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The magic of living in a medieval town in the South of France isn't just the sunshine and beauty, but the feeling that you are living shoulder-to-shoulder with the past.
Take the 13th-century town of Pézenas. Nestled in the French countryside not far from the Mediterranean coast, it's been home to one of the fathers of Western comedy (the playwright Molière), a stronghold of the Knights Templar, and a stopping point for Kings Louis VIII and XIII at different points in its history.

Today, its winding, cobblestone streets draw tourists rather than royalty, and the surrounding region is home to a community of expats enjoying the many pleasures of life in the South of France.

IL France Correspondent Barbara Diggs talked to one of these expats recently and shares her story below.
Read on...

"I never tire of looking out my window, seeing the centuries-old buildings and wondering about the people who lived here before us," says Holly Kurzman, who moved from San Francisco to Pézenas six years ago.

Holly and her late husband Chris had long contemplated moving to Europe but began seriously eyeing France shortly after Chris retired. "We were fed up with the rat race and cost of living in California—and the healthcare situation was dire," Holly says. "I was self-employed and Chris had yet to reach the age where he qualified for Medicare. With pre-existing health issues, he was virtually uninsurable."

They liked the idea of the South of France because of the low-key, relaxed lifestyle. "The French enjoy life and don't kill themselves with work-related pressure," Holly explains. "Meals are meant to be enjoyed and eaten with friends. In the U.S., at least in the places I've lived, everyone is career-driven. Here, people don't push as hard, and take the time to enjoy life."

Chris had lived in Aix-en-Provence as a young man, but the couple found they preferred the neighboring region of Languedoc-Roussillon. This area has all the warm weather, sunshine and beauty of Provence, "but is less crowded and much more affordable." They chose Pézenas as their base while searching for a place to settle permanently. Soon they realized they liked Pézenas better than all the other towns they'd found.

"Pézenas is beautiful, especially the historic center. When my cousin came to visit, she said 'It looks like a movie set.'" Holly enthuses. "It's got wonderful architecture—so much older and more interesting than what we were used to the in U.S. It's also 20 minutes from the Mediterranean Sea, surrounded by beautiful countryside, and close to motorways."

Upon deciding to settle in the town, Holly and Chris rented a two-bedroom apartment in a medieval building. "To reach my second-floor apartment, I walk up a spiraling stone staircase and pass under a couple of lovely arches and old ceiling beams. Inside the apartment, I have all the modern conveniences, so it's the best of both worlds." For this, she pays just $591 per month—the same amount she's paid since she moved there in 2012.

The large Anglophone expat community of Pézenas and Languedoc has also been a boon to Holly, especially when she needed them most.

"We met a couple of people shortly after we moved here and through them, we met others," says Holly. "Then I learned about Ladies in Languedoc (LIL), an online group of local women. They really became my lifeline when my husband's health declined. For instance, the first time he went to the hospital, a LIL member met us there in case I had trouble with the language. When he was in critical condition, another person volunteered to drive to Montpellier to pick up my stepdaughter from their airport so I could be available if the hospital called me. I could give many more examples, but I think you get the picture."

Sadly, Chris passed away from his illness, but Holly chose to remain in Pézenas. "I love it here," she explains simply. "I have made so many friends that have been wonderfully supportive."

For those considering moving to France, Holly has these words of advice: "Do your homework before you make your decision. Ask yourself why you want to move here and investigate whether moving will satisfy those wants and needs. Come with an open mind. Life here is not the same as 'back home' and you will experience at least a little culture shock. Try to learn the language, too—you'll be glad you did."

International Living Magazine October 2017

The French Learn to Love Chocolate at an Early Age

I have to admit that a lot of people think I'm odd because I'm not a chocoholic & I don't like dark chocolate at all (too bitter for me; I also dislike coffee & mostly anything else my strange taste buds find bitter). That doesn't mean I'm anti-chocolate, but it's not a main part of my diet.

