living in france

These 4 stories of our life in France share the good and the disastrous sides of living in a foreign country. When things are good, they are very good, but when things are bad, they are disastrous!
Join me in the humorous, thoughtful and sometimes not-so-good times of living in France.

Podcast show notes and all photos https://www.afrenchcollection.com/our-story-4-aussies-in-france

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In this episode, Benny and Elizabeth get the inside scoop on how to become a French cultural insider with Lizzy Rimington who has lived in France for the past 30 years.

Mentioned in this Episode

• Benny’s Spanish Challenge

Episode Overview

Some of the topics brought up during the interview are:

• Studying French at school and not actually learning the language
• How living as an au pair kicked off Lizzy’s French understanding
• How to integrate into French culture and build friendships
• Why French etiquette is so important
• Humor and how it can help you build relationships inner languages
• The ways customer service is different in France than in other countries
• What it’s like being vegetarian in France
• What to do when the French insist on speaking English
• When to use formal speech vs informal speech in French
• Tips for getting French practice when you aren’t ready for a native speaker
• Tricks you can use when you’re a beginner in a language

Podcast theme: “A New Beginning” by Shannon Kennedy

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Welcome to Episode 10 of Profiles in Franceformation. I’m your host, Allison Grant Lounes, and today, my guest is Mundey Young, founder of Mundey Young Coaching. She is a US Air Force veteran, mother, wife and entrepreneur who has been coaching people from around the world for 9 years. While she’s originally from the States, she has been living in Europe for 18 years, and in France, working for herself and living that dream for the past 15 years, and is now in Marseille. Her specialty is in helping expats create and live the vision they have for their life no matter where they are.

Mundey also hosts a podcast on World Radio Paris "Living La Belle Vie", which supports expats in France, and she has a youtube channel supporting the international expat community called "Mundey Young Coaching". You can find her at mundeyyoung.com, or at any of the social media profiles here:
LinkedIn  💜 Facebook  💜 Twitter @MundeyY 💜 Instagram @mundeyyoungcoaching

In this episode, we discuss how Mundey keeps recreating herself, creating something positive in the world, and :

• How Mundey moved to England with her French (now ex-) husband, in 2000 and then followed him to Paris in 2005
• Why she gave up her career as a chef to pursue other entrepreneurial dreams in France
• Why she found it SO DIFFICULT to adapt to living in Paris and so frustrating that nobody spoke English - and the value of putting herself out there and volunteering to make friends and connections locally.
• How she found friendship, comfort, and commiseration in the Anglophone & expat community in Paris, but then found the "turnover" difficult
• Making French friends: Mundey's pragmatic tips for acting like an extrovert to forge true connection and pursuing the friendships you want in France*
• How Mundey built a thriving first business in Paris managing expats' rental apartments, all through the connections she made within the English-speaking community in France
• Her failed first attempt at requesting French naturalization, and why she felt she fully deserved her French passport when she finally got it
• The psychological games we play when navigating French administration and trying to get stuff done
• Her advice on being flexible and avoiding setting expectations when you move to a new country

*If you want to hear the interview where we learn why French people are like coconuts and Americans are like peaches, listen to Episode 4.

Whether or not you work with a coach like Mundey, once you have your vision of what you want your life to look like in France, Foolproof French Visas can help you to identify your potential visa paths to naturalization, and it can be purchased here: https://www.yourfranceformation.com/books/ or in paperback on Amazon.

If you'd like to pursue your own Franceformation, you can also request a free 30-minute clarity call with Allison to go over your visa options and decide how to move forward with creating your dream life in France: https://www.yourfranceformation.com/free-call/

 If you liked this episode, be sure to leave a positive review, and subscribe so you'll get next week's episode as well!

In Episode 8 of Profiles in Franceformation, I interviewed Sandy Anderson, a retired English teacher who is a fellow graduate of the Middlebury College French School, which I also attended. Sandy, an American, was born in Ontario, Canada, went to school in Jamaica, and considers herself a “third culture kid,” as she grew up without the same cultural references as her American peers. We talk about how she developed her career and the challenges of maintaining relationships and friendships in the community of expatriated Americans in France.

