We took a walk on a beautiful fall day recently and stumbled across, as apparently one does when living in a French neighborhood, this lovely chateau, less than three miles from our house. Château de la Perrière was completed in 1699 and now serves as a golf clubhouse to the attached 18-hole golf course and also a conference and event venue; it also has a bar and restaurant.
The staff allowed us to walk through the main floor rooms and around the grounds. There are many “smaller” chateaus dotted all around France that are just as lovely as the big ones that draw all the crowds. Things like this are fairly commonplace, but still feel so special and are a great reminder of why we really enjoy France.
We met several people the other day who are in Angers for a guided group “trying out life in France” trip for about a month, staying in Airbnbs. A month is long enough to be forced out of the vacation mindset and they have to do mundane things of life like laundry, grocery shopping, and light cooking, while also exploring public transportation, French grocery stores, and maybe pharmacies. Those that we’ve spoken with have loved Angers and I suspect that many may return someday. Greg has met a couple of other cyclists and is planning to ride with a local French cycling club later this week.
Lastly, a (small) win for us! We submitted our application to join the French health care system about six weeks ago. We’ve heard that processing time can be anywhere from a month to nine months. The good news? They know we exist as they sent us letters after just one month, so our applications didn’t disappear. The bad news? They asked for more information to assess whether to accept us, all of which we’ve already submitted, but… the prevailing advice is to send it again. So today we sent it again, this time with highlighted pertinent information, a table showing how we meet the “living in France for at least three months” requirement, and attachment titles. Hopefully, this will do the trick.
Tonight we start our language class, so wish us luck!