The French, however, seem to develop a taste for chocolate at a very early age -- too early in my opinion. There are chocolate flavored products for babies:





Both of these products are labeled as being 
suitable for children as young as 8 months. I couldn't find an image to post here, but I saw chocolate baby formula on the pharmacy shelf -- for infants! Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit early to start introducing chocolate into a child's diet?





A walk down the cereal aisle in a French supermarket is almost like walking into a candy store -- nearly all cereals have some sort of chocolate, which means those of us who don't want chocolate cereal have a limited selection from which to choose. Somehow, I don't equate chocolate cereal with fitness (see photo below).

                       

Of course, there's also Nutella tartines (chocolate hazelnut spread on baguette or other bread) & pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant) if you're not into cereal for breakfast & still want to get your chocolate fix to start the day.

                                     


                                               
Anyone who has spent any time in France knows that chocolate consumption is not limited to mornings; it happens at all times of day & evening, as snacks & desserts & is a big part of French culture & life. I have absolutely no problem with that, but I just can't get used to the idea of feeding chocolate to an 8-month-old (or even younger), especially with the rising problem of obesity.

By now, you might think I'm crazy, or you might be craving chocolate, but if you're reading this, you're not an 8-month-old.

Small Differences

When comparing our lives here in the south of France to our lives in San Francisco & New York, it's no surprise that there are many major differences, but sometimes it's the little differences that we notice.

Maybe it's just the town where we live (Pézenas, in the Hérault, Languedoc-Rousillon), but it's very common to hear people whistling as they walk down the street. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone in the U.S. whistle. Maybe it's just easier to hear when there isn't constant noise from traffic, & I'm sure the sound bounces off the old stone buildings, but I don't think that's the reason. I think it's just that whistling is a forgotten art in the U.S. (& likely elsewhere as well). Hearing someone whistling a tune as they go about their daily activities brings a smile to my face.

French kids seem to have a different approach to playing -- they actually interact with one another, run, kick a soccer ball, laugh, etc. American kids seem glued to their TV/computer/video games/electronic devices or are reliant on organized activities & have lost the art of pure play. It's quite common to see very young (3 or 4 years old) children riding a 2-wheel bike without training wheels. I can't imagine an American parent even thinking of allowing that. In fact, I'm sure they don't even make 2-wheel bikes that small in the States. It's pretty rare to see anyone -- adult or child -- wearing a helmet while riding a bike, & there are definitely no laws requiring them.

Speaking of youngsters, most American parents wean their tykes off the pacifiers (dummy or soother to you Brits) at a fairly young age -- not here. Seeing a child of around 5 or 6 with a Nuk in his mouth would be considered strange in the US, but not in France. I wonder what it does to the way their front teeth come in. 

......and then there's the dog poo. Sigh...... I cannot fathom why people who are otherwise clean, sometimes fastidious, allow their pooches to leave little "gifts" whenever & wherever they please. Hasn't anyone heard of picking up after their dog? The worst was when I was leaving the house one day, & just as I was about to put my foot down I noticed (just in time!) that some pooch had left a gift for us, smack-dab at the bottom of our front step. Ugh!! If you're not going to clean up, please do not allow Fifi or Fido to poop right in someone's doorway. People around here probably think I'm rude or highly introverted because when I walk I generally look down hoping to spot every pile of poop before my foot finds it. A friend sent me this image & it's so true!

Vive la différence?

What little differences have you noticed?

Carte de Séjour -- The Process is Never the Same

One thing I've learned after living in France for over 2 1/2 years is that things here can be inconsistent, especially when it comes to the French bureaucracy. As an American, it is necessary for me to register with the government to obtain a Carte de Séjour -- a residence permit. My first permit was issued in early 2012, not long after we arrived in France. If you wish, you can read the blog post about getting my first Carte de Séjour: Titre de Séjour -- I'm Official!


My first card was due to expire in April 2013, so in January it was time to start gathering the paperwork I'd need for the renewal. In France, each préfecture -- the administrative office for a region -- does things a bit differently. Here in the Hérault, one makes appointments online, which is a great means of avoiding having to queue up early & stand for hours, hoping to see the right person before the office closes for the day. From the stories I've heard from people living in other parts of France, this is a huge advantage.

