CHANGES AFTER TWELVE YEARS IN FRANCE: PART 1

It's been twelve years since we sold out in the USofA and made our permanent move to France. In the modern world, that's the equivalent of three jobs, two marriages, or the time it will take to get the taste of Trump out of our mouths. In our case, having retired and remained married for 54 years, it's enough time to have settled into our new home, tried some things out, and decided what works and what doesn't. If nothing changes, there's no growth. Here's our list. Yours may differ.

I DRIVE SLOWER

As the t-shirt proclaims, only bikers know why dogs stick their heads out of car windows. And I logged tens of thousands of kilometers on my last two-wheeler in the three years before we moved to France. I tend to drive cars the way I rode motorcycles, as reasonably fast as road conditions allow. Never an accident, on either two or four wheels, except for a blown rear tire at speed just before moving to France that put me on the ground, broke a toe, and ruined a pair of jeans. So after hundreds of thousands of miles on American roads, wide lanes with ample verges, I enjoyed testing my new (used) French car during my first couple of years navigating our local narrow two-lane blacktops. I have slowed down for two reasons. First, packs of cyclists, the tractors of vignerons working the vines, ambling tourists navigating their wide-bodied campers in unfamiliar territory, all make passing on the curvy, narrow and hilly back roads that I routinely travel a dodgy proposition. Not worth the frustration and tension. But more importantly, I have taken to heart something that I said in passing to Cathey early on. "If I ever fail to see the beauty that surrounds us while driving through it, stick a fork in me. I'm cooked." I've slowed down.

 

I EAT LESS CHEESE

Le Centre National Interprofessionnel de l'Economie Laitière cites over 1,200 varieties of French cheeses and there could be several hundred more if of you count every minor regional variety. Tasting as many as possible was an early goal. A cheese plate arrived for every lunch on the terrace and at the end of every dinner party. Isn't morbier interesting with its thin black line denoting the difference between evening and morning milkings? Have you ever smelled a cheese as nasty as livarot? Can you taste the barnyard in Tomme de Savoie? So much fun. So much calcium. And so, after 20 years, a second attack of kidney stones. And so, another story to tell at parties, a story about a nurse with long, black rubber gloves who looked like Rosa Klebb as I sat watching her approach with my feet in the stirrups thinking "I'm not in Kansas any more." 

 

WE BUY ONLINE MORE

We moved from the third largest metro area in Pennsylvania to a rural French village of 1,800 souls without a gas station or an ATM. Even with grocers and a small hardware store in the next town over, and even with the small cities of Narbonne and Beziers within about 25km, you can't always get what you want. (But if we try, sometimes, we find we get what we need. But only sometimes.) And then there's Amazon. Big vans navigate our narrow village streets daily. How else are we expected to find hypoallergenic kitty treats? Or inexpensive knockoff water filters for our Samsung fridge? Or a replacement cable for a portable hard drive at least twenty years old? So, we download the app and we find what we need and what we need appears in our mailbox in a day or two. Yes, when we can, we buy local. Always. In small villages with diminishing populations because the kids are drawn to the jobs and the life of the cities, patronizing local merchants becomes a survival mechanism. But I still can't believe that that obscure cable showed up in 24 hours and saved the 5,000 tunes I'd archived on my old drive.

 

WE KEEP FINDING NEW WINE

Back in the States, I drank lots of flavored waters and diet sodas. (I know. Mea culpa.) Now I'm in France. Wine is the daily beverage of choice, although it's recently been reported that young folks are turning to beer. Sacrilege. When we arrived, friends recommended two or three local wineries and they were perfectly suitable for our needs. Tasty and inexpensive. Rosé for the equivalent of 5USD or so a bottle. What's not to like? But the truth is, in our Department of Hérault, an area about the size of Delaware, there are as many as 600 wineries, from boutiques producing only a few thousand bottles to large cooperatives that measure liters by the millions. And Hérault is only one of five departments in our wine-producing region. First by word of mouth, then thanks to new friends who established a wine exporting business based in our village, our cellar expanded to include bottles from wineries far and near, Finally, we discovered vrac, bulk wine that the co-ops sell for under 2USD per liter and dispense through contraptions like gas pumps. The result? Not a single diet soda in 12 years.

 

Check out PART 2 coming soon to a theater near you. 

BEING AMERICAN IN EUROPE ON THIS VERY DAY: FEBRUARY 28, 2026

Yesterday, as we worked our way through the narrow single-lane streets in the center of our rural French village of 1,800 souls to our parking space near our home, we came upon a work truck slowly inching forward, blocking our way. A work crew walked behind the truck, its open flatbed loaded with hot-mix asphalt, filling small potholes and tamping the fill down with the backs of their shovels. As the truck moved into the last short stub leading to our little plaza, the workers waved to the driver, directing him to back up and turn into a side street, letting us move ahead. I waved and they waved and we went our separate ways.

