Why We Left the USA (and moved to France)

Why We Left the USA (and moved to France)

I was sitting right here in this Cafe 32 years ago when I first knew I wanted to live in France I want this to be my life and I was born right here in Paris in that hospital I left France right out of high school I was looking for adventure

I wanted to travel the world but after 32 years in the US I’m right back here again we know a lot of people are thinking about moving to Europe because we hear it from our friends we read it in comments and we see news articles about it and you may think that because

I’m French coming home was easy it wasn’t so in this video we’ll tell you why we chose to move to France why we chose to move when we did we’ll share some of our ups and downs and we’ll tell you after 3 years whether or not we have any Regrets I was born in South Florida and that’s where I spent most of my life and it’s where I met Antoine 5 years after dreaming in that Cafe for me I bought my myself a one-way ticket to Fort lell Florida in 1989 and I got myself a job

When I met Colleen I was already settled in America and I had no intention of ever coming back my life was Now in America after 20 plus years of being together we had a home in West Palm Beach our kids were getting older we only had one of the kids living with us

At that point and my elderly parents who had been living with us had moved out the house just started feeling way too big for just the three of us so we sold it and we rented another place while we were trying to figure out what was next

And that’s when Co hit I remember sitting and meeting after meeting on my laptop thinking I could literally do this from anywhere and that’s when I remembered my dream of living in France so I challenged Antoine to give me one good reason why we shouldn’t move to

France because I really wanted to go honestly for me I was not on board at all with moving to France all my connections after 32 years in the US were like right here in America my business was here my tennis buddies my friends everything I knew about being an

Adult was in the US I mean the idea of being close to my family was really appealing to me but the idea of leaving felt very vulnerable to me but as a professional public speaker and running an online business I could really work anywhere I want it so we asked our

16-year-old son if he was on board and he was all in so I told Colleen let’s give ourself one year to prepare for the move to friends because that’s a big commitment and it will give us the time to be ready that was a pretty emotional day for

Me so Antoine was okay with moving and I was ready to go like you know that scene and when Harry Mets Sally when he says when you know what the rest of your life is going to look like you want it to start start right now so I started

Collecting boxes and by the end I collected over 150 boxes to pack our stuff I had a spot in the garage for the flattened boxes and a little place in the corner of my office where I started stacking the full ones any cabinets or little nooks and crannies of the house

Where there were things Antoine wouldn’t notice they were silently going away I started donating things and selling things and giving things away all the stuff I couldn’t bring like small appliances or the heavy bake wear and vases and I think I gave over 40 different jigsaw puzzles to elder care

Facilities and and other places but I knew I was ready to go now that was a monster moved I mean we have moved a couple of times but usually across town or the next town over but never across the pond and this was planning a move where forgetting something was not an

Option and I can tell you that loading a 40t container is not the same as putting your stuff in a moving truck a lot of decisions had to be made with what we were going to take with us and what we had to leave behind we really only had

Room to take about half of what we owned the rest had to be sold or given away to charity pretty much all our Electronics had to stay we had to sell it we kept our computers and that was pretty much it the rest wouldn’t work here anyway

Now I can still remember being at the dock in Miami looking at my 40t container fill to the gills with all our stuff and asking myself what if something happens to this what if we lose it what if it falls overboard and falls in the ocean what will happen this

Really was a defining moment for me in our move to France what I realized at that moment is none of the stuff I owned mattered What mattered to me was my family if you’re traveling to France or if you’re thinking about moving here I suggest you check out our website lefist

Travel.com it’s full of resources information on where to stay where to eat what to do all kinds of things to help you have a great experience of friends and we’ll put a link in the description below check it out see if it works for You finding a home in Paris is one of the places I got a little bit romantic I started watching old movies like a good year or the French Kiss I even binge watched Emily in Paris and I started dreaming about a little apartment above a beastro or a balerie and hey if you’re

Going to dream why not dream because I really wanted that Terrace Cafe life finding a home in France was really challenging for us and it almost derailed our plans to move here I I foolishly thought that finding a home to rent in France would be like in the US

And boy was I wrong in the month of October I was looking for a place to rent for the next June by the end of the school year and I found plenty of homes that were a great fit for us until I start calling them for more information

And the first question out of their mouth was do you have a full-time job in a French company here in France and the answer was no I’ve been an independent for 25 years well that be a problem and the answer was yes that was a problem see France is a renters Market here

Renters have a lot of protections from being evicted if they can’t pay so French property owners have very strict rules when accepting a tenant because they want to make sure that you’re going to be able to pay and since employees have a lot of protection from being

Fired at will if you have a full-time job that’s kind of like the protection that they’re looking for the problem is as an independent I don’t have that and I even offered to pay the full year in advance and even that is not allowed in friends it’s actually illegal we went

From being excited to wondering if we could move at all I was super frustrated and Colleen was getting really disappointed now I was willing to rent something but I wasn’t willing to buy until I lived in France for at least a year or two and after a month of

Searches looking for places all around Paris and dealing with rejection after rejection we finally found a landlord that was willing to accept our circumstances that was a huge relief and the house was amazing the trouble is the house was ready in January not in June

And he needed to rent it ASAP we talked to our sons made a few phone calls and then pull the trigger decided that we were going so now we’re moving in 5 weeks and thank God colen nut started a pack month AG go moving day was January 7th 2021 and

