We have been here almost a month…can you believe it?
Bonjour, tout le Monde!
Our apologies for falling behind on the blog posts. We have been very busy lately!
There is a lot to blog about! Chris has been working hard at learning his new position with Michelin. His French is improving rapidly. Mine…well I will get there. Sometimes it’s frustrating to not be able to say exactly what I want to say in French, or have someone come up to me on the street and ask me a question (that happens a lot, apparently!) but I am learning more every day. I am finding that living in a country that speaks a different language teaches you how to have a lot of patience, and you very quickly learn to brush it off when a local clearly thinks you’re a complete idiot because your brain has gone blank when you’re trying to ask for something. You just have to roll with it!
We have been making many new friends. There are so many wonderful people here. Our friends Karen and Pierre have invited us over for dinner several times, and I can talk endlessly about their cooking! They are also introducing us to amazing wine and cheese. Beth has joined the International Women’s Club, and is hiking with the IWC hiking group almost every week. The other local expats are just delightful and welcoming and we are so grateful that they have taken us under their wings!
We finally moved out of temporary housing and into a permanent apartment! Getting our stuff was fun (we had our first run in with the police because the movers couldn’t get the forty foot shipping container through the gate (French streets and “parking lots” are very, very narrow) so they tried to park it on the street, which made the police very unhappy. Ultimately it all worked out, but boy did move in day start out stressful!
In other good news…we now have our own car! Today we drove out to a town called Thiers, which is known for making knives and other cutlery. It is a lovely little town, and we very much enjoyed taking a stroll through the streets (and finding ourselves some lovely French kitchen knives!) I can’t get over how absolutely beautiful this region is.
Overall, we are settling in and it is starting to feel much more like home. Clermont is a delightful city, and the French are wonderful.
Until next time!