EP 94: Rebecca moves to Menton 🤩

Where to find Aimee: 

• Instagram: @vibrancenutrition
• Nutrition Coaching: vibrancenutrition.com
• Podcast on Nutrition: Blasphemous Nutrition
• Substack on Nomadic Life: NomadicNomMom

Where to find Rebecca: 

• Instagram and her life in Paris: @beseriouslyhappy
• Podcast for Interior Design-preneurs: Stuff Interior Designers Need to Know
• Biz Coaching for Interior Designers: seriouslyhappy.com
• Book on Interior Design Psychology: Happy Starts at Home

Transcript

Speaker 0:01

Welcome to Bon Jola, a podcast about two women, Amy and Rebecca, who each move from the United States to Europe to become expats. Amy to Spain and Rebecca to France. We're here to share the highs, the lows, and the logistics of this adventure. Encourage you to follow your own, move abroad dreams, and remind you that you're not alone when the going gets tough. Enjoy.

Aimee 0:24

Banla. Rebecca,

Rebecca 0:26

Amy.

Aimee 0:27

I see your new background in your new apartment, in your new city. Or is it even a city? Is Montana town or is it a city? How big is? How big is this place?

Rebecca 0:38

Let's call Mont a seaside city. It's definitely big enough to have a big grocery store with everything we could possibly want. Um. Like the kind of grocery store that has a clothing section.

Aimee 0:52

Oh, okay. Okay.

Rebecca 0:53

Um, so yeah, definitely a, a seaside city.

Aimee 0:56

Got it. And how many days have you been there?

Rebecca 1:00

That means I know which day it is. We left Paris Saturday morning. So we got here Saturday night. That has been all of Sunday. All of Monday. And it's midday on Tuesday right now.

Aimee 1:11

2.5 days. Folks, Rebecca has not yet landed.

Rebecca 1:17

no, we are, we are 90% moved in. We have cleaned the house, we have organized, we have unpacked, and now all that's left is buying some extra new pieces of furniture to fill in the gaps for, from what is actually already in this apartment.

Aimee 1:33

first impressions.

Rebecca 1:35

Oh my gosh. We're just blown away. Like literally we'll be, let's like say we're unpacking a little box in the bathroom so we can't see the view, and then we walk outta that room and we look at the view and we just giggle. Like we giggle because we can't believe what we're looking at.

Aimee 1:53

I remember that feeling. It was like that for probably the first two or three months we lived in Sharon, like just stepping outside and being like, oh my God.

Rebecca 2:02

Yeah. It's just, it's other. It's otherworldly. It's postly. Here. You just feel like you're looking at something that should be on a postcard and not a part of your real life.

Aimee 2:15

Yeah, I actually, I imagine if you leave your apartment and you go down to one of the tourist shops that I imagine are inevitably within walking distance where you live, you'll probably find a postcard that is the view from your apartment. I.

Rebecca 2:29

Yes indeed. Exactly. And it's actually nice because the place where we live in Ton, I guess it's the Garavan Beach area, uh, which is only about a 20 minute walk from Damien's restaurant Mizu. So this is kind of as close to the Italy part of Ton as you can get without falling into Italy. And we're looking back at the old city that's always in all of the paintings and postcards and stuff. So literally our view. Is the part that's so beautiful. The part you're meant to see from the, from the water approaching ton.

Aimee 3:00

Right, right. That's pretty fantastic.

Rebecca 3:03

It's so crazy.

Aimee 3:05

So the process of moving, you guys rented a van.

Rebecca 3:10

Mm-hmm. Yep. We did, um, called a forgo, I think is what they call that in French. And um, it's just a cargo van and we had. Oh, we had inches left to spare, everything fit, but we moved here with like two large suitcases, two small suitcases and a cat. And Damien definitely moved a professional kitchen to this new apartment.

Aimee 3:41

Well, yes, he is a graduate now, so I would expect he would have all of the, a mom that comes with everything that he learned during his time studying.

Rebecca 3:51

Back when he was a carpenter. He always loved his tools, and this is just the new tools or toys, if you will, and I love it. I get to reap the rewards of it, but it does make us a bit less mobile than we thought we were.