We had benefited from a small act of kindness. But it was instructive. Our car, an older, freshly-painted bright red Renault station wagon, is certainly recognizable. And we‘ve lived in the village long enough not to be surprised that the workers knew that we lived close by. But the fact is that I didn’t honk our horn or express impatience, that I actually made a calming gesture to the workers with my hands when they first noticed us, clearly indicating that we would have had no trouble waiting an extra minute or two while the truck navigated the final 100 yards or so to our plaza. Instead, the truck backed up and changed its route to save us that extra couple of minutes of time. A small, wholly unnecessary bit of consideration. But not atypical.

After living in France permanently for the past twelve years, I wouldn’t say that we are fully integrated in the highest sense of the word. We are by no means fluent in the language, although we have little trouble being understood and conducting our daily business. Our primary social interactions are confined almost exclusively to folks who speak English, whatever their native tongue might be, although we can and do interact every day with folks with little or no English at all. And although we have secured a 10-year residency card that gives us certain rights in France and throughout Europe that aren’t available to shorter-term visitors, we have no interest in pursuing French citizenship.

But we love living in France. We love the little courtesies that are a part of daily life here, regardless of the universal caricature of the rude Parisian. Our experience is more consistent with the attitude of those village workers who inconvenienced themselves just to save us a negligible amount of time. We say 'Bonjour' to everyone that we walk past on the street in our village, including school kids, whether we know them or not. We wait patiently while Nadine dispenses and gathers news of family and the village at large from behind the counter with every customer of the butcher shop, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many people are waiting for service. (When it’s your turn, you will receive the same level of undivided attention.) The servers at the village bar/brasserie shake our hand or kiss our cheeks when we walk in because we are regulars. They don’t expect a tip because they make a living wage. (But being American, we give an extra little bit that would be considered insultingly small in America but that shows appreciation here. And is indeed appreciated.)

And then the United States joined Israel in bombing Iran.

We are asked for our thoughts as Americans. (I won’t go into the fact that Europeans realize that the definition of America includes the entire hemisphere in which the United States resides. One of the follies that Europeans generously abide is that most folks from the USofA don’t understand that distinction.) For most of us who have settled here, our reaction to current events is a cross between sadness and outrage. Sadness that the good will that most Europeans have felt towards Americans since the end of WWII has been squandered in such a short period of time. Outrage that the country of our birth has become unrecognizable. Men in military gear and wearing masks demanding ‘papers’ from random people on the street? Kidnapping the leaders of other countries? How could this have happened? I won’t pretend to have an answer. Historians may come to a consensus a hundred years from now. But I will venture a few thoughts on the matter.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were written contemporary with and influenced by the writers of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. At their core, those documents take as their central tenet that rights are not granted by governments but are inherently human rights which governments must not be allowed to infringe upon.

In the case of the French, within less than a generation, Napoleon was crowned emperor. The First Republic of France thus lasted all of 12 years. (Rights are apparently a fleeting thing. We should all know that by now.) There have been five French Republics in all, responding to the fall of autocrats, the ends of wars, or the influence of major political figures. During the same 250 years, the United States has amended its founding Constitution, primarily to adjust to the inequities that were a given in the late 18^th Century, but the US is still working with that same original Constitution as the framework of its first and only republic. Can a document written in the late 18^th Century serve as the ultimate legal basis for a 21^st Century society? We are learning that it probably cannot.

What caused the breakdown of a social order that seemed to be going so well? I’ll list what I see as a few key factors.

With the exception of Trump, the wealthiest US President in the past 100 years was John Kennedy. And a cornerstone of Kennedy’s economic policy was to lower the tax rates on Americans with incomes over $1,000,000 in the name of economic stimulus. I’m convinced that the failed notion that a rising tide lifts all boats began then. I’m convinced that the inability to find the money to maintain the massive infrastructure that was built on that higher tax rate began then. And I’m convinced that the creation of a class of uber-wealthy Americans with the power to put and keep Donald Trump in office began with that seemingly insignificant bit of wrongheaded economic policy.

The growing power of the 1% also coincides with the politicization of the United States Supreme Court. Only a Court beholden to a perverse political ideology, and unfettered by the ethical guidelines that constrain all other federal courts, could find written into the Constitution that corporations are people and that money equals speech, thus dumping billions of unregulated money into the political process, a result that hardens in concrete the creation of a professional political class concerned with reelection and building personal wealth before serving a constituency. We are seeing the Supreme Court practically daily overturning the carefully wrought rulings of lower federal courts through twists of logic that are best applied to the baking of pretzels.

And finally, at least for this rant, I rue the lack of generally recognized trusted authorities when it comes to speaking truth. There used to be guys named Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. Cronkite cried on-air when he announced assassination of JFK. He put the Vietnam War on television for all to see. He joined us watching in awe as NASA took men to the moon. Not a saint. No. But at least we could tell that Cronkite believed what he was saying. And we could hear the bombs dropping in the background as Murrow described in real time and in person the stoic determination of an England at war. His reports were both brave and eloquent. Now there are guys like Alex Jones, making a fortune calling the parents of dead school children crisis actors. And there’s the gang at Fox, giving credence to bald-faced lies to further the agenda of their 1% owners.

