Join us on a photo journey of France, Europe and beyond on our photoblog. Click on the photo or go to: www.france-and-beyond-photoblog.com
Chambery App
If you have an IPhone or IPod and are planning a visit to Chambery, buy my ITunes App. It will walk you through the city of Chambery to each historic landmark with walking directions, history, a map, and narrative. It's just $2.99. Click on the above photo of the elephant fountain for the link to the app.
Travel Resources
Planning a trip to France ? Stay in a Paris apartment during your trip to the city of lights.
Get my Chambery, France Guide Book free with the purchase of my Cookbook: 'French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.' Get both for only $7.99. Click the photo to get more information or to purchase your books now.
French Tutorial
A basic grammar and vocabulary review of the French language, as well as some informal & slang vocabulary and a special section on vocabulary for English-speaking expatriates living in France. Also included is an appendix on French pronunciation for English speakers as well as IPA transcriptions for most of the vocabulary lists and all of the verb conjugations.
Visit the Store to buy the e-book for $9.95 or paperback book for $24.95.
Join us on a small group tour of the French Alps June 9 - 16, 2012. I designed this tour to include the best of the region. Wander the Medieval town of Annecy, nicknamed the Venice of the French Alps, and take a boat ride on its crystal blue lake. Do you like pampering yourself on your vacations, then why not spend an afternoon at the Aix les Bains thermal baths inside your lakeside hotel? Are you the adventurous type? Then take a horseback ride in the Alps or fly through the trees at the High Ropes Adventure. Are you a foodie? Taste local chocolates, cheeses, wines and hazelnut oils. Are you a history buff? Then satisfy your curiosity at Lyon's Old Town or Vienne's Roman Temple and Forum. Or just enjoy watching the hang gliders and sunset while enjoying an outdoor aperitif on the top of a mountain overlooking Annecy's lake. See you in the French Alps! www.french-alps-tours.com
Alps Cookbook
Get my ECookbook: 'French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.'
51 recipes of the region, collected from friends and local cookbooks. This is the only English language Savoie and French Alps cookbook in print. Only $7.99 and includes a bonus book: The Chambery Guide Book.
Click the photo to buy yours now or go to the Cookbook Page on the Navigation Bar!
French Comfort Food
Visit my French Comfort Food website for articles, recipes, videos, tips and products about French Food and Wine. Click on the photo or go to www.frenchcomfortfood.com
Videos, photos and posts can be used or posted noncommerically (this means you can't sell my films, photos or put them in or on anything you sell!), but everything must be linked back to this blog and must list me as the creator.
Every year Cape Coral, Florida (sister city to Fort Myers) has a Christmas Boat Parade. This area has the largest number of boats per capita of anywhere in the United States so the boating culture is huge. Decorating your boat and participating in the Parade on a canal near the River (which also is a competition for the best decorated boat) is a big event every year. We were lucky in that my sister’s good friend lives right on the boat parade route on the canal and let us use her boat dock to watch the parade even though they were out of town. We took some sandwiches, a bottle of wine, and had front row seats to this lovely and festive event.
Merry Christmas to you and yours! Stay tuned because I’ll be saying Merry Christmas to you the ‘Paris way’ on Christmas eve.
So you’re just a few weeks away from Christmas and you haven’t a clue what you’re going to buy your spouse, parents, best friend or boy/girlfriend. I have a few suggestions, of course. How about a French Alps/Savoie Ecookbook? Better yet, how about a trip to the French Alps and they can just eat the food instead of cook it? And why don’t you join them on the Tour? It’s a unique gift since it’s the only summertime sightseeing Tour of the French Alps in existence. Or if you’d like to do an independent trip to the French Alps, I can help you plan it. If you just want some French food products, check this out. If you’re looking for a man’s gift, I have a variety of gifts to choose from here. Want to learn French? Buy my friend, Jennie’s, French Tutorial book (she’s one of those genius types who speaks several languages and is getting her PH.D in Languages – it’s a great book!). So now you have lots of options to choose from.
Have fun shopping and have a wonderful holiday season to you and yours!
Most of my viewers know that I lived in Italy for 3 years and traveled there for 20 and still have an ongoing love affair with the country. One place that I kept going back to year after year since 1979 is Cinque Terre and my favorite town was Vernazza. No doubt you’ve seen the photo of this little Italian Riviera town many times in travel magazines.
On October 25, without warning, the town was hit with a terrible flood – both water and mud – that overwhelmed the only road in the village, including putting the restaurants and businesses under mounds of mud and threatened the lives of the patrons. It’s reported that nine people are dead and 10 more missing. Monterossa, another Cinque Terre town, was also hit hard.
It is very sad to see the devastation of two towns I love so much. I wish them a quick recovery.
I think everyone in the United States or in Europe (and many other places in the world) has heard about the Occupy movement that started in New York about two months ago, called Occupy Wall Street. As in the Vietnam War protests and most movements, it was the youth who initially started the sit-in on the sidewalks and parks of New York City on or near Wall Street (the center of the world’s stock market and many financial institutions). The mainstream media initially refused to broadcast the event because 1. they are owned by corporations who are one of the targets of the movement; 2. because they thought it was just a bunch of crazies and hippies and that it would die quickly. But the opposite happened. What mainstream media keeps forgetting is that it is not the same world anymore. Thanks to IPhones and other such cameras/phones, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and any number of other venues on the internet, we don’t need mainstream media anymore – it all goes on the internet and the entire world watches.
