It didn't go well for Jean Valjean. You remember. Sentenced to prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. Served a total of nineteen years (after a couple of escape attempts complicated things). You don't steal bread in France. You'd think I'd know better. In all honesty, I hadn't dabbled in petty …
Tag: expat
call the sage-femme: notes from the life of a pregnant expat
You wouldn't notice if you're not looking for it. It's just a lively, sunny street like any other in Nice. A few blocks from the beach. There are busy cafés, antique shops, little kitschy stores full of ancient-looking sewing materials or dusty Lebanese groceries. If you are looking, you'll notice that this is a street full of …
Continue reading call the sage-femme: notes from the life of a pregnant expat
the runaway bride
Question: how many people does it take to stuff a voluminous wedding dress into a modest carry-on suitcase? Answer: two, if one is unsentimental and can bear the agony of rolling, folding, and crushing the garment into a form one-quarter of its original size while the other watches in horror. The non-sentimental character in this …
getting to know you…sunshine blogger award
One of the things I've most enjoyed over my year in Cannes has been gradually building up a blog readership. I sat down one day full of ideas and wrote about how speaking a second language opened my eyes to the greater absurdities of life itself. Many of you seemed to relate, sharing humorous stories …
attention abeilles: hiking the massif de l’esterel
The best thing about waking up in the morning–or returning to my petit chez moi at any time of day–is the view from my balcony: the brilliant bay outlined by mountains. I come from the part of Missouri that's just barely not-Kansas. Deprived of elevation for so long, any hint of it makes me giddy. Mountains comfort …
Continue reading attention abeilles: hiking the massif de l’esterel
the land of oz: adventures in digital friendship, pt i
On Va Sortir. When I moved to Cannes, the website was recommended to me several times. You're new in town. Just try OVS! This site de rencontre, the title of which means let's go out!, apparently had a lively presence in town. Cannes is flanked by mountains and the sea, so I pictured the city's …
Continue reading the land of oz: adventures in digital friendship, pt i
embracing the absurd
That long, skinny vegetable. That colorful thing in the sea. That thing that you close with a key. These sound like lines from a fun board game, but are in fact desperate definitions I've uttered within the past week when the French term for leek or coral reef or lock escapes me. I can speak …