Just today, I came across deepfake videos on Facebook purporting to be Michael Caine and Steve Martin pushing some voodoo memory-enhancing product. It was so convincingly real that if it hadn’t been so patently absurd, I might have believed it. I’m certain that some did believe it, enough to make the cost of production and distribution of the video more than worthwhile. That I didn’t believe that the videos were really Caine or Martin is a tribute to the fact that my parents were educated and educated me. I wish that more parents valued education, the kind of education that our parents did. Education that rewarded achievement above participation. 

OK. Enough. I feel better now. Thanks for listening.

LEAVING THE UNITED STATES: THREE REASONS

We sold our house in Pennsylvania and moved to a small village in the rural south of France a little over ten years ago. We haven't regretted that decision for one moment. It's been five years since we were last in the United States and we don't anticipate returning, even for a visit, any time soon. I've been writing a blog since before we accomplished the move. Poke around in it. www.southfranceamerican.com

Here, I'm going to discuss the primary reasons that we decided to establish residence outside the United States and why we continue to believe that the decision to do so was a correct one. But I'm warning you. American politics was not one of the reasons that we left, although the politics of such topics as health and healthcare did play a role. And yes, Bush the Younger was President at the time of our decision, so one could imagine fleeing his goofy act. But no, we chose as we did for personal reasons that trump elections. (Gives you pause, all of a sudden seeing that word, doesn't it? First and last time.)

TRAVEL IN EUROPE

What did we want to do when we retired? Travel. Where did we want to travel? Europe. Why not live there? Simple as that. Really. Simple as that.

We've been to the Roman baths in Bath, England. We've seen parmigiano reggiano cheese production in Parma, Italy. For our 50th anniversary, we saw Tosca performed at the Opera Bastille in Paris. We've shopped a couple of times a year in Spain, sampled the fascinating assortment of pintxos in San Sebastian, and visited the Guggenheim in Bilbao. We traced Cathey's family back into the 15th Century in an archive in Switzerland, a seven-hour car ride away. Seven hours on a train gets me to a friend's place in Germany.  And did I mention that the clean sand, clean water beaches of the Mediterranean begin less than 25 miles away from where we live? Get the picture? Retired. Traveling in Europe.

Politics? I suppose that you can say so. We admit to being Eurocentric. We've studied Romance languages in school, visited museums displaying European cultural relics and art, listened to European music that's considered classical. At our age, we'd rather dig deeper into what was in our air growing up than try to inhabit a new cultural space. We have plenty to keep us busy right here in our old neighborhood.

WEATHER

Simultaneous with the decision to concentrate our search for a retirement destination in Europe, Cathey set one of her foot-down conditions, a primary condition. "I will never shovel snow again." If it's going to be Europe, that limits the geography. As I write this, Thanksgiving is just a few days away. As I write this, friends in Cologne, Germany are reporting snow. Cologne's latitude runs through Alaska. As I write this, friends in Paris report snow. A little early, but not unexpected. After all, North Dakota shares its latitude with Paris.

Researching for moderate climates, we centered our search on the Mediterranean Coast, not because we are beach people but because the sea moderates both summer and winter weather. There's lots of pretty country in that European strip of land up against the Med, and not all of it is super expensive. We found a nice pocket in the rural southwest of France, in Occitanie. Hot summers, but manageable with judicious use of the heat pump. Temps touch freezing a night or two in winter. The fireplace place makes it cozy. No snow shoveling.

COST OF LIVING

It may seem counter intuitive to some, but a couple with average Social Security Retirement checks can live quite comfortably in our neck of France. Of course, having additional pension income or regular income from an annuity or other investments makes life more comfortable. And having the equity in hand to purchase a suitable place to live is important. As an American, you can't just walk into a French bank and get a mortgage. But if you figure out your housing at a reasonable cost, the rest comes fairly easily.

We eat foods that are in season and locally produced, not a hardship since growing seasons are long around the Med, including in nearby North Africa just a ferry ride away. And the food is grown for flavor. I don't know if we serve the best carrots that you've ever tasted, but we have had visitors who have said so. If you're an omnivore like me, in addition to veggies that taste like veggies, look for a village butcher who locally sources his meats. But beware the beef. Local beef is often grass fed and chewy, nearly game meat. 

Electricity can be expensive, sufficiently so that heat pumps are ubiquitous and it's not uncommon to see private/communal solar panels/farms. Healthcare is among the best in the world and the French single-payer system is affordable and responsive. The French spend about half as much as Americans do per capita for health care, and they live longer. It's nice not feeling as though you are profit point in a health plan's spreadsheet. 

When you add it all up including internet/phones (one-third of what I paid in the USofA before we left ten years ago) and taxes and water/sewer and gas/diesel and wine/spirits and restaurants and such, a pleasant and comfortable existence is easily doable with those two average Social Security checks that I mentioned.

YOUR EXPERIENCE MAY DIFFER

There are plenty of places in the world that provide even more affordable options for retirement living. If I read the current buzz correctly, Central and South America have replaced Mexico as the flavor of the month. And they probably are less expensive. But after research, expense became a secondary consideration for us. We knew that we could find a place that we could afford to buy where we wanted to live. And that's the point. We weren't running away from American politics. We were running towards a pleasant, adventurous retirement. 