Aimee 4:06

I would argue you are still nearly as mobile. It's just far less convenient.

Rebecca 4:13

I mean, I suppose you could say that about anybody, no matter how much stuff they own. It's a spectrum.

Aimee 4:20

It's a spectrum. Yeah. We'll just go with that. We'll go with that.

Rebecca 4:24

Yeah, we wouldn't fit on a plane at this point. Let's put it that way. Even if we paid for the extra baggage, it's not gonna.

Aimee 4:32

Yeah. Yeah. So this, that you rented, is it like U-Haul in the us? Like how is that, what is the process like renting a moving van in France?

Rebecca 4:46

Yeah, so I wasn't there and I'll have to, this is all be, this will all be hearsay, but we ended up renting it just from the same place we would rent a regular car. We rented it from sixth, but Damien did look into a couple of different options, and there are ones that are dedicated to moving and stuff. The, the challenge was that it was. Outrageously expensive because we were taking it from a major metropolitan center one way to a place where they're not picking up a lot of rental cars. And so those facts were against us. And I wanna say we ended up spending 12 or $1,400 for the rental, which is a significant amount of money. But by the time we did all this research, we were, this was already happening. It, that was the option available to us.

Aimee 5:34

Right, right. Okay. And so you went with the kind of regular car place simply because that company is more, because they're a car rental place, it ends up being more economical.

Rebecca 5:49

Yeah, basically. I mean, it was it, it was all about that price point no matter what. And so it wasn't just about that. It was also like, did they even have that option? Because there were places that said you can do this with us. But then when Damien inquired, they said, well. Actually you can't, we don't have that for you, you know, which is a very French experience, I find.

Aimee 6:11

Kidding.

Rebecca 6:14

Um, but he got it all together and we went first thing. That morning. Well, what we did is we unloaded the entire apartment and put everything in the lobby except for the cat. And then he went and got the car or the truck and parked it. And then we loaded it all from the lobby into the cargo van. And then he watched the van while I went upstairs, got the cat, and made sure that everything else was outta the apartment, left our keys. 'cause we'd done the landlord walk through the day before and then drove 10 hours to ton.

Aimee 6:46

And how did Murray feel about all of this?

Rebecca 6:49

You know, at this point he really definitely knows this is normal. He doesn't love it. He's not like, oh, let's go for a ride. But he was super chill about it and um, he was super chill about getting here. I mean, he has moved with us now over the last two years, two dozen times when you count all of our summer trips and stuff.

Aimee 7:09

that's true. Yeah. Yeah. He's been quite the traveling cat.

Rebecca 7:12

But you know, we've also figured out our system because sometimes he doesn't make it a full 10 hours without peeing. Depends on when he pees. 'cause he can't be prepared. Right. Um, so we bought puppy pee pads, but not the disposable kind. They actually make washable kinds, kind of like a mattress protector pad, and they're really absorbent. That's what I line his crate with now and I have a backup. And one of the trips we took, we did need that. And I just swapped it out like you would a diaper in, in the carrier. And it was, it was great. So we have, we really learned how to travel with him and obviously our animals respond to our own anxiety levels too. And so since we're

Aimee 7:54

Totally.

Rebecca 7:55

kind of old hat to all of this at this point too, the whole thing really felt easy. The blessing. So the, we're on the, what Americans would call the fifth floor, fourth floor in Europe, and we do have a small elevator about the same size as yours, Amy. So we were able to bring everything up in the elevator. The next,

Aimee 8:21

oh no, go ahead.

Rebecca 8:21

well, I was gonna say the next day the elevator was out. So.

Aimee 8:25

I was gonna ask, I was gonna ask, do you have a Jewish ghost in your elevator? Rebecca? Do you get have a Jewish ghost too?

Rebecca 8:32

Not, I'm guessing it's probably an Italian ghost in this case, 'cause the Italians and the French have swapped sides in this border a lot.

Aimee 8:39

Italians can be Jewish. French can be Jewish.

Rebecca 8:43

true. I'm just not getting the sense that it has to be particularly a religious sect for this particular ghost. No, it's just so, and I don't know if that's like super random or if that's a common thing with this elevator. I have no way to know, but I'm just so grateful.

