the sunset is so late here). What don't we like ... this is a pretty small list so far, and they probably are pretty specific to us :-) There is less here in English than I would like .. although this means we need to improve our French faster. While we've gotten through the issues with trying to rent an apartment, it is one of the dislikes that we have .... it is a bit difficult to rent without history in France and without a job. They don't have a "credit rating" here, nor would we have one anyway, and the laws here really do benefit the renter and not the owner ... so they are very particular about who they rent to since it is really almost impossible to evict someone here. It is getting quite hot, and they just don't do as much air conditioning here as in the US. So there are times when we are a little uncomfortably warm here. Anyway ... so far, we are quite happy with where we are. I think things will get much better next month, when we move to our new apartment, our stuff from the US comes (so I have more than 2 pair of shorts), we buy a car, and start playing golf!!! June 11th, 2017 We've been looking for the last 5-6 weeks or so for our next apartment. The plan was always to stay in this little studio apartment for 3 months and then move to a larger apartment for a year. At the end of that year, we determine if we want to stay in Toulouse (and if so, we look for an apartment to buy) or if we want to move to another city and try there (if we don't really like here). Renting an apartment here is a bit of a challenge in a few different ways. We had no issues when we were moving to Paris 10 years ago, but I believe it was because we had someone that was paid to help us and so we never saw the complexity. As well, we had a full guarantee from a huge, international corporation so the owners never had to worry about us not paying. We saw a set of apartments, worked with a set of agencies and owners, and have finally got confirmation for our next apartment. I've gone through all of the apartments and the whole thought process in our Apartment Hunting blog. If you don't care to read about all of them, if you scroll to the last one (Chalets), that is the one we selected. June 5th, 2017 The first Sunday of each month is "Open Doors" for the city museums, and they are free. This time, we went to two different museums: The Museum Saint-Raymond, which is an archeological museum about the area specifically in and around Toulouse, and the Convent of the Jacobins. The full details are on my June 4th, 2017 blog. The are links to the Musée Saint-Raymond and the Convent of the Jacobins, and then also covers our lunch at the Victor Hugo covered market and the Fete du Rugby. June 3rd, 2017 A lovely rainy day here, after such a gorgeous day yesterday <boo>. We had a bit of excitement this week with the French bureaucracy. When we got our visa in Houston, we were instructed to send in a form to the OFII (Office of French Immigration and Integration) and then we would be notified to come in for an interview and medical exam. Early this week, we both got phone calls from the OFII. I ended up speaking with one person, who indicated that the interview and exam were not required for "our type of visa" ... we were confused. They also seemed to have had issues mailing us a letter stating this, which we understood since we have an issue with our mailbox here. So we gave her additional information, and Tom's letter arrived on Thursday. They called me again on Thursday morning and seemed to also say the same thing about we had "nothing left to do". However, Thursday I also had a French friend here call and basically they said I had the "wrong type of visa" for their office and that they had torn up my paperwork. This never a good thing in a country that LOVES paperwork! So Friday, we made the trip up to the office in person and spoke with them. They again indicated we didn't have anything to do this year (the exam and things would maybe come next year) and I asked if I could also get a letter stating that, like what Tom had been sent (they seemed to understand my bad French and hopefully, I'll get that next week). So ... we think success. Then came the Certificat de Residence ... residence certificate required for our household goods, which are now sitting in Rotterdam waiting for customs clearance. For this, we headed to the Mairie (Town Hall) and it was AMAZINGLY quick and easy .... we showed a passport, our signed lease, and voila ... a certificat de residence! SWEET!!! 2nd success for the week!! May 27th, 2017 One of the reasons that we moved to Europe was that there are so many towns that have long histories, that are within close proximity to almost anywhere that you live in Europe. We've been living in France now for about 5 weeks and we took our first day-trip, an out-and-back in a single day to Albi, which is about 85 km (just under 53 miles) northeast of Toulouse. Albi dates back to the Bronze Age, then was a modest Roman settlement until the 9th century. Additional trade, especially in pastel, allowed the city to grow wealthy. It now contains several fine houses that date back to the 16th & 17th centuries, in addition to the Bishop's Palace, the Collegiate Church of Saint-Salvi, and the "gem" of the city, the Cathedral of Sainte-Cecile. We spent the whole day walking around before taking the last train home. Details (and lots of pictures) can be found in the Albi blog (it is also linked on the right under the city name). May 21st, 2017 I know it's been a bit longer than I wanted for my next blog, but I got a bit behind this week. This weekend, we went to our first ever Rugby match and with FREE tickets no less! It was