If you are going to live in Europe, best learn the language in the country of your choice and learn it well. While it's true that just about everyone in Europe understands some basic English, requiring them to speak your language in their country does not build community. And rural life in general is not for everyone. Not exactly a hotbed for Uber Eats. Rural folks in France are nice folks, don't get me wrong. but they are not American folks. Be prepared. Businesses close on odd days and at odd times for a variety of unexpected and unforeseen reasons. You have to learn the customs. 

Renting for the long term before you buy is good advice, both in terms of France in general and your permanent landing spot in particular. We have a large house in the center of a very old town - small terrace, no garden, no garage, no pool. For each of those amenities, there's an extra few tens of thousands to pay. You have to decide what's important to you and what will be important to you ten years or more from now when the stairs are harder to climb and the garden threatens to get out of hand. All that I can do is repeat, we have not regretted our decision to move to France for one single minute.

RESTAURANTS IN FRANCE: COST OF LIVING - PART 3

One of the great joys of living in France is the simple fact that the French take their food so seriously. I'm not talking only about the highbrow, structured craziness of the Michelin Guide and its star system. There's no doubt that folks looking for a Michelin star or two are serious about food. I'm talking about the local pub that serves lunch to workmen on a weekday as well, the neighborhood restaurant that families visit for a dinner out on a Saturday night. The one thing that they have in common is that, if they don't serve quality ingredients, well-prepared and well-presented, they simply won't last. I don't know if the statistics on the survival of new restaurants are as dire as they are in the USofA. But the restaurants that I enjoy and have enjoyed during my ten-year residence in the region have exhibited remarkable staying power. And those that have left me meh, haven't.

Let's start at the bottom and work our way up.

FAST FOOD

In less than a half hour, I can have me a Big Mac or a Whopper right here in France. Seriously. They look like and they taste like they do in the States. They might actually cost a bit less given the current strength of the dollar against the euro. Not that I'm a regular visitor. We stop at BK maybe once a year if we're out shopping and hungry. I can't abide Mickey D's except for the fries. I've had maybe two batches in ten years. There’s a KFC not far away, too. But I have to say that, having tried a bucket once, I’m not going back. I’m particular about my fried chicken, I can abide KFC in the States, but the French version just didn’t cut it.

Of course the French have their own version of fast food. There's a thing that the French call a taco. It's never seen a tortilla, though. A panini, really. Bread with stuffing. But they call it a taco. I may try one out of desperation if the opportunity presents, but I won't go out of my way. And there are cafeterias and buffets and burger joints in shopping centers and malls and on the highways and they are what they are. 

I've actually visited a couple of burger joints that are worth a second shot. A good burger is, after all, a good burger. Count yourself lucky if you've fond one. The problem is usually the bun. The French don't generally do soft, squishy, white bread buns. Most often, you get a sort of brioche bun that falls apart as soon as you put pressure on it.

Lots of pizza places, mostly inedible. The thin, crispy crusts amount to what I call crackers with toppings. On the other hand, Pizze di Rosa on St. Chinian serves pizza with interesting toppings, with Italian beer, and with a chewy crust to die for. We visit every month or so.

BAR FOOD

Most villages that are more than hamlets support some sort of watering hole, a place to go to at the very least enjoy a pastis after work...or first thing in the morning. It's 5pm somewhere. The best of them serve food, and we are fortunate to have two pretty good exemplars close by, one right in town.

Our Bar 40 serves lunch Monday through Friday and dinner Friday and Saturday night. The lunch menu changes every day and features a starter, a main dish and dessert. Add a glass of wine and pay a total of 20USD more or less. Starters are usually a salad that's a plateful and interestingly constructed or a charcuterie plate. Recent mains have included stir-fried duck, slow cooked lamb, beef stew, chicken stew, and beef tartare. Seafood every Friday. Ice cream or a cheese plate or a dessert of the day to finish. The wine comes from just down the road. What's not to like? 

Dinner on Friday and Saturday nights can be ordered from a menu that includes specialty burgers,  steaks, grilled and fried bits and bobs, and a special or two. Those sorts of menus in that sort of place can run from 18USD to 25USD per person for lunch and 20 to 30USD for dinner including a bottle of local wine. The quality and variety does vary from shockingly good to just average. Never inedible. Well, almost never. Once or twice in ten years.

HIGHWAY/NEIGHBORHOOD RESTAURANTS

Highway rest stops aside, there's a class of French restaurant called a relais. Recently, it seems to have become chic to name an upscale restaurant a relais, but that's not the original meaning. They were and are truck stops on back roads, roads that used to be main roads before the expressway. Mostly in smaller roadside villages, they are known for serving simple, inexpensive meals. Le Relais Bleu in Capestang, the next village over, is a bar/hotel/restaurant on the main road that runs through the south side of town. The website features two-course specials as low as 15USD. And for some reason, the sign out front makes certain that you know when couscous is on the menu.

At the same time, within several blocks of that main road back into town, you can find a dozen restaurants in Capestang, some new, some around when we arrived ten years ago. A restaurant featuring, but not limited to, wood-fire pizza. A restaurant advertising home cooking that folks say really isn't. Seafood and grilled meat and a place for dinner that you really should dress up for. All with distinct personalities and peculiarities.