The more beatings the New York occupiers took, the more people joined the movement. I’ve read articles that said the movement is now in 1,200 cities in the United States and in another 650 cities worldwide and an international protest was held on October 15, the same day Occupy Fort Myers marched! Thousands and thousands of people have joined and they aren’t crazies and hippies. In fact, they are mostly middle class people like war veterans, police officers, librarians, executives, nurses, teachers, and even rich people. It is now a movement of the people – 99% of the people versus the 1% of the top richest people who now have 40% of the income in America.
I watched the movement but thought that I would never have a chance to participate because I live half years in France (and this is an American movement or so I thought) and because the city I live in in Florida is a Republican, conservative, right wing and very religious community. Surely, no Occupy Movement would ever take hold here. I was wrong. The movement and it’s 1,400 members began in Fort Myers and I participated in the first march on Saturday, October 15th in downtown Fort Myers. I took video and have included it.
The first video however is the most important because it is one of America’s commentators reading the Occupy Wall Street mission statement and tells you what this movement is opposing and embracing. Please watch it if you would like to understand what this is all about.
Today is the third anniversary of American in France, the video blog. I can’t believe that it’s been around that long since it started as a way to stay in contact with family and friends back in the United States. Today I get on average 50,000 unique visitors per year. Some come, browse and leave, and others hang around, subscribe, and comment. Others become big fans. All are welcome and I hope everyone takes away something good from the blog. I celebrate this blog birthday from the States, where I’m living out a new chapter of my life. That translates to half time in the U.S. and half time in France. As challenges and opportunities arise, I respond the best way I know how.
Thanks to my readers and viewers for hanging around, contacting me, commenting, and subscribing. Thanks for making all the work and time I put into this endeavor worth it (because Lord knows it’s not for the money!). I hope you’ll continue to return to experience insider France virtually through my videos and articles. And I hope you’ll be celebrating my fourth blog birthday with me next September.
Join me too in June on our French Alps Tours so you can experience insider France in person by coming to see it all yourself.
Tomorrow I leave for the States with my cat, Bandit, in tow. I’ll be there for at least six months, living in my new home in the Fort Myers area. Bernard, my husband, will join me in early November so we’ll be apart for three months. I’ve lived alone most of my life so I can manage that okay but he has never lived alone so it’s harder on him. He’ll be staying for three months with me in Florida and we’ll work on landscaping the house during his time there. I need to keep him busy so he doesn’t get bored or too homesick! I, on the other hand, will be putting my time and energy towards finding an income, whether that be more fundraising and grant writing contracts or working as a consultant with fundraising organizations. I’ll also be meeting with travel agencies to market my French Alps Tours and try to establish some partnerships. Since Florida will be ‘home’, I’ll be bringing my contract work there and setting up shop in the area so I’ll need to get my business license too.
Besides the landscaping and finding additional income, I have a list of things that I’ll need to accomplish. My house was burglarized during my absence so I have to replace the washer/dryer, microwave, TV, laptop, and several other things. This time however I think I’ll get the cheaper or refurbished versions of those things and save myself some money. I’ll also be putting in a heavy duty alarm/security system and front and back motion detector lights. I’ll be getting my Florida driver’s license. I hope to find classes in advanced Word, Powerpoint, Excel programs, and take an Italian class to brush up on that language which I’ve mostly forgotten in my three years in France. And of course, either find a French class or French tutor to try to make some progress with that language as well. Of course, there’s always my blogs and my French Alps Tours to work on. And I’d like to try to find time to volunteer for some non-profit agencies in the area, including an animal rescue organization. I definitely won’t get bored.
I, of course, hope to have a little fun too. My entire family (almost entire) lives in the area and, except for the three months I lived in Florida earlier this year, it’ll be the first time that I’ve lived in the same city with them since I was 17 years old. I’m looking forward to spending time with them and having some laughs – which is what we do very well together. I’ll get to have Thanksgiving for the first time in 3 years and Christmas and New Years with them too. Cape Coral has a big Christmas Boat Parade that I’m looking forward to seeing – boat owners decorate their boats in lights and Christmas decorations and compete for a prize. You can watch the gorgeous parade from the parks along the river.
By the way, don’t worry about the blog losing its ‘French-ness.’ I have enough French-related videos and posts to last until I return to France. I’ll have a few Florida-related festivals or events too to keep it interesting.
So bon voyage a moi, and see you on the other side of the Pond!
If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that my French husband is a TGV train driver (the bullet trains in France), and has been for 30 years. As you know, things are done differently in France than in the U.S., especially when it comes to retirement issues. Most French retire between 58 and 64 years of age. If you are one of the luckier ones and work for the train system in France, the SNCF, you will get to retire even earlier than that. If you have worked for them for 30 years, 20 years of which you’ve driven trains, you can retire with full benefits at age 50. And that’s exactly what my husband did as of yesterday. One month before his 51st birthday he retired. He’ll get about 70% of his pre-retirement salary.
I’m happy for him but also a little jealous. I wasn’t looking at early retirement before I moved to France but now, with losing the six-figure income I had in L.A., I’m probably looking at retiring very late in life – perhaps 66 to 68 years old. At best, I’ll be looking at semi-retirement before that. I’m not very happy about this particular fact but I also know that most Americans of my generation are probably looking at this same reality. Sometimes you have to ask if there isn’t something wrong with our American system, and if we’ll ever be able to fix it. N’est pas?
In the meantime, I want to congratulate my husband, Bernard, on a career well-chosen and well-performed. Happy Retirement, cheri.
So you’re just a few weeks away from Christmas and you haven’t a clue what you’re going to buy your spouse, parents, best friend or boy/girlfriend. I have a few suggestions, of course. How about a 
