LIFE IN FRANCE UPDATES – MOVING AGAIN!!!

WE ARE MOVING AGAIN!

These are crazy and exciting days for Ken and I. You’re eyes don’t deceive you! Yes, we are moving – again!!!

I mentioned in a recent vlog on my youtube channel (watch that HERE) that we had another move in the works and indeed it is true! Ken, my genius husband, has landed himself an amazing internship for the summer so we will be heading to a new city very, very soon! In fact, we just signed our contract on our new apartment two days ago! That was a fun experience – not! We are moving to a city with a really high turn over in rentals so when we found something that would do, we had to move quick. It’s nothing special. It’s tiny – actually the smallest apartment we’ve rented ever – but it will do the trick for the summer. It’s in an expensive city and is a short term rental so we knew things would be pricey but yikes! So, here we go again. Packing everything we own and hitting the road again. Next is the visa process – woohoo!

HEAT + HOT WATER UPDATE

Just in time for the next move, the heat and hot water in our current apartment is totally fine now! If you’ve been following since our move from Canada to France – you’d know about our crazy struggle with our place. VERY limited hot water (like no showers some days, never mind having hot water to do dishes or anything) and heating that halted intermittently.  Long story short, we had a visitor staying with us, when the heat gave out again (keep in mind this was many weeks ago when it was still 0 degrees at night). We complained to the company and two days later, still no heat. Disaster. Well, by day 3 I had sent a rather testy e-mail and finally got someone to come by and fix it. They literally when into the basement and flicked one button and we’ve had heat and hot water ever since. Dear lord! We were living without hot water and random heating for MONTHS (3.5 months to be exact) and all that needed to be done was to flick a switch. I bought blankets, extra sweaters, sweatpants  – just to wear around the house to keep warm during the first two months when we were freezing and were told over and over again there was no solution. We even looked at other apartments and considered moving to solve the problem.

Anyways, I’m glad that problem seems to have disappeared – I just wish someone had helped out long before the 3.5 month mark.

A HAIR CUT

I’m happy to report that I finally got the guts to walk into a hair salon and get a hair cut. They first time I’ve done anything to my hair since long before Christmas! I had built this haircut up so much in my head and it turned out to be super easy.  I basically didn’t want to have to walk into a hair salon and asking if anyone spoke English, have them say no and have to walk out again – embarrassing! Or worse, have them say yes and then have to try to explain to them what I wanted done, have a miscommunication and end up with a shaved head. Haha ok, exaggerating – but you know what I mean. I feel like you need to be able to communicate when you get a hair cut!

Months over due, I finally got the cut and am so glad I did. I feels like new hair! There is nothing like a fresh haircut for Spring 🙂

MOM COMING TO VISIT

Ohhhh my goodness. This is an exciting one for us. MOM is coming to town! I wish she could bring the little pup and my sis with her but maybe next time.  This is moms second big adventure to Europe and she can’t wait. Her first time across the pond was only a few years ago when Ken and I were living in Notting Hill in London (see some of that adventure HERE, HERE, HERE).

They (mom, aunt, uncle) are flying into Frankfurt, then taking a train to us here in Fontainebleau and then we are renting a car and I’ll be joining them for a road trip through France for the first part of June. Poor Ken will be stuck here for school but I’m sure he won’t mind having the place to himself for once. He’ll be eating chocolate for dinner and can leave his socks and underwear any place he pleases – that’s a boys vacation right there!

I can’t wait to show them around the place we’ve called home for 5 months. It’s always so nice to be travelling with someone that is comfortable with the city as well. Something like taking the metro can be really overwhelming and exhausting when travelling, so I’m glad we will be around to help them out so they can just sit back, relax and enjoy 🙂

TRAVELLING A TON

If you follow along on Instagram (@aandreaclare), you’d know we’ve been travelling a ton lately. Ever since we found out Ken got the internship, we’ve been busy filling our last few weekends here with weekend adventures. We have to take advantage while we can! It won’t be long before Ken is locked down in a very demanding job and we won’t have to opportunity to travel like we do now.

We went to Sicily (started in the north, then went south – vlogs of that are on my youtube channel so don’t forget to subscribe HERE), Rome, Frascati, Amsterdam, Paris, Bruges! It’s been a whirl wind only being home for a few days during the week before heading back to the train station. We are so, so lucky.

Side note : this one piece bathing suit is dreamy! It’s a little on the sexy side for a one piece but I love it. It’s super affordable and is also reversible! I got it both the blue stripes and red stripes seen here. The skirt is also still available HERE

LEARNING TO SPONTANEOUSLY TRAVEL

I talked about this briefly on my instagram over the last few days. The last few weekends we have travelled, we had nothing planned until the night before. Before moving to France, I NEVER would have done that. I am an OCD, planner, type-A gal. I like to know where I need to be and when! I even go so far as to actually see the gate at the airport before I can go wander around and relax. It drives Ken nuts because sometime we end up walking half way across the airport just so I can physically see the gate we need to be at – haha! But I’ve become SO much better! Especially when we are travelling by train – such a breeze.

Last night I had completely let go of my OCD. Ken and I were up late trying to put together a last minute getaway for today but I got so tired that I said I was going to bed and to let me know if we ended up booking something in the morning. Who am I!?! I woke up this morning not knowing if I needed to pack my suitcase or go make my coffee. Turns out he didn’t book anything but wow! I’m a new person! Haha So, it’s a quiet weekend at home for us. Which actually feels nice. I got caught up on cleaning, took some blog photos and got this post out to you!

FULL BODY SCANS

This is a bit of a weird one. I mentioned long long ago that as part of the process of moving to France, we had to get full body scans. Luckily the school arranges most of it, so I just had to show up, remove my shoes and jacket and let them take an x-ray of my body – haha! I got a clean bill of health – woohoo! No strange diseases! “I’M CLLLEANNNNNNN” – as Amy Poehler (Baby Mamma) would say.

So I have my final appointment next week to get my official stamp in my passport and I’m in the clear in French eyes.

I actually really liked seeing my own x-ray. I spent my days at work looking at other peoples x-rays, it was fun to see my own organs!

Last but not least, I just wanted to share a code I have right now. It’s for 15% off the Daniel Wellington website! This isn’t sponsored or anything, I just have it so I thought I’d share incase you were in the market 🙂 The code is “AANDREACLARE” – happy shopping 🙂

I think that’s it for now! The next updates post might be from our new town! Who knows!

Make sure to follow along on Instagram HERE and youtube HERE – Most on those two places the most frequently 🙂

Xo, Andrea