We have so much to be thankful for, living in the lovely Loire Valley in France. We count our blessings in all of these areas: Though we are missing our friends and family in the U.S., we hope that each of you are able to share time, meals, and traditions this week with those you
France changed from daylight savings time this past weekend and for the first time, our evening activities this week have happened in the twilight/dark. Greg snapped this lovely photo of the Cathédrale Saint-Maurice d’Angers on Sunday looking beautiful while the bells tolled on our way to dinner at a friend’s house. This was definitely an
Yesterday was a day that epitomized what we hoped France would be like. We got up to a cool fall morning with some rain that ended by 10am, so the day was fresh. We hopped on the quiet and half empty tram (a novelty in a city with 45,000 university students) to go downtown to
We’ve made it back to Angers from our trip to the SF Bay Area and are looking ahead with excitement to what comes next for us this fall as the seasons change and we seek new opportunities to further integrate with the community and culture of Angers, France. Here’s what we’ve got planned for the
Every once in a while, we like to go out for a good breakfast. There’s a place called Omelette Express in Santa Rosa (California) that is a community staple for a good breakfast, brunch, and lunch and we’ve been eating there for years. Santa Rosa is where the Peanuts cartoonist, Charles Schulz, is from and
We’re back in the U.S. for a couple of weeks to see family, eat some spicy food and the best deep dish pizza this side of Chicago, and grab a few things from our storage place to bring back to France to make our place feel more like home. We brought two large, empty suitcases
The French have elevated COMPLAINING to an art form, a competitive sport even; at a minimum, it’s a favorite pastime. Don’t get me wrong, we love France, but there are definitely things here that have tested our patience and made us grumbly at times. We’ve reached the phase in our time in France that is
I set out for a walk yesterday morning while Greg was out biking. I captured this photo from a bridge over the Maine River that runs through the middle of Angers before connecting with the Loire River farther south. You can see the Angers castle in the distance and that gorgeous church tower in the
We finished out our French countryside trip last week with a visit to “Le Mystère des Faluns,” another troglodyte cave system created by workers in the 18th and 19th centuries who mined limestone as a building material. It’s now an underground museum / art installation that you have to see to really appreciate. Much of
We thoroughly enjoyed the Saturday market in Rennes earlier this week called the “Marché des Lices” which has been a staple of life in old town Rennes every Saturday morning for the past 400+ years (read about the anniversary celebration here). The market takes place on the streets and goes on for several blocks, and