In other words, in a small village of 3,500 souls, you can find a restaurant serving pretty much whatever you are in the mood to be eating. Keep in mind though, Capestang is on the Canal du Midi and is a popular vacation-home spot and tourist destination for boaters. That creates a little extra choice...and a little extra price. Still, an enjoyable, multi-course lunch generally comes in under 30 - 35USD per person with a glass of wine. Dinner, including a bottle, more like 40 - 50USD and up.

A STEP UP

We always have a restaurant or two that we save for special occasions, not necessarily a favorite or the most creative, but the one that can guarantee a satisfactory, relatively upscale dining experience at a reasonable price. In our neck of the woods, that could mean Auberge de la Croisade. With views over the Canal du Midi and an outdoor terrace, a glass-enclosed sun porch, and a well-appointed interior dining room, many friends celebrate birthdays and anniversaries there. Quality slipped a while back, but a new chef redeemed the restaurant's reputation. A three-course dinner menu starts at about 40USD per person plus drinks. More extensive tasting formulas and choosing from the menu is also possible.

Another favorite, Le Chat Qui Peche features a dinner menu composed mostly of hefty tapas, plates that feature interesting tastes meant to be combined to form a meal or shared around the table. With drinks, it's easy to spend 50USD per person. Always satisfactory mouth-tingling tidbits.

EXPERIENCES

And then there are the special places, not meant for everyone, even some of your friends. Our special place is the Auberge de Madale, about an hour's drive north up in the hills. Chef/Owner Stefan puts out a fixed price, fixed menu, five course lunch and dinner with wine included for about 50USD per person. Worth twice as much and indeed, you will pay twice that much for a similar meal in many places. Reservations only. The menu changes every two weeks and is posted on the internet. We're headed there next week. All of the below and more during three amazing hours of culinary delight:

Pork consomme with fresh herbs and asparagus tempura,

Pea and shallot tart with wild garlic sorbet,

Trout cannelloni,

Roasted duck breast,

Black Forest chocolate with cherries and kirsch,

Coffee and a homemade marshmallow,

 

Not everyone finds a medley like that attractive. Too fussy, one table mate said.  We don't find it so. Tasting menus are just that, diverse tastes and textures presented together, sometimes on the same plate. And did you notice? Wild garlic sorbet? You find it hard to believe that would work? Let me tell you. I thought the same about cauliflower sorbet. It worked.

THE REST

Asian Indian restaurants and Thai food trucks and and a place where servers wearing Levis and lumberjack flannels weave around statues of cowboys and Indians. Crepes can be filled with whatever you can imagine - savory and sweet. Chinese buffet? Check. Kebab joints? Check. Farms that raise the chickens that they roast on a spit in the fireplace, ten at a time? Check.

Mediterranean seafood deserves its own page if that's your sweet spot. Oysters and shrimp and mussels and clams and all sorts of little shelled creatures unfortunate enough to taste good to those willing to dig them out. Not my thing, though. My thing is grilled meat, Spain is just down the road, and the lamb chops are perfection, time after time..  

IN SUM

If eating is your thing, France is your place.

COST OF LIVING IN FRANCE: PART 2 - GROCERIES

 

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD

It's France that we are talking about, after all. That I put HOUSING and TRANSPORTATION ahead of FOOD may seem evidence of mistaken priorities, but I assure you that I have a full appreciation of the various forms and flavors of cuisine that I have enjoyed here. Cathey is a talented multi-cultural cook with a well-stocked pantry. Even with the sacrifice of piles of cookbooks and magazines left behind during our move across the Pond, her bookcase today in the pantry behind the kitchen grows and overflows, And we dine at the houses of friends who are equally talented in the kitchen. Everyone has access to fresh ingredients, mostly sourced locally. When we dine out, we have been here long enough to know where to find good bar food, comfortable mid-range restaurants, fine dining, and unique experiences. Let's see if I can make it all sound as good as it really is.

I don't mean to come across as starry eyed, though. Life ain't all strawberries and champagne. (I knew that was bad wording as soon as I typed it. It's strawberry season, for one. French strawberries are as sweet as candy and available at peak for a very short time. Like right now. And the wine...) Anyway, below you will find aspects of grocery shopping in France that are less than ideal. We'll start with that and move on from there.

GROCERY SHOPPING

Shopping for groceries in France is the same as in the States, except when it's different. No fresh corn tortillas. Nearly every supermarket carries that El Paso brand stuff and people have said that they have dined in authentic Tex-Mex restaurants in the region. Maybe so, but they don't buy their corn tortillas at the super. Karo Syrup requires a substitute unless your sister brings a jug in her suitcase...like she brings the tortillas. Every supermarket has a bakery, but none of them bake bagels. There are shops that say that they bake bagels but they don't even make an approximation of a bagel. Just toroidal-shaped brioche.

The point is that there are specific food items that are just not available, or are only available in certain places under certain circumstances. That having been said, there are no really vital dietary components missing from the shelves and for those that are hard to find, there are workarounds.

