Happy 5th Anniversary…and oh yeah, some updates.

A hundred apologies for not regularly updating our blog. To say the least, we have been pretty busy planning our next move. It is a constant uphill battle when you don’t have a permanent place to live. To pick up where we left off in our last blog entry, from Marseille we ventured to the beautiful city of Annecy where we rode bikes around the gorgeous lake. We made our way to Chamonix and climbed (or should we say we took a cable car up) the tallest mountain in the Alps and all of Western Europe, Mont Blanc. Then we crossed over to the Swiss border where we ate amazing chocolate in Geneva, rode on slow trains through the Swiss Alps and explored the financial banking center of Zurich.

Germany welcomed us with opened arms, actually with a godzilla size schnitzel and viking size glasses of beer in Munich. We walked along the Berlin wall and discovered many hidden gems that perfectly depicts how independent, progressive and liberal the city is. After finishing our 43 day trip across Western Europe, we settled a few weeks in Paris and Nice to catch up on “administrative work.” The warm sun in the South of France was exactly what we needed to fuel our energy and spirits. And before you know, we made a spontaneous decision to travel to Copenhagen and Scotland. We hope to elaborate on this trip in another post very soon.

It doesn’t take long for us to get the itch to travel again. There is so much of the world that we want to explore. Not to also mention all the valuable lessons we learn along the way and experiences we gain with every new destination. On the flip side, there are moments we feel like we are lost souls, who do not have a clear goal or direction in life. This way of living is very unconventional and we can’t help but wonder how travel vloggers and digital nomads function in this manner. Our mental health was something we didn’t realize was tremendously affected with all the constant traveling we were doing. There was underlying anxiety, insomnia and depression that was developing. We had doubts if we made the right decisions. We became our worst critiques. We sometimes let the negative self talk get to the best of us. All of this places a big strain on our relationship, in an already difficult situation living aboard. Despite all the challenges, we reminded ourselves the importance of reflection. We looked to yoga, meditation and resources on mindfulness to help bring balance in our lives. As much as we like going for a nice run or fitting in a good work out, it is equally important to dedicate some time to improve our mental health. Please if there are any resources you can recommend, we would love to hear from you.

In other news, we recently celebrated our 5th anniversary. Hard to believe we got married 5 years ago. It felt like it was just yesterday that we were standing in the shade on that warm summer day at our local park, reciting our vows in front of just our parents and a couple of family friends. Some of you know we were together a total of 10 years before tying the knot. It all began in 2002 when we met each other for the first time in high school French class. Remaining friends through out our college years, we finally took the leap and dated in 2008. Over the next several years, we called Boston, Philadelphia and Mechanicsburg our home. But the biggest move came in 2022 when we decided to quit our full time jobs to live in France.

**Wedding Ceremony in East Norriton, PA in 2018**

Every couple faces challenges. No doubt there is an extra layer of difficulty when living overseas. Not only that there is the evident language barrier, but there is an immense learning curve when adapting to a new system and a new way of life. No matter how many books you read, how many lessons of Duolingo you complete or video tutorials you watch, there is nothing that can fully prepare you to live in a foreign country. Even doing simple things like making copies or printing some documents becomes an all day affair. You never know when stores and shops are randomly closed in France, even when their website clearly says that they are opened. Add the frequent strikes and protests, along with delays and outages of public transportation, it appears you can never get anything done on your to do list. In general things do take longer to accomplish in France, something we are still getting used to. Living in America in some ways spoiled us. For example, we applied for our French driver’s license in April 2023 and it was just recently approved the second week of June 2023. Of course we are still waiting for our physical copies of our “permit de conduire” but honestly we are just happy to hear that all our documents (after several submissions and revisions) were accepted. A heads up to anyone who is interested in obtaining their driver’s license in France, if your state is on the reciprocity list, you can exchange it without taking the driver’s test. However it has to be within 1 year before your first visa expires. Otherwise you are forced to study up on all the road rules, take the written test and pass the practical exam…yep you guessed it, all in French.

Fortunately we researched this topic long ago and avoided what seems to be an impossible task. Worth noting: in order to finalize your French driver’s license application, you have to exchange and turn in your original American license. That means you don’t get it back until you decide you don’t need your French driver’s license anymore. Luckily in Pennsylvania, you can request a duplicate driver’s license online and within a week it was mailed to us at our U.S. address. Don’t get us started on our renewal of our visa or the struggle of obtaining health care. That will be another blog we hope to cover to provide some sort of guidance for anyone who is interested in moving to France. As always, thank you for taking the time to read our blog and supporting our project. To all our families and friends back in America, Happy 4th of July.

Happy 5th Anniversary…and oh yeah, some updates.

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