Aimee 9:01

At this time you were not in the elevator when it decided to stop working.

Rebecca 9:05

Well, and that it was working at all when we had to hoist all of this kitchen stuff up. Oh my gosh, that would've been so frustrating. But I started playing mental game with myself, which makes these things go so much easier. If anybody listening knows the Holness family, I don't know if you know them right? You do.

Aimee 9:23

Oh yeah, I do.

Rebecca 9:25

Love them. They were on the Amazing race. And they, they won the amazing race, which made me so happy. And so whenever we're doing these moves and stuff now, I, I'm like, this is what I would be doing if I got to be on the Amazing Race, which I've always wanted to. So my job is just to move all this kitchen equipment up into this person's apartment as this and like, and gamifying in my own head, and it totally works.

Aimee 9:51

That's an awesome idea.

Rebecca 9:54

Plus it keeps you from like scowling and crying. 'cause you know you're on camera. I'll fake it. I'll fake my positive attitude.

Aimee 10:06

Take it till you make it. I mean, how much of that is the lived experience?

Rebecca 10:11

It is, but truly it could not have gone more easily. The landlord met us. He's super nice. Here we are living in a postcard.

Aimee 10:23

So awesome. What are some of the things you're looking forward to?

Rebecca 10:28

Well, I am really looking forward to when the weather's warm enough to swim, hopefully daily, and I'm definitely looking forward to checking out some of the hiking trails and stuff up the mountain. Right behind our house here. And then I'm excited to start writing my book. So Damien's internship starts next Wednesday, so about a week from tomorrow, and that's when I will be left to my own devices for long hours, we assume. And I will be teaching my classes, but also finally writing a book that I've been talking about writing for two years.

Aimee 10:59

Awesome. Are you gonna let us know a little bit about that

Rebecca 11:02

Oh, I would be delighted. It's called the Decide Method and it's about how we. Help other people make decisions from the lens of if you have clients that need to navigate a lot of decisions, how you can help them through that. And so it's the psychology of how we make decisions, what makes making decisions really hard and how we can make them harder for our clients, which is obviously the opposite of what most of us would wanna do. And it's all through the lens of an interior designer because like our whole job is helping people navigate. Thousands of decisions over months or even years and not lose their minds. I'm excited.

Aimee 11:44

Awesome. It sounds like something that could translate beyond just the design world.

Rebecca 11:52

It definitely is, and my, my mom and my husband are both encouraging me to write it as a more broad business book from the lens of an interior designer rather than just for the interior design community. This is one of the big decisions I have to make as I start writing it. 'cause all along I've been thinking just make it an industry focused book. Since that's my world, and that's my work, but it really does have merit beyond my industry. So I think I'm gonna try to write it more broadly and see if I can still keep the, the specificity of what I know and how I know to apply it.

Aimee 12:28

Yep. Yep.

Rebecca 12:30

Stay tuned.

Aimee 12:31

Stay tuned, everyone. you su suffer from decision fatigue, you may benefit from Rebecca's forthcoming book.

Rebecca 12:41

It is what I am hoping. I really do hope it's an incredibly useful book, but meanwhile, as I said, Damien's internship starts in eight days. He's very excited, he's very nervous. Super randomly. My mom sent us this article in one of the u usual big US papers or something. I can't remember the name. She's like, is this your city and is this his chef? So yeah, mom randomly comes across an article about Raz and reco, this very well known chef who apparently is really well regarded in our city and really well known, and I thought that was really lovely.

Aimee 13:23

That's so crazy. I have like empathy butterflies in my stomach. Well, I do hope he has opportunities to do more than just chop carrots for the next few months.

Rebecca 13:36

I hope so too. He's especially excited because this restaurant being at the level that it is, not only do they change their menu every or twice a week, which is a very unusual thing. So he, and he loves variety, but they have a proper Sassier, which is a chef dedicated to making sauces. And that's one of his favorite things to do. So he is really hoping to get to spend some time with this particular professional.

Aimee 14:03

amazing. Wow. That's so cool.

