In July, 2002, we packed up our life in suburban Seattle and decamped for a year to Grenoble, France. Here are some highlights of the year and our thoughts on why we did this.
Why France?
People often asked us, “Why did you move to France?” First, you have to understand that France is Mike’s dream, and the rest of the family went along for the ride, so to speak. So most of the motivation for France came from Mike.
- Mike has always wanted to live for an extended period of time in another country. Learning another language, getting a different perspective on the US are a couple of the reasons.
- About ten years ago, Mike obtained Irish citizenship so that he could live and work in Europe without immigration hassles. With European integration, his Irish citizenship is equivalent to citizenship in any of the EU countries (including France) for the purposes of residency and work.
- We all love Italy, and Italy was a strong contender. Kyle loves Italy for the food, Lisa for the language and because it’s part of her heritage, and Evan for the fond memories from La Limonaia, a house we rented there with some friends on the Amalfi Coast a few years ago. But only Lisa speaks any Italian, and only a bit. Her French is stronger, and Mike’s only other language is French. So Italy moved down the list a bit.
- We thought about Switzerland for a while. Lisa lived in Geneva for two years just before we got married, and loved it. We’ve visited there and love the mountains and the comfort of Switzerland. Geneva is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, so the language would work. But, Switzerland is very expensive, and not part of the European Union, so residence/work permits would be an issue. When we looked on a map, we realized that much of what we liked about Switzerland — proximity to the mountains, French-speaking, right size (not too big (Lisa), not too small (Mike)) was available about 100 KM away — in Grenoble.
- As we looked more and more at Grenoble, we realized it was the right place for us.
- But…back to why France? When Mike was traveling in Europe in 1982, he spent a couple of weeks in France. On October 16, 1982, he wrote in a diary he kept: “I love France. I love the food, the buildings, the countryside. I hope someday I’ll be able to return to work and live here for a longer period of time.” Twenty years later, that dream was realized!
Our E-mail Updates From France
While we lived in France, we sent periodic updates by e-mail to a group of friends; a sort of diary of our time in France and our thoughts about what we were seeing and doing.
We’ve collected these on this site and you can read them by following the links in the left navigation above under “Our France Diary”.