interesting for us because we have never seen a rugby match and so we were trying to see if we could figure out all the rules. We were thinking about the movie "Blast from the Past" where while the Brendan Frazier character is growing up, his father explains baseball to him and he doesn't quite understand. Then he see a game and he goes "Oh, NOW I understand!". So we had read up on things but unfortunately, it wasn't an Ah-ha moment ...while I think we understand some of it, we still don't quite totally understand it all. Anyway, you can read all about it in the Rugby Match blog. May 11th, 2017 We've made it through the election and (in my opinion), it ended much better than the election in the US. While the absenteeism was fairly high, Macron won in a pretty resounding victory. There seems to be quite a bit of upheaval now ... people talking about changes coming in the Front National including the stepping down of Marine Le Pen's niece from one of the major positions in the party (she said for family reasons, she has a small child, but it also seems that she is more hard-line than Marine took the FN party to try to appeal to enough voters) ... some in the Socialist PS party are looking to make the move to Macron's En Marche (now named The Republic En Marche!) in advance of the parliamentary elections in June. We've also done a bit more traveling around on the public transportation, including a couple busses out to the suburbs to go to IKEA and some of the car dealers. We haven't yet rode the Tram, but we've been on the Metro and Buses now quite a bit. It is fairly easy to understand if you've ever ridden a metro before, and Tisseo (the company that runs the Bus-Metro-Tram system) has a really good website and mobile app. You can look at every bus line and see every stop and the schedule and also do an itinerary between two places starting at a given time. Interesting story here ... this is where it is better to just assume they know what they are doing (yea, I know ....). So we were going to IKEA to look at furniture, which is way out in the boonies. Take the metro to the very end, and then Tisseo told us that the options were to wait 30 minutes and take the 50 bus, or wait 45 minutes and take the 117 bus. But there was a 50 bus right there ... leaving in like 15 minutes .. why not just take that one? So us over-thinkers decided that we knew better and took the 50 bus. Riding .. riding ... we're good, and then it stops and everybody gets off but us. Hmm... so I go up and ask the driver about if this goes to "Bois" (the stop we want to get off on) and she explains to me (in French of course) that no, the 50 has 2 different terminus stops, and so no, this one doesn't (Oops). Then she goes "IKEA?", I'm like ... yes ... and she explains how to walk there. 20 minutes later, we get passed by the 117 bus as we are making our way finally to the shopping center. For more details, you can read my full Metro blog. May 1st, 2017 I don't plan to do a blog daily, but today is unique. Today was May Day (May 1st) and there was a parade here in Toulouse (as well as other places in Europe). Fortunately, there was no violence (that I am aware of) here unlike Paris and Istanbul, where there were some instances of violence. The majority of the parade here in Toulouse consisted of either the unions (like the CGT) or various political parties that (mostly) were marching AGAINST the Front National (Le Pen's party). For more details, you can read my full May Day blog. April 30, 2017 We've made quite a bit of progress so far while we've been here, and it has only been two weeks. Amazing how time flies! We joined a gym this week after checking out several of them in the area. One thing that we miss is that $7 a month gym we had in Cary. No such luck here! Not only are the gyms really not quite as good (machine-wise) but they are much more expensive! We opted for a more basic gym that seemed to have the majority of the equipment Tom wanted for lifting. Others that we looked at had a sauna, or a relaxation room with a massage chair, or TV screens on all of the cardio equipment ... but we didn't feel those things were worth the extra 30 a month for each person! One thing that most have is "virtual courses" ... so the group classes but no live instructor. We're going to try one this morning on Abs (well, Tom says I'll try it). We also got our Tisseo "carte pastel", which is their public transportation card. You can load it with either individual trips (which we did to start with) or unlimited rides by day/week/month/year. We then took that and did a trip using both metros and buses out North to where a set of the car dealers were and took a look at Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, and Ford cars. Later this week, we'll head South for VW, Honda, Toyota. Have to find a car that fits the clubs :-) I've done a short Metro Blog that talks about the use of the Tisseo network including Metro, Bus, and Tram. Tomorrow is also May Day, which is the International Workers Day. Almost everything will be closed but we'll be out-and-about seeing what celebrations (or protests) there are and will report back! April 23, 2017 The first round of the French presidential election is in-the-books, and it will be Macron and Le Pen in the second round in a couple of weeks. I did an Election Blog Part 1, to explain a little bit on the election process and the differences with the American system, as well as a view of the candidates. I must say, I'm happy that Macron won, but disappointed that Le Pen made it into the second round. I wasn't shocked, since the polls were showing this anyway, but I was just hoping that Fillon could get a couple more