Rebecca 14:07

And then this, we've been talking more about these dinners, these pop-up dinners that he envisions doing once he is on his own. And we have been thinking that that would make sense to start back in Paris. But now that we're here and now that we're in this apartment. We're recognizing, you know, we knew this was a tourist town, but I don't think we knew how much it was a tourist town and we've already encountered so much English and so especially with, um, the Lemon Festival that happens in February. We're wondering if there's any chance we may start the dinners and we may start them here, but again, as we keep saying, we just don't know and we won't know for another six months.

Aimee 14:51

yeah, yeah. So the internship is six months.

Rebecca 14:54

Internship is officially four and a half months, but in my head I'm giving us a little bit of an emotional cushion to gather our thoughts.

Aimee 15:01

Yep. Yep. Definitely, definitely. That sounds so great. Wow. And I imagine Murray is like totally settled in. He sniffed out all the corners, checked things out, and now he is just like

Rebecca 15:16

yeah,

Aimee 15:17

on the couch and

Rebecca 15:18

literally. He is a, he is a puddle on the couch. He has molded himself to it. He is very chill and very happy. And our, oh my gosh, our apartment. So aside from this ridiculous view of the Mediterranean, apparently on a clear day we can look out and see Corsica,

Aimee 15:37

Wow.

Rebecca 15:38

deal. Um, but in addition to that, the actual apartment, I just feel like an a, a princess. I have all the little luxuries that nobody needs. Are so wonderful. Like two sinks. I have a his and her sink. That's amazing. I have dimmable lights. I have, I know I have canopies like sun awnings and the window shades that go down at the touch of a button and they, and they work like butter. Like this has all been renovated in the last year and we have a guest room where people can guest. I guess this is like the life. This is absolute luxury.

Aimee 16:20

I am super excited about your guest room. I'm not gonna lie.

Rebecca 16:23

I'm hoping you make use of it before, before you leave the country.

Aimee 16:28

Yeah. Yeah, me too.

Rebecca 16:30

because these are, they're good mattresses too.

Aimee 16:33

Cool. Great.

Rebecca 16:35

And I gotta tell you. Okay. I'm, I have to geek out about this for a second. So when we got here in the guest room, the two, the two twins were a king, which is not an uncommon thing, right. But. This particular mattress zips together to make a king. I never seen that before. And that's what I mean by these like luxury touches that just takes it to the next level.

Aimee 17:00

That's the dream is the zip up mattress situation because someone inevitably ends up falling in the crack and no bueno. No bueno.

Rebecca 17:12

And this isn't just a zipper on the top. It's a zipper on the top and the bottom. When it's zipped up, this thing is solid.

Aimee 17:19

That's wild.

Rebecca 17:20

That's, that's design for me. That's really what design is about for me. It's never been about, it's certainly not about brand names and it's not about a certain style. Those are kind of incidental to me. It's Does the space work for you? Do you have. Spot for your coloring books so you can grab them easily and color when you want to, which I don't yet, so I'm working on that. But those, these kinds of things where his beard bits can be in his sink and my stupid long hairs can be in my sink. It's like if you're gonna pay for luxury, they should, they just make your life a little easier, not just be for aesthetic effect.

Aimee 18:00

A hundred percent. A hundred percent

Rebecca 18:02

Yeah. Oh, there are some mosquitoes. that's,

Aimee 18:07

10.

Rebecca 18:09

I, I, I dunno why I'm surprised by this. It didn't even occur to me that I'd be moving back to mosquitoes. Um, and then, okay, I have to share this. It's so gross. But there, I've never seen one of these before, but I saw my first engorged tick.

Aimee 18:29

Oh, icky. No bueno.