Meanwhile, your grocery shopping choices here in the south of France are practically limitless given that our village is within 25 minutes from the urban center of one city of about 50,000 and a second of 75,000. You'll find hypermarkets, supermarkets, specialty markets, village shops, butcher shops, bakeries, ethnic grocers, farmers markets, roadside stands and more. Take your pick. Get panko at the Asia Market, pita in the Arab quarter (if you don't make it at home), and fresh spring rolls from the food truck in the Sunday market.

And remember, the French demand information. Is the product organic? What's the country of origin? What's the price per kilo? Stuff that you'd like to know but that's not readily available in the USofA.

During COVID, there were folks who never left our little village. We have a bakery, two butcher shops, a convenience-sized store that's affiliated with one of the supers, and a tabac that sells fruits and veggies, milk and other essentials. (Tabacs are stores licensed to sell tobacco and cigarettes. They usually sell newspapers and magazines., postcards, and sundry other stuff at the whim of the owners.) So we are fairly well self sufficient. But let's get down to prices.

It's hard for me, ten years out from our move, to have a true understanding of the difference in the cost of groceries between the USofA and France. Cathey's sister Connie lives in Houston and provides commentary, though. There's a chain here called Grand Frais that specializes in fresh fruits and veggies, high-end meats and cheeses and seafood, as well as imported specialty items. Connie says that a bag of veggies that might cost the equivalent of 30 or 40USD in Grand Frais would come to well over 100USD in Houston.

The baguette at the bakery 100 yards away, fresh baked and warm, costs a few pennies over 1.00USD. Leaf lettuce, dense and full, might be 1.25USD a head, less in season. And here might be a good time to talk about seasonal eating. The Mediterranean climate allows for a long growing season. We are in easy reach of the gardens of Spain and Italy and Greece. And North Africa is a quick ferry ride away. So while we are particularly fond of those items that are in season outside our back door, most fruits and veggies are in season somewhere close by, not a continent away, and grown for their taste and not their ability to survive shipping. 

From the weekly circulars of a couple of our favorite supers:

Tomatoes - 1.50USD/pound

Yellow Onions - .35USD/pound 

Cucumbers - .50USD/pound

Shallots - 1.00USD/pound

Boneless Pork Loin - 3.00USD/pound

Chicken Thighs - 1.75USD/pound

We're not impressed with French beef, grass fed and almost game meat. Not marbled at all. I just purchased a pound of ground beef from the local butcher, put in the hopper in front of me, and had to request that fat be added. The best beef is imported from the UK or Ireland, readily available and not terribly expensive in comparison to the USofA. On the other hand, lamb and pork are to die for and cheap as chips in comparison.

Other stuff that you buy at a supermarket might be a tad more expensive, but not always comparable in quality, although strides are being made. We no longer require travelers to bring us zip-lock bags. The plastic wrap has improved considerably. But aluminum foil still needs work.

Of course, the grocery stores sell beer and wine, but we usually buy our wine direct from the producers. We seldom pay more than 8.00USD for a bottle of fine sipping rosé, 10.00USD for fine whites, 15.00USD for a serious red. Beer is beer from 3.00USD for local commercial brew to 8.00USD for a good craft beer. I generally don't drink alcohol during the day, depending on 2 liter bottles of low-glucide fruit drink at 1.00USD a bottle.

Enough. You get the picture. Yes, there are street markets that generally have fresher, more locally produced fare - meats, cheeses, fruits and veggies, baked goods and the like. Not always cheaper, though. All in all, I stand by my earlier statement: A couple can retire comfortably in France on two average Social Security Retirement checks.

Next in the series: RESTAURANTS AND CULTURE

SPRING IN FRANCE, STEVE MARTIN, DICKEY BETTS AND MORE - #20

SPRING

It's spring in France and the sky is that special shade of blue. Close your eyes. Say that quietly to yourself. It's spring in France...in the southwest of France...not far from the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees and Spain. The color of the sky? Special. Indescribable. Cobalt doesn’t quite catch it. And with the way that sunlight pops off the landscape directly to your soul, it's no wonder that the Impressionists painted here.

Where else would I rather be? To use a phrase that makes my brain itch every time I hear people use it, I'm in my happy place. And because folks are traveling again now, I get to share that place. We've got a house with three spare bedrooms and it won't be enough. Three generations of family are preparing to bounce in and out. A dear old friend in the mix as well.

Have I told you the story of our first visit to the neighborhood? Recon expedition. Stayed in a traveler's hotel in a small town close by our eventual landing pad, the village of Quarante. We sat next to a pair of European couples in the breakfast room and talked about our decision to look for a little two-bedroom place somewhere in the region. We'd use the second bedroom as my office most of the time. No, they insisted, wagging their fingers. No. That won't do. Once your friends and family know that you are set and settled in the south of France, They will visit. They will all visit. Two spare bedrooms is the very minimum. You'll see.

It was good advice.

COST OF LIVING - PART 2 coming next week.

ANOTHER CONCERT STORY

Imagine that it's the early 1970s. You are attending a concert in the Great Southeast Music Emporium. (See #19) Given that the headliner is The Incredible String Band, your attitude has been thoroughly and completely chemically altered. But before that quirky, spacey folk band takes that stage, out trots the guy pictured above and yes, complete with arrow through his head. What do you think happened?