percentage and overtake her in the final voting. April 20, 2017 This is roughly day 7, so almost a week here. We've been doing a LOT of walking in various areas of the city, trying to look to see where we want to try to find our next apartment. How far away from the markets is it? Is it "dirty"? Does it seem loud? Are there restaurants and bistro's nearby? Boulangerie? We've also started trying out the local gyms to see which we want to join long-term. So I thought I would give my "first impressions" for both good and bad: Bad: gyms here are much more expensive and normally don't seem as good. There are gyms this expensive in the Cary area for sure, but there is no "Fitness 19 $7 a month" here anywhere. Meat seems to be more expensive, as does electronics. European showers are terrible (bathtub with the hand-held shower head basically down with the faucet ... you basically either sit in the tub and use the hand shower head .. or you have to hold the shower head between your knees when you need to shampoo/soap up). We are getting used to it, but not really our cup-of-tea. Good: Fruits and veggies (which we should eat more of) tend to be cheaper. There is a lot of energy in the city .. people walking around everywhere. The people here seem to be helpful and will sometimes switch to English (sometimes when we don't want them to because we are trying to use our French). The markets are quite nice .. we've been to a few of them so far (I'll have a Market blog next week). They each have pros and cons, and some are very specialized (organic market in Capitole, or the fresh herb market that we'll try out on Sunday). And you just can't imagine the amazing smell that you get walking around a corner when the magnificent aroma of fresh baked bread hits you from the boulangerie on the street. And they are everywhere, so almost every street, you get that wonderful fresh-bread scent. April 15, 2017 Our first full day! Today, we checked out of the hotel and got into our first apartment, which we rented for 3 months. It is somewhat of a holiday rental, so fully furnished but with a small kitchenette where you can cook. You can rent the apartments by the week or month. We decided to do this for a couple of reasons. First, we had to have somewhere to live when we went to the Consulate to apply for the visa, and we didn't really want to fly over and spend time here looking for one in advance of that. We had to put down a small deposit but it wasn't too bad if something weird happened and we had to cancel. Also, we didn't want to spend all that much time in a hotel as we wanted to have a kitchen. Three months was a good middle timeframe, which gave us enough time to really get a feel for all of the various parts of the city and determine where we wanted to live more long-term, and then find an apartment to rent. If you are interested, you can go to the details page for our First Day to see pictures of the apartment (also linked under Personal Stuff to the right as the first Toulouse apartment). We also made our first dinner in our new apartment. April 14, 2017 We've made our trip over, traveling from North Carolina to New Jersey to visit friends and family, and then to catch our flight from Newark to Toulouse, via Lisbon Portugal. Everything went quite smoothly except for one minor hiccup, that we solved fairly quickly. We were able to take time and visit with Susan's brother as well as some in Tom's family (his father, brother, and one sister). We were discussing whether this blog page should contain all of the information and pictures, or have a separate page. Susan had a concern that this page would get TOO long, so we opted to have a small summary and then a link to all of the details and pictures. So if you are interested, you can go to the details page for the Trip Over. April 7, 2017 I happen to be typing this one day early, but Tom and I are now officially RETIRED! My last day actually in the office was Thursday, and it was a real bittersweet day. While I am happy and excited about being retired and moving to France, my friends and colleagues at IBM have been another family for me for almost 28 years. I am very sad to be leaving them, and actually ended up crying most of the way home tonight. We still have a few more things to do, and a few more friends and relatives to meet up with prior to our flight to Toulouse, where we will start the next chapter in our lives. March 31, 2017 I've officially submitted my resignation from IBM, effective next Friday, April 7th. From there, we take about a week visiting some of our family on our way to Newark Airport, where we catch our 1-way flight to Toulouse, France. We are taking the plunge and relocating there for our retirement. We've figured that we should go ahead and retire while we are fairly young and healthy, so that we can really enjoy things while we still are able to. Relocating to France is an interesting thing, as there are lots of things to take care of. I'll be blogging about our travels, but also just life as a retired Expat living in France and everything there is associated with that. I hope you enjoy! March 25, 2017 I've attempted to redesign our website to make certain things easier to find. Along the right, I have put all of our City travels sorted by city so that it is easier to find if you are looking for a given place. I also have a separate page that separates them by country as well. Then here, I'll be adding more of a blog. I've somewhat played with Wordpress and other real "blog" spaces but they didn't really give me a good way to have my city archives, so I've decided to just make my own blog area. |
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