Rebecca 18:32

I know. I know, I know, I know. Oh my gosh. And I didn't even understand

Aimee 18:35

It was not on. It wasn't on Marie, was

Rebecca 18:38

No, but I gave him a flea treatment immediately because I'm pretty sure it was actually on my landlord's dog. 'cause the dog was here and it was, it's one of those things where I saw a bug, this bug, no big deal. It was this really weird, really round bug. I'm like, that's gotta be a weird beetle. Didn't think anything of it. And then it got stepped on at some point when we were moving everything in. And then the bug blood, I was like, wow, that is a lot of blood. Or a juice, a bug juice. It's very red. I'm like, wow, that really looks like human blood. That's just a crazy bug. Didn't think anything of it. And then we get moved in and Damien's like, what's that? And I said, oh, it was a bug. It got squished. No big deal. And I go to clean it up and then I look at the flattened bug part and I looked at it and I don't know. What part of my monkey brain would even understand what a flattened engorged tick would look like. But I looked at this thing and I went, oh my heavens, I think I know what I'm looking at. And I Googled it and it was, and now I can't shake the icks, and I'm so sorry that I had to share that with the listeners and with you, but I needed somebody to share in my drama.

Aimee 19:49

Anybody who has a pet that goes outdoors and has fur or hair. And lives in most of, most areas in the continental US is going to be familiar with this situation. So, you know,

Rebecca 20:04

was 48 and a half years old before I found my first one.

Aimee 20:08

yeah, they are not, they're not pleasant.

Rebecca 20:11

There's something about ticks and leeches and things that. Latch on and suck your blood, that that is just hold next level of horror. So apparently there's ticks here and

Aimee 20:28

Good to know.

Rebecca 20:29

because I remember leaving Kentucky way back when I moved to Washington and being so excited that I was leaving like Lyme disease area. So clearly I do have a monkey part of my brain that is very familiar with this stuff and I've just not had to access it in a long time.

Aimee 20:44

yeah, yeah. Good to know. And actually that's actually, that is, it's really great that you found that immediately because you are gonna be out hiking in those mountains and you will

Rebecca 20:57

to do tick checks.

Aimee 20:59

Yeah.

Rebecca 20:59

So gross. Yeah. And wear the long pants. Wear the socks, which I wanna do anyway 'cause I'm so pale and I'm gonna have so much sun here. Oh, unrelated. But also fun thing to know, the bus system here works super well and we had to take the train because we had to actually drop that van off in Nice. So we had to get up the next morning, take the van back to Nice, and then take the train from NICE to Manon. So we've gotten to try that. Super easy. It was like 17 euro and the bus is about a Euro 50. If you get a set of passes and it's an app on your phone, could not be easier. The demographics here are definitely 60 and over.

Aimee 21:46

That's what I was expecting.

Rebecca 21:48

yeah, but And

Aimee 21:50

The young folk don't have the kind of money to be in Ton.

Rebecca 21:54

exactly, or. If they're here, I'm sure they're working during the day, like regular young folk.

Aimee 21:59

Right.

Rebecca 21:59

And then, um, they are friendlier. I've definitely seen more smiles and you can tell that these older folks know each other. They'll get on the bus and wave at each other and start up little conversations and they're definitely starting conversations with strangers too. I've noticed that. So that is a huge difference.

Aimee 22:19

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it'll, it'll be such a wildly different experience than Paris. I mean, any large city. It's just going to be more challenging to make those connections because people are living the city life and it's busy, you know?

Rebecca 22:35

Yeah, and I never minded it in Paris, but I'm notice, I'm definitely noticing the shift and I think it's gonna be a, just a lovely chapter. I mean. Just who gets to do this? How is this my real life?

Aimee 22:54

Yeah,

Rebecca 22:55

Ah. All right. Well that's probably enough bragging. Is there anything else interesting I could tell you about our move?

Aimee 23:02

I don't know. I don't know. Well, how far away is niece? So you had to take the van back to niece. Where is Niece in relation to you?

Rebecca 23:09

You know, I wanna say that was about a 45 minute train. It wasn't bad at all.

Aimee 23:13

Yeah, so that's funny because the train from Gerona to Barcelona is 45 minutes, and it typically costs between 13 and 17 Euro to take that one way. So consistent pricing between the two countries, which is, which is fascinating.

Rebecca 23:31

And this train system, it's the zoo, ZOU. Um, not to be confused with the bus system, which is the zest system. So I've got the zest and the zoo. But it would take me to can, it would take me to, uh, vRAN a place I've never even heard of before. Tiny little seaside town. Like, there's just seaside towns dotting the entire, um, Azure Coast, of course. And this train system connects all of them.

Aimee 23:58

Nice. Oh my gosh. There's so much good exploring that you're gonna have.

