A new life in the French Alps - part II.

A little over two months ago now, I gazed out the window as the plane began its descent parallel to one the most famous mountain ranges in the world. At the shores of Lake Geneva the Alps rose abruptly from the earth, spreading out into a vast sea of some seriously gnarly peaks. Mont Blanc cascading over the range with prominence, and all blanketed by a fresh line of snow that had fallen across the upper elevations - beckoning the onset of a seasonal shift that was already well underway. It had only been approximately 124 days since I last had laid eyes on this very scene, and that same serendipitous feeling of excitement returned to my gut, except it was different this time, it was stronger. As my eyes absorbed the landscape unfolding beneath me, I substantiated to myself “this is home now”.

I had only been officially unemployed for a long weekend by this moment, and that realization had yet to fully settle in. It was a Tuesday in November - and I had no work email to check, no brand to manage, no calls scheduled on my calendar, no calendar scheduled out for 2026. Since graduating from art school in 2018 all I had ever done was obsess over work and building a business, stacking my resume, being a brand - hustling. But now, I was so very unemployed and fully by my own choosing. It was just me, my husband, our cat and dog, our many checked bags, and our USA passports holding freshly stamped in French long stay student visas. And it felt absolutely wild. 

Looking back, the entire sequence of travel from the US to Europe had no shortage of pure chaos and insanity. We left Bozeman, Montana on a cold November morning in a full-size rental truck that just barely fit our luggage and drove all day across rural Wyoming to Denver where we stayed at a Hampton Inn for two nights because it was the only hotel that didn’t charge an arm and a leg for a room with both a dog and a cat. Living in a hotel room for practically three days with a dog is a struggle enough, but add a cat and we were really in for it. Surprisingly both behaved very well, and we gifted them a plentiful bounty of treats as a thank you. On the day of our departure we ran circles around the Denver airport in a very abnormal November heat attempting to locate the Lufthansa counter we encountered many curious folks who asked where we were headed and upon a short exchange of explanation they wished us a very sincere “congratulations” as we made our way through the airport with our 15 bags and a screaming cat to the check-in. Upon reaching the counter we looked up, all sweaty and disoriented, to discover that the lady who would be assisting us with tagging our bags was named ‘Destiny’. Is it fate?

We made it onto our flight bound for Frankfurt on time after an almost hour hang-up at TSA due to setting off the security alarm with our small travel bags of cat litter that registered as explosives, during the Government shutdown might I add. Thankfully the TSA staff were generously understanding as we apologized profusely for the of course, very major inconvenience. We settled into the overnight flight and watched in complete awe from the airplane window as the Aurora Borealis danced across the Arctic sky. Nodding in agreement with each other that this did indeed feel like fate.

Fast forward to today and we are settled into our cozy rez-de-chaussée apartment that overlooks our petit jardin that will need some serious TLC come spring. ‘Settled in’ being defined as: one week ago we finally got our mattress off of the floor and distanced nicely enough away from the cold drafts of the exterior wall and are now finally able to sleep through the night for the first time in over a month! We have an adorable bistro set for the kitchen, a second-hand chartreuse sofa to sink into at the end of each day, an assortment of lovely antique furniture with no shortage of character, and we have acquired all the basic items needed to live somewhat organized and cook the typical simple meals we use to back in Montana - except with much added delight as the flavor of the ingredients here is incredible and surprising to such a degree that we are honestly wondering what the hell were we actually eatingback in the States (and we even used to buy the nice stuff). The $13 jar of organic ‘family recipe’ tomato sauce from the Bozeman co-op that was supposedly imported from Italy stands on absolutely zero ground for comparison against the pure freshness and bold flavor of our $3 Barilla brand sauce here in France. But most importantly, we now have the French phone numbers, the apartment that is a couple minutes walk from the lake, the home insurance, the bank account, the wifi, the utilities, the validated visas, a newly acquired A2 level of French, and our names printed correctly on the mailbox. The general feeling of what the actual fuck are we doing has now mostly subsided to be the world is our oyster. 

In our only brief time here we have already experienced the full spectrum of emotions that one would only expect when taking on a behemoth of an objective such as that of essentially setting dynamite on your entire life and starting over from scratch in a new country where you don’t speak the language [newly graduated to the level of we now don’t speak the language well enough] - which can only be described as the highest of high’s immediately followed with the lowest of low’s - except for one… and that one feeling that has remained perpetually absent, is that we do not miss a single ounce of the life we have now left in the past. 