Once the appointment was set it was time to get my dossier together, so I went in search of the correct document checklist. The préfecture's website has nearly 50 different checklists, & that's just in the étrangers (foreigners) section of the site. I went through the list repeatedly, & finally narrowed it down to a small handful, but I still wasn't sure which was correct, so I asked a friend who understands French better than I do & who has had more experience with the infamous French bureaucracy, & she was not sure either. Between us, we made our best guess. I had nearly 1 month to get my paperwork in order.

The appointment was set for the day before we left for a holiday in Morocco, so the days leading up to the appointment were hectic. One thing I learned was that one should bring absolutely every piece of paper that could even remotely relate to the process, just in case the fonctionnaire deems it necessary, so every meeting at the préfecture means hauling multiple folders.

When my name was called, Chris & I went in to the small office with the woman who would -- hopefully -- approve the renewal of my card for another year. It turns out I had printed the incorrect checklist, but instead of sending me home with a scolding, she simply went into her computer & used the online version of the list & entered all my information directly. So far, so good. She started coughing, so I offered her a mint for her throat, she accepted with a smile, & then she happily went along, entering my information. In France, small courtesies can go a long way.

In under 30 minutes we were done, keeping fingers crossed that all would be okay. If there was any document we had not provided, or something that needed to be translated, they would let us know by mail (using the stamped, self addressed envelope I provided, saving the government a few centimes). We were very lucky this time because the next notification I received was that my card was ready to be picked up when the old one expired, & I didn't have to pay for it. The card usually costs more than 100€, & this was a pleasant surprise. The only glitch was that I went to pick up the card on the exact day my old card expired, but the new one wasn't ready until after that date, so I had to make a 2nd trip to pick it up. 

Fast forward to 2014.....As before, I made my appointment & printed off a checklist, gathered all the necessary documentation, & headed to Béziers for my appointment. This time we were greeted by a grumpy fonctionnaire & I could feel my palms getting sweaty & my heart racing because I was suddenly sure this was not going to go well. He seemed a bit perplexed because I don't fit into the typical immigrant status (American spouse of a citizen of the EU). He was so difficult to understand, both because of his strong regional accent & the fact that he mumbled, & I worried that he would think I was either an complete idiot or had absolutely no understanding of French (not that my French language skills are brilliant, mind you). He asked for something that wasn't on the checklist, but I came prepared & was able to give him what he needed.

About halfway through the appointment one of his colleagues came in to ask a question, the answer to which neither was really sure. They seemed to be making fun of another immigrant's situation, which really made me nervous, thinking what power this guy held over me, an immigrant in his country. Yikes!

At the end of the meeting we left & both of us were sure something would go wrong, but there was nothing to do but wait to see what news we would get in the mail. This time the news was even better --  no fee for the card, & it didn't have to be renewed for 3 years, in 2017! I have heard so many horror stories about dealing with the French bureaucracy, but I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised each & every time, other than one slightly grumpy guy. 

Pre-Packaged Medication Quantities Don't Equal Days in a Month

Someone, somewhere in France needs remedial training in the number of days in a month. From the perspective of a couple of non-natives, French prescription medications here are pre-packaged in quantities that don't always make sense. In the U.S. when the pharmacist fills the prescription, the prescribed quantity of pills (capsules, tablets, etc.) is counted out by hand or by machine & then put into the vial & labeled with dosing instructions. In France, with one exception, I've only seen pills that come pre-packed in small boxes with push-through inserts, such as the photo below (for a non-prescription medication). The exception was a medication that was pre-packaged in bottles, but this meant that to get the correct number of pills, I needed to buy two bottles, because one bottle did not have quite enough, & I was left with a nearly full bottle of pills after taking the prescribed dosage for the illness.