It wasn't Steve's fault that he got booed off the stage. He was just starting out. His shtick was not widely known - not really known at all. Years later, after the Smothers Brothers and SNL and the rest, he might have been welcomed with open arms. But not in Atlanta that night as an unknown. Way too unexpected for a crowd waiting to hear The Incredible String Band's The First Girl I Loved. (I just streamed the remastered version. The very essence of psychedelic folk. Take a listen.) Martin's humor was just jarring in that setting.

Oddly, I don’t remember The Incredible String Band's performance at all, but I certainly do remember Steve Martin’s disastrous few minutes. Funny that.

 

ASPARAGUS

 

It's asparagus season in the south of France. Since we enjoy eating seasonally, only those veggies and fruits that are in season in our corner of the Mediterranean make it to our table most nights. So we've been eating a lot of those tasty green spears lately. There's a farm just down the road that we visit. You can buy them by the kilo as they sort the fresh-picked ones by size. If you can't make it to the farm, the local super handles it after they've been sorted. 3 or 4USD a pound at the farm, a bit more in the stores.

 

After a year off the menu, the smell is always a surprise the first time that I pee after eating asparagus. It's the sort of thing that I notice with delight, much to Cathey's chagrin. Well, as they say, women marry men thinking that they can change them. They can't. Of course, the inverse is true as well. Men marry women thinking that they will stay the same. They don't.

 

 BIEWER TERRIER

 

Cute little thing, isn't it? New breed. Stands a few inches tall and weighs only a kilo or two. Affectionate. Loyal. And very importantly, not a yappie little thing. Lots of energy, but not a lot of yapping. New pet brought over from the Colonies by our good friends down the way. They named her Valentina. (I don't know the name of the dog in the picture, but could be Valentina's brother.) I'm a cat person, but these are dogs that I can like.

DICKEY BETTS

After meeting Cathey and spending time in the South, I learned to get into what some call Southern Rhythm and Rock. Blues-based, jazz-infused, and nothing like the Philly street-corner doo wop that I grew up with, I dove into the genre head first. One of the great regrets of my life is that, when I had the opportunity, I failed to see either Little Feat or the Allman Brothers Band live. I feel particularly stupid when, after leaving an all-night Grateful Dead concert at the Fillmore East in 1970, I looked up at the marquee, saw that the Allman Brothers were due in town and, not knowing any better, decided that I didn't need to see that Southern ricky-ticky band. I was that stupid. If it had been the booking in which they had recorded At the Fillmore, I just might have shot myself. But that night came a year later. Probably the best live recording ever produced. Even though Tom Dowd monkeyed with the solos on In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, taking Duane's from one night and Dickey's from another, it's 13 minutes of music that I listen to again and again and played more often than I should have in my radio days. 

Legend has it that, in setting the lineup for the Fillmore's final, invitation-only concert, Brian Wilson told Bill Graham that the Beach Boys wouldn't play if they didn't close the show. Graham had scheduled the Allman Brothers to close. "It's too bad that you won't be playing," Graham is purported to have said. The Beach Boys did play, but the Allmans closed.

R.I.P. Dickey.

10 YEARS OF EXPAT LIFE: COST OF LIVING PART 1

 I retired on April 1, 2014. Cathey and I boarded a plane at JFK on April 15th with four suitcases and two cats, determined to become lifetime residents of France. In the intervening 10 years, we have been back to the Colonies a total of five times - twice for me, three times for Cathey. Only for REALLY important stuff. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm American and I say so with relative ease and pride. But we've chosen to live in France. Chosen. Macron is my President.

SPOILER: Not a single regret. Not. One.

COST OF LIVING

From buying groceries to eating out, from going to concerts to partying with friends, what does it cost to live a satisfying retirement life in a small village in the rural southwest of France? You may be surprised to learn that an income equivalent to two average Social Security Retirement checks monthly is sufficient. (The average SSR check, which can be direct deposited to your French bank account, is currently just over $1,900 per person monthly.) 

Remember that legal residents in France get 70% of most of their healthcare costs either provided freely or reimbursed. (The French consider healthcare a human right. What a concept.) There might be what are called social charges to pay, a percentage of income to pay for the healthcare and other socialized services. But those charges at their very most would be a small percentage of your taxable income above a generous floor, can be offset by US taxes (which are credited against any French charges), and your Social Security Retirement income is not considered taxable income in France. 

The point of all of this is that, assuming you have a home and a car free and clear or loans that consume only a small percentage of your monthlies, and assuming the two SSR incomes, retirement life here can be rewarding. More income is better. Of course. Less is possible, but not an easy road.

Your experience may differ. Different folks live different lives.

HOUSING 

If you take the cost of healthcare off the table and if the tax burden is minimal, what's left is housing, transportation, food and entertainment. 

First, there's the problem of a bank account. There are people that I know who work entirely through their plastic from Wise (formerly TransferWise). But a bank account makes things so much easier. It's France, though. You can't get a bank account without a house and you can't get a house without a bank account. As digital as France has become (I have fiber and 5G.), it's still France. Patience and, depending on your circumstances, professional help may be required to establish a working relationship with French bureaucratic culture. But what can be done will get done eventually given unfailingly polite but insistent determination. 