Today, our daily life moves at a pace that I once fought tooth and nail to experience only a sliver of back in the States. For our final year in Montana, prior to turning our move dream into a reality, we put in extra effort to integrate aspects of the European lifestyle into our daily lives. We viewed this as a simulation to prepare for the culture-shock, but what actually occurred was we found ourselves feeling as if we were a trout attempting to swim upstream in the spring snowmelt run-off. The extra efforts required exhausted us further - acknowledging that going against the system just isn’t really an option, or at the most a very realistic one. Here, the everyday routine of life in Annecy has a naturally beautiful and rather unhurried rhythm to it, that is shared collectively as a community. The church bells from the three different églises across town toll all day long, the most important time of each day of course being noon - when all comes to a halt for the two hour lunch break. Many retail stores, businesses, and offices all close - maintaining that emphasis on this is how you live a properly balanced life. We have learned to fully lean into the French schedule and enjoy the daily quiet hours over lunch time or a Sunday - which here is truly viewed as a sacred day of rest and enjoyment for all people. We quickly adapted to be mindful to always match the sound and pace of the city by refraining from doing any noisy chores like running the washing machine on a heavy spin cycle or vacuuming aggressively until a more appropriate time. It has been eye-opening to observe that even during the post-work rush hour or a Friday evening when the sidewalks are filled with people headed out to eat, drink, and socialize, the city still maintains a remarkably quiet and calm composure.

When I say that life is beautiful here, I feel that deeply in my heart, every day. Along our street, our rue, young kids play independently without adults anywhere in sight - on Wednesday’s when the schools are out you will see little squad’s of kids out in public, on the sidewalks, walking places together without adults but behaving just like little adults. At almost any time of day you can observe couples of all ages strolling arm in arm or hand in hand, stopping every so often for an embrace or a kiss. Elderly couples and friends will fill the benches along the lake in the afternoons to share a chocolat or tart together while looking out at the jaw-dropping mountain scenery. People will lounge on the docks or on the green spaces reading books, drawing, or simply sitting and looking. The kids rollerblade, cycle, and skateboard, and the dogs run and play off leash all around the city without problem, and there are countless times when there is not a single smartphone anywhere in sight. People talk and laugh, and seem genuinely peaceful, healthy, and happy. And in many moments, it feels as if we’ve time traveled back to the days that I have been so longingly nostalgic for myself - but it’s 2026, in France, and here all you need to do is partake in a leisurely afternoon stroll for yourself to observe this as fact.



Daily life here is high-quality in that good food, leisure time, general safety, the availability to get outdoors and utilize a plethora of public services is actually accessible for all. Last week while sipping a coffee and watching out the front window of the apartment I learned that the City of Annecy offers meal delivery programs for elderly or disadvantaged residents. They can order healthy gourmet meals online to be delivered to their residence for only a few dollars. Coming from the US where I felt increasingly mis-aligned with the way the general society operated, it felt overwhelmingly amazing to see the city offer affordable services such as this to ensure that a good quality of life is fairly offered to all. In addition, I have never before witnessed a healthier and more active elderly populous than the old folks here in Annecy who are kicking butt on the uphill trails that venture into the mountains from town, and the many who are aged over 80 and still easily nabbing a minimum of 5,000 steps a day, even with a cane. After sixty something days of sampling the various means of which one can obtain groceries here [and let me say, you have never before seen so many different methods of which to do so!] we have found that the portion of our budget that is spent on food is about a third of what we use to pay in Montana and again, to reiterate, I don’t know how it is possible for a zucchini to taste so magically delicious, but it just does.

Life in France also means that one simply cannot accomplish all of the chores and errands that are on the to-do list in one day, and that is certainly set up by design. Back to the notion of the unhurried life, that very much applies to all the aspects of life here. There is very little that is done in day to day life in the name of efficiency - and from what I have experienced thus far, the only hurry that I do observe here in Annecy is from the athletes who are training, and man oh man can these people run. The work hard, play hard culture I once prided myself on is not considered impressive or useful here, and same thing with all the fancy filler buzzwords that go along with it. The health and wellness hacks are also not nearly as popular concepts here as they are back in the States because well, they do just generally have a better all-around life balance. This is also very much a saving grace for us where everyday tasks now at times feel quite monumental, because not only is everything written in French but it’s also often written in French cursive. Oy. Thankfully this new pace of life has allowed us to at many times to take a deep breath, slow down, and take notice of how those around us are operating. Realizing then that no-one in line at the supermarché on a Sunday 30 minutes prior to closing is actually in a hurry or generally bothered, and it’s only us creating this presumption that we needed to hurry. It will get done and it will be okay. 

Still though, we find that we are reeling and recovering from our formerly demanding American lives. The life we previously lived was a very far from sustainable one, and the effects of that do have lingering consequences. The consequences that do and will catch up with you if/when you do finally stop the carnival, and I am deeply satisfied that we hopped off the ride when we did. We had big dreams for our first ski season in The Alps but the reality is that, we are still tired - and at this time have only skied 8 days, when usually by now we have about 16. At least the slow start to winter, or general apparent lack thereof this year have lightened up our feelings of missing out. Now it’s mid-January and a mere 18 days into the New Year, and what will be a year that we in all reality have some pretty high hopes for. But we have now completed all the current tasks at hand to ensure a secure life here in France for the time being, and I think that sums up the main idea of this post as a whole - that the high’s go hand-in-hand with the low’s. Moving to France, especially the French Alps, is an absolute dream come true, but it sure as hell is not a vacation or a honeymoon. Not even remotely close. 

If you made it this far, merci beaucoup for reading along! I appreciate you spending your time here, as I acknowledge that time is of value - and am looking forward to seeing you again here.