The packaging shown here is a waste for only 12 pills and it creates more for the landfills, but that is not really the issue. With prescription medications the quantities often don't make sense. For instance, when a doctor prescribes meds that are to be taken daily, the boxes contain either 28 or 30 pills. When looking at a calendar it quickly becomes obvious that there is only one month with 28 days, & only four with 30 days, which means that you will run short of pills in seven of the 12 months. The doctor writes the prescription for 3 months, so it generally necessitates quarterly trips to the doctor, which is reasonable. But, when the pills run out before the end of 3 months, this means that one has to go back to the doctor more frequently to get new prescriptions. Of course, one does not run out of all the pills at the same time, because each medication (& each brand of a particular medication) comes with a different number of pills.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not a huge issue, rather something a bit perplexing to someone not used to this system.

Winding Stairs, Narrow Doorways, & Furniture That Wouldn't Fit

It's coming up on the 2nd anniversary of the day we moved into our apartment & we have been reflecting on those stress-filled days.

Our original plan was to have our furniture & household goods loaded directly from our San Francisco house into the 20' container, & then, after arriving at the port in Marseille, have everything delivered into a storage space in Béziers while we looked for our new home. We soon realized that it was a better option to store it in the U.S., rather than paying for movers twice (unload the container into the storage space & then move from the space to our home) in France, where it's more expensive. We had clearly spelled this out to the U.S. company that made all the arrangements & they told us that they would handle all the details with the agent in Marseille, where our container would be arriving.

Once we found our apartment in Pézenas, we notified (more than once)  both the U.S. office & the contact in Marseille that our apartment was up 2 flights of stairs, & that a 20' container was unlikely to fit in the narrow, winding streets around our building, & they should plan accordingly. They told us they would make all the necessary arrangements with the police in Pézenas so they could get the required permits.

The U.S. contact notified us a few days before our move-in date that we hadn't paid for unloading & moving in, so we should "get a few friends together" & have them unload. What?! First of all, we didn't know people here, & secondly (& most importantly) we PAID for a completed delivery, not to have everything dumped on the street several blocks away. We were able to get her to calm down & stop trying to rip us off at every turn. Things were getting stressful!

So, on moving day, the truck with the container arrived in Pézenas, only to be told by the local police that they couldn't access our street. After much back & forth, the driver was directed to a place to park the truck. Shortly after, a smaller truck arrived, along with the 2 guys who would be unloading. Unfortunately, they were told that they would be unloading the container into a ground floor unit. We had more than a bit of panic when it looked like they would just drive off.

The smaller truck shuttled back & forth between the container & our building, hauling furniture & boxes up the 42 winding, medieval stairs. The poor guys were exhausted. Here's where things got really interesting.....Our reclining armchair, sofa, dining table, & part of our bed would not fit through the very narrow (around 24" wide) doorway that leads from the stairs to the small landing where our apartment & our neighbor's apartments are. There is a funny little dogleg in the hallway, making it impossible to get those pieces of furniture in to the apartment. It's fairly common for movers to use a lift (similar to a cherry picker) to move furniture & cartons into upper floors, but the moving company didn't request one, & in any case, we're not sure our windows are large enough to accommodate the larger pieces of furniture.

Help! We quickly called the storage facility we originally planned to use, & were lucky that they had a space available. Then, we called Tim, a British guy a friend had recommended. He has a moving & home repair business (Man With a Van) & we crossed our fingers that he would be able to help. Luck was on our side because he left a barbecue with friends, drove an hour to Pézenas to rescue us. Before moving the furniture back downstairs to his van, he gave a try at getting it through the doorway, but he had no more luck than the other 2 guys did. So....downstairs the furniture went, & after Tim met us at the storage facility, all was safely locked away.

While we sat outside the building waiting for Tim, we chatted with the woman who owned the store next to our building & she seemed surprised that it didn't occur to us to measure the doorway and/or notice the strange shape of the hallway, because it seems all French people know to look at these things. Funny, it hadn't occurred to us. When we thought about it, it really made sense. The building was built in the 14th century, when doorways were built to be easily defended, making them no wider than necessary. Furniture then wasn't as big, & people didn't move often.

