Bordeaux in 365 Bottles: July 2016

I’m settling in to life in France. And everything I thought I knew about being an expat after seven years of living in Italy means diddly squat in France. It’s just different here. In Italy, I hung laundry outside to dry and tourists thought it was so photogenic. In France, it’s uncouth to hang your laundry out so now I make sheet forts all around my apartment like I’m eight years old again.

It’s different, but I already adore Bordeaux. When what I’ll forever refer to as the “Great Trash Strike of 2016” happened and tourists turned their noses up at the heaps of trash that filled our streets for two weeks, I found myself defending my new adopted home. “It’s not normally like that!”, I’d protest as they whipped out their cameras for the impressively growing pile right outside my building door.

When the recognizable sound of the garbage trucks finally came in the middle of the night, both Tim and I excitedly ran to the windows like kids on Christmas morning to ensure our ears weren’t deceiving us. The moment of excitement quickly turned to disgust as we rushed to close up the windows. Two weeks of trash heaped on top of trash smells. Bad.

Already I can look back and laugh. It won’t be the fondest of the memories I collect from this time as an expat in Bordeaux, but that’s life in France.

Highs

I survived my first full month in France! You know just what a feat this is if you read the first installation of Bordeaux in 365 Bottles. June was not kind to me and nearly sent me running back to the US in tears. July, however, blessedly turned out to be pretty quiet and I lived out my first full month in France without much incident. I know it makes for a pretty boring read in comparison, but my upcoming residency appointment will no doubt provide plenty of humor.

I’m being published in NAUI Sources Magazine. Okay, so this one doesn’t have much to do with Bordeaux but it’s awesome. We completed the NAUI dive certification program in The Bahamas and NAUI asked to republish our post about getting certified in their quarterly print magazine. Seeing that they have 3 million subscribers, which is three times the people that our little travel blog reaches, it’s pretty exciting. I just shipped off the high resolution photos and did a few touch-ups on the article yesterday.

Invited to La Cité du Vin. Stay tuned on Wednesday for a full post all about the new wine museum that the world has been going nuts over. It’s La Cité du Vin and I live just 15 minutes away from it by tram. We were invited to tour it and spend time with all the interactive exhibits, as well as dine at Le 7 Restaurant on the 7th floor. It’s been touted as a wine “theme park” and while I wouldn’t call it that exactly (to me a theme park means rides), it is a pretty fun interactive museum.

I wrote more than I have over the last few months.

I got my ass in gear and got back to a routine of writing regularly again in July. Having every excuse in the world, many of them very valid as to why I couldn’t put pen to paper over the last few months, totally upended my routine. And when I don’t write, I don’t earn money.

France is expensive to live in, all!

Sure, I came here on my savings but there’s no reason to watch it dwindle. Especially when my daily walks with Emma give me so much creative inspiration.

I lost 13 lbs. Last year when I quit my university job to be a travel influencer full time, I said I’d have all this extra time to get back to running and drop the extra pounds I’d put on from all the eating and extra time sitting at the computer. Well, here’s the thing about running your own business that all the glamorous “I Quit My Job” articles don’t tell you: you work harder than you ever did at that traditional office job you gave up.

I spent all that extra time I thought I was going to have on just working even longer hours on this website and the things that go along with it. I didn’t gain any more weight, but I didn’t drop any either.

When you move in to an apartment with your fur kid and you don’t have a car, you walk. All day, every day. On average we walk 5 – 6 miles a day, plus anything I buy I have to carry home. Baby might have carried a watermelon up some steps to the staff dance party, but I carry one home from the grocery store once a week or so.

In full disclosure, the first 10 lbs came off with the two-week long bout of food poisoning but the other three have come off just from walking at a leisurely pace. As soon as it’s not blazing hot outside, I’m going to get in to full drop the weight mode and take up jogging again. Hello to a healthier me (and Emma).

Challenges

Tim moved to South Korea. Our now long distance relationship is going to be a continued challenge over the next year. Tim has to be in South Korea for work. His usually crappy days make me feel guilty that I’m having fun here in France. But with our aging animals and the only option for me to move to South Korea with him being to teach English, moving to Bordeaux was the option that made the most sense for our situation and our future. We’ve survived time apart before and this time I’ll be able to visit him.

Learning French. I took Italian classes at the Paradise Valley Community College when we lived in Scottsdale just for the heck of it well before we even knew we were moving to Italy. When I landed in that country, I already had the basics of the language down.

I know precisely three words in French and I pronounce them terribly. And unlike Paris, hardly anyone speaks English in Bordeaux. Not speaking French is not an option.

When I’m not muddling through three languages (Si, err I mean oui!), I’m like a deer caught in headlights with my eyes going wide and frozen because I don’t understand and can’t communicate back.