In this episode, we discuss: 

• How Sandy started learning French as a child in Ontario, Canada, and continued her study through the British school system in Jamaica
• Why it was difficult to start college in the US as an American kid who had lived all over the world, and the challenges of making friends when you don't have the same cultural references
• How arriving in France in 1969, just after the May 1968 riots, into a completely renewed French university system, gave Sandy the opportunity to take classes at the Sorbonne
• The difficulty of being a foreign student in a French university, where you can't express yourself in French as well as a French student -- and a funny story about when Sandy used the new "contrôle continu" grading system to her advantage
• What happened when Sandy wanted to stay in France after graduating from Middlebury, and how she was able to land a work contract teaching English back before the UK joined the EU in 1973.
• The crisis Sandy experienced after around 7 years in France when she ultimately decided to spend the rest of her life in France.
• How Sandy's career developed over 30 years, from teaching English, to teaching technology, to teaching technology in English, and how she was ultimately downsized and forced into retirement
• The dangers of being hired as an autoentrepreneur instead of as a salaried employee
• Her main criticism of the French
• When other Americans think we're communists because we live in France - and what communism (and real politics in France) actually looks like
• Why Sandy made the decision not to become French
• What irritates Sandy about the community of Americans in France, and the things she just doesn't understand about some people who move here and about Americans back in the States.

Welcome to Episode 7 of Profiles in Franceformation! I’m your host, Allison Grant Lounes. In this episode, I interview Suzanne White, an American woman who came to Paris from Buffalo, New York, at age 22, in 1961. Suzanne is the author of a book called The New Chinese Astrology and a memoir about her life in France entitled Unmitigated Gaul, both of which are available on Amazon. We talk about her multiple moves back and forth across the Atlantic, how she got into writing about Chinese Astrology, and the cancer disaster that made her move from the US to France permanent.

Unmitigated Gaul: https://amzn.to/2JXXhIq

The New Chinese Astrology: https://amzn.to/38tx0eI

In this episode, we talk about:

• After a conservative upbringing and being "overly emotional" for her family, Suzanne moved to Paris in 1961 and finally felt free to be herself and to express herself
• Our shared love for the 14th arrondissement, where she spent her Paris years until 2006, and where I spent my first few years in Paris
• The surprise she got when she went to find a bilingual psychologist in Paris, living right around the corner from her
• How Suzanne became a writer, and how she became the leading expert on Chinese astrology in the 1970s
• Why she temporarily returned to the US when her daughters were born, and how she brought up two children between cultures
• The doctor's mistake that led to her health insurance being canceled in America, and how that bankruptcy brought her home to France.
• The hybrid language bilingual Americans speak in France, and the fun of communicating in two languages at the same time

If you like this episode, please subscribe and leave a review.

You can join me, Suzanne, and 12,000 Americans in France in the Americans in France facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/americansinfrance/

And if you'd like to learn more about how you can begin your own Franceformation, go here: www.yourfranceformation.com

Foolproof French Visas is available as an ebook on yourfranceformation.com/books or in paperback on Amazon.

This week's episode is with guest Almenia Garvey, an American woman from North Carolina and Chicago, who asked her job to transfer her and moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France with her husband and two children in 2017. The best part of her story is that at all started long ago because she took a wrong turn one day and ended up standing in front of the study abroad office, which led to getting married to a French man she met in Ireland. 