If you are reading this, you have some personal interest in moving to France. My suggestion is to carefully research the region of France that most seems to suit your requirements. Must you be near snow skiing or ocean sailing? Can you stand Mediterranean summer heat in order to be free of winter frost? France spans from the Med to the Atlantic, from the Pyrenees to the Alps. It's northern tip lines up with Brussels. So finding the France that's right for you demands serious investigation. 

What to do if you are certain that you've found just the right place? A number of the websites/blogs will tell you to rent first, for some months at least, and that's not a bad idea. You may have picked a region that really doesn't suit you after all. You may have pegged region correctly but picked the wrong town. At the very least, you'll have a base from which to broaden the scope of your search.

You might also consider a foothold, a relatively inexpensive village house with just enough space to cram your stuff into until you get set and settled, looking for a more suitable landing pad. All of this assumes that you have sold your house in the States that is going to be your nut. Or that you have been prudent in the markets and come to France with a bit of cash in hand. Either way, a foothold gives you more than a base. In some small hamlets, you may be welcomed almost as a celebrity. Or shunned. In some tourist towns, you may become part of a thriving expat community. Or become part of what your neighbors see as a growing problem. Either way, home ownership, particularly in a small village, makes you a part of a community in a way that being a renter does not.

A small foothold with 100 square meters of living space or more that doesn't require extensive remodeling, with a reasonably-sized terrace or courtyard, and with two or three bedrooms and functionally modern plumbing and electrics can cost you 125,000USD, less in the deep sticks far from shopping and services. Count on 175,000USD more or less in our neck of the semi-rural woods when all of the fees are paid and if you want a garage and serious outdoor space. In the most popular places like Aix-en-Provence or Paris, mortgage your firstborn child. (Actually, compared to similarly popular American locations, even Aix is relatively inexpensive. But if you look at what's available within a couple of hour's drive, it's off the charts.) If you choose to jump directly into the fire, a larger house that has a mature garden, a good-sized garage/workshop, a small pool, and is otherwise good to go will sell for 300,000USD if you are lucky and go up quickly from there. In our neck of the woods. At least. Today.

The seller pays the real estate agent, the buyer pays the notaire - the French equivalent in France of a property lawyer and notary. Add anywhere from 5% to 10% depending.

We were fortunate in our house hunting. We found a house that was a bit more than a foothold that met all of our requirements except one that we didn't anticipate - the ravages of old age. Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. The house served us very well for eight years. But the stairways were narrow, steep and winding. Very common in a small, village house in France. What had been a snap for us when we moved in became a burden on our older, less well-lubricated knees later on.

Because we had eight years in the village and had made a surprising number of close, endearing friends, it took a while to find the right place to buy in our small, rural village of under 2,000 souls that would be in our price range and had the proper interior and exterior spaces. Oddly enough, we found just such a house 75 yards from our old place, downhill to make wheelbarrow moving possible...with professional muscle moving the really heavy stuff for us at the end. 

You never know what's beyond the facade of a village house. Often courtyards and terraces are not visible from the street and can be extensive. Look for a side gate wide enough to accommodate a tractor and there's no telling the size of the yard and outbuildings that might be behind that gate.

I have left out our trials finding a bridge loan/mortgage/home loan. Story for another day. Banking is another post entirely.

Your experience may differ. Different folks live different lives.

TRANSPORTATION

France mimics the rest of Europe in that public transportation at almost all levels is safe, reliable and affordable. Ride sharing is popular even over long distances. Check out BlaBla Car. Ride sharing on steroids. Busses and trains go pretty much everywhere and, within about an hour of our house, there are four stations that connect to about all of the country's routes. Short-hop airlines compete with the trains in pricing and time. Yes, you can buy cheap train tickets, There are sales and promotions. But if you are not flexible and need to go from here to there on a schedule, train tickets can be surprisingly expensive. Small airports like the one closest to us are under siege with the government subsidy running to 1,500USD per passenger. But two internationally connected airports are about an hour away and major international hubs are within about three hours.

And yes, the French hitchhike.

But mostly, when we go anywhere, we go by car. And that is getting interesting. More and more cities are banning smelly old diesels. I drive a smelly old diesel. Yes, Ginger is reliable and economical. (I name my cars. Ginger is a bright red station wagon.) But yes, Ginger is old and Ginger is smelly. The way that things are going, in a few years we will have to go gas, hybrid  or electric. Today, 5,000USD to start for a decent older used car. 10,000USD for something newer and more reliable. Some folks lease. New car prices are new car prices. Whatever, you have to factor that cost into your budget. 

I love my old diesel. Ginger is comfortable, reliable, and gets the equivalent of 42 MPG. Given the price of fuel in France, diesel costing the equivalent of 5.67USD or so, you need that level of fuel efficiency.

Your experience may differ. Different folks live different lives.

FOOD, BANKING AND MORE

That's PART 2. Internet. Grocery stores. Restaurants. Concerts. Wine! Lots to talk about.