Rebecca 24:04

Yeah. And it's so accessible. So like, not having a car, I'm gonna still be able to get to everything I could need. Um, I can take the bus to the big supermarket. There are Ubers, but I, I don't see myself really needing them unless I'm like out super late at night. And why would I be in a, why would I be at the supermarket safe again? I just don't think I'll need it. And then I don't need Damien for any of this. I'll be so, it's so easy for me to explore

Aimee 24:31

Yeah. Yeah. Especially now that you have a couple years of French down your belt.

Rebecca 24:35

independently. Yeah, that helps a ton at

Aimee 24:40

Because Rebecca, two years ago, moving to a small seaside town on the Azure coast of France would not be saying, oh, it's just so easy to get around. I'm not worried at all. This is great.

Rebecca 24:53

I have come a long way. Yeah. And I've got my little, my little phrases ready 'cause it, I still can't get my brain going in French fast enough to catch what somebody says to me outta the blue. When that happens, it's still really like remarkable. Now I can say, you know, my French is very limited, which is better. 'cause I used to be like, my French is terrible, you know? And I'm like, no, it's not, it's limited. That's a, that's a more accurate statement. And then it also just slows them down. It's working great. I just, I'm not panicking like I would've two years ago. Yeah.

Aimee 25:33

awesome. Yeah. When someone talks to me in Kalan, I respond in Kalan saying, I'm sorry, I speak Kalan like a little girl.

Rebecca 25:42

Yeah,

Aimee 25:42

then.

Rebecca 25:47

exactly. And what's cool is that means like you we're, we're actually showing our personality a little bit and we're choosing to respond and not just the tourist freak out.

Aimee 25:56

exactly. Exactly. It's like, listen, if I'm gonna learn enough, cuddle on to tell them I do not, they should not be talking to me and cuddle on. I'm gonna do it in a way that makes them smile because

Rebecca 26:07

Exactly, and just signals that we're not here momentarily. Like there's something, there's something more permanent about us in some fashion.

Aimee 26:15

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm super excited for you and I'm excited to learn all the things that you're learning as you are living there. And yeah, maybe I'll abandon the boys and come visit for a weekend, or if they wanna come with me, they can come with me. We'll see.

Rebecca 26:33

Dip our toes in the Mediterranean together.

Aimee 26:35

I mean, we are gonna be in France. We're going to ous in two days on Thursday. We're gonna go to ous for a couple days, and then we're gonna scoot on over to Kaison for Shane's birthday.

Rebecca 26:48

Yeah, we looked so hard at trying to get ourselves over there, but we're just like, it would be, it would be too much

Aimee 26:57

yeah, it's not very close, unfortunately.

Rebecca 27:00

now, even if we met you halfway, that's still a three hour drive for us, and we'd have to rent a car again. There was no, the, the train would take a ridiculous amount of time for

Aimee 27:09

exactly. Yeah. 'cause you're not following the coast. You're going inland. Yeah,

Rebecca 27:12

Yeah, if we owned our own car, we, that would've been the thing that tipped it. Oh, it's just a three hour drive, let's do it. But with all the other logistics, you know, you can't do all the things.

Aimee 27:25

Even though we try.

Rebecca 27:28

Well, I think that's enough for my story today, and I just wanna make a mention to the listeners that I'm in a new place and I'm back to wanting to make friends. You happen to know of people. I don't know why you would, but if you happen to know people living in Monon, please let us know. We're looking for those new friends, and if you're gonna be visiting here, I would love for you to reach out to me on Instagram. We would love to have coffee with you, and if you're thinking about being an expat, happy to tell you all about our experiences and answer

Aimee 27:57

Yes. If there's anything we haven't covered in the. Previous 92 episodes, be sure to let us know and we'll do our best to answer your questions.

Rebecca 28:08

Exactly, and if we haven't said it in a while, I am on Instagram at be seriously happy. And Amy,

Aimee 28:14

I am at Vibrance Nutrition.

Rebecca 28:17

that's all for now folks.

Speaker 2 28:23

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Banla. If you did, the best thing you can do is share it with another person, brave enough to move abroad. See you next time.