The Expat Almanac

28/10/2021

Champagne as far as the eye can see My mother loved champagne. She smoked ci******es in an extravagant holder, crossed her long legs (she was proud of those legs!), and ordered first my dad, then after he died, me, to uncork a bottle of “the stars!” (As Dom Pérignon was said to have exclaimed: “Come quickly! I am tasting the stars!”) It’s a tradition I perpetuate: drinking the stars....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/10/28/drinking-the-stars/

Champagne as far as the eye can see My mother loved champagne. She smoked ci******es in an extravagant holder, crossed her long legs (she was proud of those legs!), and ordered first my dad, then a…

24/10/2021

We got here during Paris fashion week, and though my invitations to the shows got lost in the mail yet again this year, we did spot a model from the Chanel runway gliding around our neighborhood one evening. I knew because she was about nineteen years old, five-eleven, slim as bamboo, with a platinum Dutch boy haircut, and also I saw her on YouTube....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/10/24/paris-fashion-2021/

We got here during Paris fashion week, and though my invitations to the shows got lost in the mail yet again this year, we did spot a model from the Chanel runway gliding around our neighborhood on…

22/10/2021

Sunrise after the storm A howling wind came up the other night. We like to leave the bedroom window open when we sleep, for the air and the murmur of the city, but I awakened at 3:00 AM to what sounded like a hurricane. Leaves were blowing into the bedroom. Spooky! It's October, so spooky is good, but the howl of the wind whistling through that huge crane tested my tolerance....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/10/22/the-paris-i-love/

Sunrise after the storm A howling wind came up the other night. We like to leave the bedroom window open when we sleep, for the air and the murmur of the city, but I awakened at 3:00 AM to what sou…

20/10/2021

Bikes on the Quai de Montebello Paris is the most densely-populated city in Europe. When we were last here, traffic jams ruled. Bikes split lanes, riding between cars idling in traffic. Buses and Métro de Paris were SRO. Then came COVID. Mass transportation ridership plummeted. Impossibly, traffic got worse. Parking was as precious as platinum. Something had to be done, and it was bicycles that did the job—an estimated one million of them—and bicycle lanes....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/10/20/les-electricites/

Bikes on the Quai de Montebello Paris is the most densely-populated city in Europe. When we were last here, traffic jams ruled. Bikes split lanes, riding between cars idling in traffic. Buses and M…

16/10/2021

Tom and me in front of our Paris apartment It’s normal to be wary of what is foreign, so we understood completely when our friends questioned this trip to Europe. But Covid-wise, we feel very safe here. We are asked for our “passe sanitaire,” or vaccination certificate, at every restaurant, museum, and theater, even outdoors. (This is a QR code on our phones, but they like our cardboard ones too.) Everybody wears a mask indoors or risks one of those disapproving Gallic callouts complete with frown, or at worst, a bevy of waiters running towards you to block the door....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/10/16/skip-the-vaccine-if-you-want-but-we-wont-let-you-go-anywhere-fun/

Tom and me in front of our Paris apartment It’s normal to be wary of what is foreign, so we understood completely when our friends questioned this trip to Europe. But Covid-wise, we feel very safe …

03/10/2021

The view from the garden at Villa Principe Leopoldo Lugano. This was the place where Vacations by Rail pulled out all the stops by housing us in the luxurious Park Hotel Principe, the only location in the ten-day itinerary that required a cab....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/09/29/the-kitten-and-the-48-hamburger/

The view from the garden at Villa Principe Leopoldo Lugano. This was the place where Vacations by Rail pulled out all the stops by housing us in the luxurious Park Hotel Principe, the only location…

02/10/2021

Swiss Alps viewed from the Glacier Express After sleepy St. Moritz, it was time to take the Glacier Express, a full eight-hour tour of mountains, trees, cows, rushing glacial rivers, sheep, and perky Swiss villages—all viewed through panoramic windows, because the good stuff is too high to see from waist level....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/09/26/a-christmas-village-in-the-swiss-alps/

Swiss Alps viewed from the Glacier Express After sleepy St. Moritz, it was time to take the Glacier Express, a full eight-hour tour of mountains, trees, cows, rushing glacial rivers, sheep, and per…