We discuss:

• How her job agreed to transfer her to their French office so her family could move back to France.
• How her children were devastated by the news that they were moving to France,  how they adapted in French immersion classes once they arrived, and their phase of rejecting French culture as a means of protest.
• Why getting help with your move and French administrative paperwork is important, even if you're an EU citizen and don't need to navigate the visa process.
• Getting used to the fact that things take longer in France, and it's hard to navigate French bureaucracy when you don't know what you don't know.
• The challenges of banking in France when you just want to open a savings account, transfer money from abroad, and follow good principles of personal finance and tax and estate planning when saving and investing, which are complicated for US citizens living abroad.
• How moving to France boosted her career in her company and gave her new opportunities for visibility and promotion that she wouldn't have had in Chicago.
• The cultural differences of working in a French office, and the things that surprised her - from all of the different types of time off to the 90-minute lunches with her boss.
• How the pandemic has made living in France, away from family, difficult, because she doesn't know when she'll be able to travel to her family the next time.
• Why the 3-year mark living in France is the crucial point for deciding whether you're committed to speaking the language and integrating, or giving up and relying on just English.
• When family and friends from home think you live in utopia when you talk about enjoying living in France, and why it's complicated to have real conversations about the challenges and triumphs of being an American living abroad.
• The invisibility of racism in France, and what racial segregation looks like in France versus in the US.
• Protesting and employee benefits, and the trade-off between giving cool perks to all employees and increasing wages for the lowest earners.

5 years in the future, you’re in France, living your dream life. What are 3 things that you’re doing in your life and career?

Now, the reality is that creating these dreams IS possible, and it’s possible in France. And if you haven’t figured out how, yet, it’s not your fault. It’s that French bureaucracy is notoriously difficult to navigate, and when you’re trying to create your dream, you need to make sure it’s built on a solid foundation.

In this brief presentation recorded live at the annual Bloom Where You're Planted Event hosted by the American church in Paris (held via zoom in November 2020), Franceformation and visa specialist Allison Grant Lounes discusses the 5 steps to take to begin the process of envisioning your dream life and of moving to France.

Foolproof French Visas is available as an ebook on yourfranceformation.com/books or in paperback on Amazon.

In Episode 2 of Profiles in Franceformation with Morgane Walesh, we talked about how she came to France initially as a student to study French, and then, after the birth of her daughter, switched her visa status. She now works as a "local recruit" English teacher with TAPIF, the Teaching Assistant Program in France.

In this episode, I outline and elaborate on the administrative statuses we discussed:

• How Morgane was able to come to France with a student visa to study French language, and why this path has become more difficult since 2012
• The requirements for getting a student visa to study French in France
• How to maximize your chances of a successful student visa application
• The CampusFrance process
• Why Morgane was able to easily switch her visa status from "student" to "vie privée et familiale - parent d'un enfant français mineur"
• The criteria for getting the VPF visa as the parent of a minor French child, without being married or PACSed to the child's other partner
• How Morgane's VPF status enabled her to get a part-time job teaching English locally, in Paris, and why TAPIF sometimes needs to recruit local teachers who already have the right to work in France
• The basics of the TAPIF program, its advantages and disadvantages for teachers
• Why you shouldn't expect to stay in France after doing TAPIF if you come with a work visa for that job specifically
• How to apply as a TAPIF local recruit if you already live in France with the right to work.

As always, Foolproof French Visas identifies the different types of student visas  and programs eligible for student visas, and discusses several temporary teaching positions available to non-EU citizens, along with their visa types. It can be purchased at https://www.yourfranceformation.com/books/ or in paperback on Amazon.

Morgan Walesh came to France from Wisconsin and has been living in the 5th arrondissement of Paris for 7 years. Originally a nursing graduate, she came to teach English with TAPIF (the Teaching Assistant Program in France), and switched her visa when her daughter, Jayce, was born a few years later. Unable to work as a nurse in France, she instead works as a "local recruit" for TAPIF and spends her spare time unearthing amazing historical stories about Paris, which she shares on her Facebook page, Paris, History of Our Streets.