So I’ve been working on Rosetta Stone for an hour each day to learn French. I got myself in to a routine of sitting down to work on it while I have my breakfast after taking Emma for a quick morning walk. Well, I was in a routine until my mom came to visit and now just a few days has already made me forget what I was learning.

Completing My French Residency. There’s always some kind of paperwork to do when you’re an expat in France. Thought I was done after I was awarded my long stay French visa? Guess again! My visa actually isn’t valid unless I pay a resident tax and get a sticker added to my visa from the Office of Immigration and Integration.

If only it were as simple as paying my tax. Within three months of when I was awarded my visa (which was actually back in April), I had to complete and send off the form that the French Embassy gave me when I picked up my visa. I couldn’t do that until after I moved in to my apartment since you are required to provide proof you live where you say that you live.

With the case of food poisoning that had Emma and I down and out for nearly two weeks, I didn’t send it off until the end of June. I did get it in before my 90 day cut off, but I’ve been sweating bullets waiting for my appointment to be confirmed. I actually can’t leave France until this step is complete as I could be denied re-entry without the OFII sticker.

Making friends. Summer is pretty much the worst time to move to France if you don’t know many people. Everyone is already preparing for their holiday and just not much is going on. Bordeaux has the Bordeaux Women’s Club and various expats groups, but their various events won’t start up again until September.

Until then, I’ve been trying not to annoy my friends Janice and AJ too much. But they’re both so kind and make sure I get human interaction on a pretty regular basis.

Most Popular Post

I just wrote this one a few days ago, but it’s not surprising that it’s already taken off since a similar post I wrote about types of Italian coffee last year was also incredibly popular and even appeared in National Geographic Traveler.

5 Types of French Coffee, Explained

Most Popular Instagram Photo

I post a lot of photos on Instagram that never make it on to any other social media channel, so if you’re on Instagram be sure you’re following me there!

My favorite time to stroll around my neighborhood. All is mostly quiet since everyone is at dinner. Emma ? can enjoy a long walk since it’s nice and cool. And just look at that light!

A photo posted by Luxe Adventure Traveler (@luxeadventuretrvlr) on Jul 8, 2016 at 12:09pm PDT

What I’m Drinking This Month

Kir. In Italy the Spritz Aperol was my go to in the summer heat for something refreshing. In France, it’s the Kir. It’s crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped up with white wine. L’Orangerie, a cafe inside the Jardin Public, serves a couple varieties including peach and raspberry too.

Rosé pamplemousse. In summer, wine cocktails are king and another refreshing one I’ve come to love is the combination of rosé wine and grapefruit juice. Some winemakers have even started selling it bottled, though its made with a grapefruit syrup instead of fresh pressed grapefruit juice. Since space is an issue in my teeny French-sized fridge, I usually have a bottle on hand to pour myself a glass at home.

Château Lynch-Bages 2007 Grand Cru Classe. I actually purchased this bottle of Château Lynch-Bages when I visited the fifth growth château in Paulliac last year on my Viking River Cruise. I bought it to share with Tim, who couldn’t join me for the trip, and carried it from Bordeaux to Paris and finally home to Italy. I don’t know why we hadn’t drank it yet since the 2007 was ready for drinking now. But that bottle ended up moving back to Bordeaux with me, where we finally opened it and enjoyed it with some of the best melts-like-butter filets that we picked up from the butcher.

Gran Lurton 2011 Malbec. It’s not all about Bordeaux wines and Malbec is one of my favorites, especially with a steak. I enjoyed the Gran Lurton 2011 Malbec at Le 7 Restaurant on the 7th floor of La Cité du Vin.

Château Gaby 2011 Bordeaux Blend. With your ticket to La Cité du Vin, you get a tasting from about a dozen wines on the museum’s top floor while you enjoy the panoramic review. There are nearly 10,000 chateaux in the Bordeaux region and over 1,000 alone in Saint-Emilion. I’ll never be able to visit even a fraction, so I taste different chateaux whenever I can.

Crémant de Bordeaux. You can only call Champagne by that name if it comes from the Champagne region. Bordeaux does produce a sparkling wine called Crémant de Bordeaux. There’s an old cloister that now produces the crémant in Saint-Emilion and you can enjoy a tasting in their garden among the cloister ruins.

Bottle Count: 10

What I’m Reading This Month

I finally finished the book I had been working on ever-so-slowly since April and re-read a few of my favorite travel and expat memoirs for inspiration for my own book.

Coming Up in August 2016

August is always a slow month since here in Europe that’s when Europeans go on their holiday. Not much ever happens for us travel related in August and I typically enjoy the blissfully empty city while catching up on the work I’ve still got from all my spring travel. The timing works out since I can’t leave France without worrying I’d be denied re-entry since my residency is still in process. I’ll be exploring more of Bordeaux, popping out to Saint-Emilion and seeing what else comes up.