28/09/2021

A Zurich restaurant courtyard. No test required. You may recall: when we left the States, we were told that Switzerland was requiring a valid negative COVID test result every three days in order to assemble indoors. When we arrived in Zurich, we found it really didn’t matter: the weather was warm and every restaurant offered picturesque outdoor seating....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/09/25/update-from-zurich/

A Zurich restaurant courtyard. No test required. You may recall: when we left the States, we were told that Switzerland was requiring a valid negative COVID test result every three days in order to…

28/09/2021

Boarding Air Portugal on our way to our Swiss railway journey It began with an email from Aer Lingus. Due to complications from COVID, they would have to change our departure city, which changed half a dozen connections down the line. We struggled for two days, trying to get to where we wanted, when we wanted to get there. Finally, we gave up, requested a full refund, and started from scratch—three days before departure....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/09/23/travel-in-the-time-of-covid/

Boarding Air Portugal on our way to our Swiss railway journey It began with an email from Aer Lingus. Due to complications from COVID, they would have to change our departure city, which changed ha…

28/09/2021

Hiking the Swiss Alps—downhill I just did something I never thought I would—hiked an Alp. I must admit that Tom and I hiked our Alp downhill after a lovely ski gondola ride uphill. (That’s me above, struggling with the elements on the perilous downhill journey.)...

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/09/28/st-moritz/

Hiking the Swiss Alps—downhill I just did something I never thought I would—hiked an Alp. I must admit that Tom and I hiked our Alp downhill after a lovely ski gondola ride uphill. (That’s me above…

28/09/2021

Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) in "Network." Like so many things, this blog has been on hold for twenty months. We all know why....

http://expat-almanac.com/2021/09/20/fools-rush-in/

Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) in “Network.” Like so many things, this blog has been on hold for twenty months. We all know why.

22/09/2021

From Louise:

Here we are in first class on the way to Zurich, sipping coffee from an actual china cup, pretty excited about being in Europe again after so long. Of course, we are too cheap for First Class, so what are we doing here? I suspect that the Delta variant has caused so many cancellations that airline prices went down, and we could get an upgrade without mortgaging the condo. Photo attached of coach class mid-flight.

The folks who opted out of travel this fall were sensible people. Being not sensible, we decided to go to Europe anyway. Entering a wider, virus-soaked world is not for everyone; our friends think we are either nuts, brave, or suicidal. But really, we were just desperate to go somewhere.

And does danger lurk around every corner? Maybe, but honestly, we haven't felt so safe since kindergarten. To get on an international flight in the first place, we all had to produce a negative Covid test no more than 48 hours old, so we knew we weren't flying with sick people. Oh, it’s a tad tricky to get a test that produces results in exactly that time frame, but the Portland airport had a pop up clinic under a white tent (apparently manned by a team of resourceful California gypsies) where you could do a quickie for only $165!

Once we got to our first stop in Lisbon, we learned that only three kinds of masks were acceptable for boarding the next leg, and that we should discard and change these special masks every three hours. Isn't that reassuring? `And hardly any trouble at all.

And now we have made it to beautiful Zurich, Switzerland, with its yummy spaetzle, noodles, wurst, schnitzel and fondue, all of which we are allowed to eat outdoors. Should we want to eat indoors, the impeccable Swiss have declared, we must present a negative test result that is less than 72 hours old, easily obtained from a nurse stationed on the sidewalk across the street. The line is long before breakfast and dinner, but it doesn’t matter, because we feel so secure.

And to think we scrambled to get European vaccination codes! That's the one thing that nobody has asked for.

17/09/2021

Remember the heady days of travel? Of being expats? It’s hard to believe that those carefree travelers posed for the picture below only five years ago. So much has changed since then.

We have been postponing travel for over two years. While we were postponing, Notre Dame burned, another Supreme was appointed, Delta raged, and people said, "next year…" but next year never came. The opportunity is marginal, but today a window is open for travel. Who knows about tomorrow?

We know: The world frowns on tourism. Regardless, we’re going to forge forward, knowing we are the bad guys, knowing there will be roadblocks, knowing we may not even get out of the country, let alone get back in again.

All of which is to say we’re leaving this weekend to spend ten days in the Swiss Alps, then a month in Paris on the Left Bank overlooking Notre Dame.

We’ll post updates and photos here. We hope you’ll follow along.