Looking back I think that moving during Co was a really big gift I mean the restrictions were kind of tough as it was pretty tight but it also meant I got to experience a lot of my firsts and really small bites see I really thought

I knew it was going to be like living in France cuz we had been here so many times and when we came we didn’t stay in the middle of town and hotels with room service or anything we stayed in the suburbs and we ran errands we did gardening and grocery shopping and we

Were driving and doing all the things that normal people do but I didn’t realize how much I was relying on Antoine to help me run those errands I knew words and phrases in French but I definitely didn’t speak French one day I came home from the grocery store so

Proud that I had navigated it perfectly and when I came in to start using using that Windex I bought I was just smearing soap all over the mirrors it was devastating I felt so useless and so inept and there were so many people that were just being nice to me they were so

Kind I didn’t even know how to say thank you I mean Mar seed just doesn’t cover what I wanted to say in my appreciation if I was back in the US I would have baked a nice sweet treat or gone to just the right little store to buy just the

Right little gift because I knew where things were I didn’t know anything here I remember the day that we took our son Charlie to school and we met with the Headmaster of the school I didn’t understand anything I was lost and for me that was a really tough day because

Back at home I was very active in the kids school I knew how to advocate for them I knew how to deal with teachers and administrators and how to help them with homework and just to guide them I didn’t know how to help my son with his

Education and I was thinking about all the Latino and the Haitian families that were in the school in Florida and the people at the school there telling me Oh they don’t care about their kids’ education but that day I was in the seat and I promise you I care about my son’s

Education I just didn’t know how to do anything about it thankfully the French education system is excellent and my son wound up graduating from high school fully fluent and making lifelong friends and he’s doing great in the University here now but I didn’t know that on the

Day I sat down with that Headmaster now moving back to France was really weird for me my entire adult life was in the US I bought my first home in the US my children’s were born in the US I sold a couple of homes in the US a couple of my

Businesses were in the US everything that I had ever done as an adult was in the US I was Frenchy to all my friends in the US but when I arrived here back in France I realized that I identify as an American I had zero connections to

How things were done in France anymore and I can see in the eyes of the French people I’m a bit weird for them I’m a french guy but I behave differently I’m way too friendly I’m way too direct I say what I mean I have completely lost

The French formalities and manners as an anecdote just a few weeks after we moved here I went to a grocery store and I saw a cheese on display and I went to the clerk and I asked him and I says what kind of fruit do you have in this and I

Could see in his eyes that he was looking at me like are you stupid or something and I’m like yeah it’s a con FR I want to know what kind of fruit is there and the guy said there’s no fruit in there that means that it’s a spring

Cheese and I was like well why don’t you call it a spring cheese then and I could see in his eyes that he was questioning my IQ but what’s funny to me is that French people are really petrified of making a mistake personally I don’t care

But what I noticed is I ask a lot of stupid questions in perfect French as for my schooling I think that’s another way that Co modifying everything helped me out when we got here they weren’t having inperson classes so I just doubled down on dualingo but the administrative process

Here that’s a whole new ball game I think French administ ation makes the American DMV look like a well-oiled machine I filed for my original one-year Visa way back in the beginning and by the time I received it it had already been valid for 3 months which meant that

I had about 6 months on the Visa before I had to start renewing it for the next year because they advised doing it well in advance and so all of the benefits that I got to help me learn how to be French I had to cram into a short period

Of time and let me let me tell you that was a lot I had classes to teach me about the history the economic structures the industry the culture the musicians and artists and you know who was responsible for building which Bridges and which museums we went through the education system the social

Services what your parental rights are all about voting I mean we went through everything and then there was the language test and along the way I had appointments to make sure that I knew I had an appointment that might not have been what they called it but I sat

In line for hours in a town far away just so I could approve the paperwork had the right information and what’s the next step well then you go home and you wait for an email to tell you to make another appointment to come back but the

Good news is as the French say I am B install which means I am installed in France pretty well at this point and after 10 months of waiting to hear back from my request to extend my Visa finally got an appointment to pick up my

New card and now I’m good for another 3 Years after we moved to Paris we wanted to explore Paris and everything that was around but we were in the middle of covid so our only access to discovering friends during that time was with YouTube videos and I didn’t care for much of what I was seeing I wanted to

Show it my way I was never supposed to be on the YouTube channel I mean I know Antoine was starting something and I was happy to help him but like behind the scenes I didn’t feel like you know one of those perfect little influencer types or anything but the idea of wandering

Around Paris and France and exploring with my honey bun that’s for me so I grabbed the camera and started to film things that matter to us how to navigate the Metro where are the best beast Ros where are the fun places to go and most most of our early video really sucked

But we didn’t care we were having a lot of fun and it didn’t take long for Colleen to say hey I have something to say start filming me and the rest is pretty much history people ask all the time do you regret moving to France and I have to

Say that through all of the adversity all of the ups and downs and all the ways that my identity changed I would do it all over again cuz we completely reinvented ourselves here and I like who we’ve become yeah I agree with you Colleen I mean with all the adversity I

Would do it again but I also know that this is not for everyone I’m going to tell you what I tell all my friends that are thinking of moving here rent yourself a place for 6 months spend a winter here learn about the French tax system and if you’re still in love with

The idea well be if you like this video next I would watch this one with the 25 biggest mistakes tourists keep making in Paris

This is our story, why we moved, where we’re from, and sharing the ups & downs of moving to Europe from the USA
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