In the middle of all this, we got a call from the shipper in Marseille, telling us we owed a couple of hundred additional euros because the delivery was not on the ground floor, & that we hadn't paid for door-to-door delivery. What?! Our contract with the U.S. company clearly included door-to-door service, & we had -- on multiple occasions -- advised them of the stairs. We told the Marseille contact what we paid to the U.S. company, & what our contract stated was included, & she realized that she was being cheated by the U.S. company, who took our money but did not pay her. We wrote the check, gave it to the driver because we had no other choice. In the end, the check was never cashed, & it would have been interesting to hear the conversations between the 2 shipping agencies.

Once we started unwrapping the furniture that was so carefully packaged by the Delancey Street Movers in San Francisco, we noticed damage to several pieces, but the moving company didn't care & did nothing to compensate us.

We got through the day & were lucky we still had a few more days in the house we had been renting, so we could escape the chaos & live "normally" while we made the apartment ready to be inhabited. We dread the day we ever choose to move again.

Summer town, winter town

We arrived in Pézenas at the very end of October, 2011 & it seemed that nearly everything in & around the historic center of town was closed. At first we thought it was because it was Sunday evening, but then Monday came & most things were still closed (not unusual in France). The next day was a holiday -- All Saints Day -- so the closures made sense then also. But, we were surprised that in the days that followed, the vast majority of the "old town" was closed up tight, & rather gloomy. Some of the shops & cafés opened for a couple of weeks around Christmas, but then it was quiet again. We could stroll through the streets & not see an open store or another pedestrian. 

Then, as spring came, things started opening. It was fun seeing what was behind all those closed doors & shuttered windows. Merchants were busy renovating shops & displaying merchandise, & the cafés were building their outdoor seating areas (usually wooden platforms on top of the uneven cobblestone streets) in anticipation of the warmer weather.

Tourists started coming to Pézenas & the sleepy little town had some life once again. By the time summer was in full swing, the narrow, twisty streets of the old town were crowded & sometimes it was challenging to make our way home, as by June we had moved into our apartment in the old town, & these streets were our neighborhood. We could overhear conversations in a multitude of languages & people were ooh-ing & aahh-ing over the architecture & history of our town.

In July & August many shops participate in the nocturnes & stay open until midnight on Wed. & Fri. nights, & there are events happening all around town. Friends had told us how much different it was in Pézenas during the summer months, but we hadn't believed it until we we experienced it ourselves.

As the summer wound down, so did the activity & buzz. By November, things were quiet again, almost like a bear in hibernation.

As the following spring arrived, what we found interesting was that the vast majority of shops that opened were not the same ones that had occupied those spaces the year before. All that hard work to lay tile floors, paint walls, etc. for just one summer season, only to do it all again the following year. Some businesses moved to new locations, & sometimes someone opened a completely different type of shop the next year. What do they do with the merchandise from the previous year?

It's also a bit strange -- from an American perspective, at least -- that a shop owner wouldn't do even a tiny bit of market research before opening a shop. For instance, there is a shop here that sells a lot of things made of cork (umbrellas, trivets, aprons, purses) & other natural materials. They are open all year, so when another shop opened a couple of streets away, selling a lot of the identical merchandise, we were surprised that they hadn't noticed the first shop, which essentially was a direct competitor & presumably had a customer base.

There was a food shop (épicerie fine) where we had shopped a couple of times that had a sale because they were closing. The owner said that it was too hard to make a living because more shops that sold similar merchandise had opened in town. Then, after closing for a short while, she opened a clothing store in the same location.

What is truly strange is the "moving" bookstore. It's open all year, but is in one location during the winter months, & then moves across the street to its summer location, & then does it all again for the winter. I'm sure there's a logical reason for this back & forth movement, but we can't figure it out. Then, this spring they opened a 2nd small shop around the corner & we wonder whether it will close at the end of the summer.

Now, our third spring here, it's been interesting watching the stores open, wondering what each will sell.