We talk about:

• The challenges of raising a French/English bilingual and bicultural child, and how we each navigate the language learning process with our kids.
• The super French thing Morgane's daughter says when she wants something.
• How Morgane decided to move to France, and what she did when she discovered, upon moving here, that she definitely did NOT have an intermediate level of French!
• The embarrassing language mistakes we make when we learn French words out of context and use inappropriate language for the people we're speaking with.
• Morgane's dream of studying French history, and the favorite Paris history stories she's learned since starting her Facebook page.
• How diving deep into the history of her neighborhood and of Paris has enabled Morgane to love Paris again after losing the stars in her eyes, and how it has helped her to make connections with French people.
• Morgane's Sancerre Baptism, in which she vowed to forsake all other wines besides Sancerre in a unique ceremony at a vineyard.
• Morgane's favorite places to visit in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, and beyond.
• Living with a social safety net, and how Morgane appreciates not living on credit, and not being one medical disaster away from financial doom.
• The challenges of constantly adapting your language to the person you're talking to, and how it can be tricky for English speakers to understand the different styles of speech in French.
• How coming from a small town in Wisconsin to the big city in Europe opened her mind, gave her the opportunity to learn a second language, and gave her the gift of experiencing another culture.
• How my original website, Paris Unraveled {now Your Franceformation} helped Morgane to navigate the French bureaucracy when she first arrived in Paris.
• The French gifts that her American friends and family back home just can't appreciate properly.

In this episode Debbie talks with Sam, her husband and gap year co-conspirator, about a longstanding bucket list item: to live in France for an extended period in order to practice and improve their French. Coincidentally, both have childhood ties to France. Debbie speaks semi fluently and Sam almost as well.

After two weeks in Avignon, they’re back in the U.S. where they sit down to make sense of the experience. Their first week they studied in an immersion program with an excellent young teacher, Julie Gaudin. Listen to the sounds of Avignon during their second week as they wander the pedestrian-only streets of this marvelous small city, sit in cafés, and shop at the famous covered market. They also took several excursions outside the city, which meant renting a car and figuring out where to park it.

They both agree you can't become a true ex-pat in only two weeks but it's enough time to adopt a daily routine and to make a friend or two at the local boulangerie and at a favorite bar serving artisanal beer. Despite their many trips to Paris and other parts of France, they continue to find French culture slightly mysterious. The solution? Go back and live in France for a year. That may or may not happen...

PHOTO: Debbie and Sam in the poppy fields near Uzès.

Mentioned in this episode

• Séjour linguistique means staying with a teacher (or prof) in their home for language immersion.

• Pithiviers is a town south of France where Sam lived on a farm when he was 18. It was also the site of the infamous Pithiviers internment camp during the Second World War.

• Collège Cévenol in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is where Debbie Went to school for a year when she was 14.

• French immersion programs via FrenchToday.com Note: in this episode Debbie mistakenly refers to the site as FranceToday.

• Julie's immersion program in Avignon

• Alliance Française in Paris

• Les Tables de la Fontaine in Avignon where Debbie interviewed the owner

• Cheer Me Up, one of the cafés we frequented with Julie for our morning French lessons. Serving coffee and tiramisu, which means cheer me up in Italian.

• Les Halles, the famed covered market in Avignon filled with magnificent displays of fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, cheese, olives, bread, lavendar honey, wine and more. Sam discovered les bulots: whelks or large snails best eaten alongside raw oysters and with a glass of white wine.

• Quirky Cinéma Utopia in Avignon where we saw two French films on two rainy afternoons. Debbie insisted she got the gist of both films. At the end of the second one, Sam said, "Well, I know I understood the last sentence."

• Our AirBnB in the center of old Avignon

• Parking des Italiens just outside the ancient walls of Avignon (1,150 free parking spaces... AND the free navette shuttle bus we talk about.)

• Our favorite excursion outside the city: Les Gorges de la Nesque (near Sault)

• Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence (small Cézanne collection with a focus on his obsession, the nearby Mont Sainte-Victoire)

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Credits:

• Show creator and host: Debbie Weil

• Producer and editor: Julie-Roxane Krikorian

• Podcast website

• Music by Manuel Senfft

Connect with us:

• Email: thegapyearpodcast@gmail.com

• Twitter: @debbieweil

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