THE BIG MOMENT: OUR LONG AWAITED BOXES HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED FROM THE USA- WATCH OUR REAL MOVING DAY! 

Yes, it was devastating to plug in the coffee/espresso maker, all excited at the prospect of my first cup of coffee at home, in months, to have it gone in literally a "flash and a pop"! I did order another, much less expensive Nespresso machine, and had it 2 days later. Thank you Amazon! We will be showing the apartment tour in a couple of weeks! And yes, one day soon, we'll do a neighborhood walk video. There's so much to show everyone !

No, other than using Adrian Leeds Group, the expat from the US who specializes in assisting other expats from the US, (whose colleagues found us our apartment), I did all of the research for every other requirement, application and process for our move to France. In fact, if you look at my past videos from the last 1-2 years, I created videos showing how we did it.

@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears Thank you, An! I will look at them tomorrow. Again, wonderful videos!

I guess we both made good selections

The moving company we used was International Movers Network. They picked our things up in Florida and made all other arrangements for the shipping. They seamlessly coordinate acquiring the container to combine our things in with their other clients' things, (the container our things went in, included 15 different clients' loads, based on tracking sent to us once everything was loaded on the ship) getting it onto a ship headed to Rotterdam NL and delivery through their associate in the Netherlands who drove our things to Nice France for delivery. It was around $4300 door to door for shipping the 60 boxes, a lingerie chest and a large framed picture. (Not including what we spent on buying the boxes from Uhaul and massive amounts of bubblewrap that ordered as needed from Amazon.) We packed everything ourselves, except for the chest and large picture which they packaged for us. That also included insurance. We also shipped 7 other boxes using Sendmybag.com which was close to another $1000. Expensive, but they shipped them by air using DHL and those arrived in just 7 days days.

For us, a great find. Maybe we'll save a few Euros on the typical cost of eating out in restaurants so much when we don't feel like cooking. So far, everything we've purchased there has been delicious!

I am living through you in Nice right now, but would like to move very there. We have given away all the things we spent lots of money to acquire but still have too much. Our storage unit here is at least 3times the size of yours for about the same money but we haven’t even ok’d at the stuff in over a year. It s a ridiculous waste of money. We do need another round of divesting and stop throwing good money after bad. Simply no room

We prefer not to talk about our exact expenses. Let it suffice to say that we are spending less than 1/2 of what our normal outlay was when we lived in Naples, Florida. I will say that our rent is less than 1/2 of the money for a place less than 1/2 the size. We have no cars or car payments or car insurance anymore. Our cellphone bills are less than than 30 euros a month combined. Our electric is an average of under 40 euros a month, instead of electric bills of $300 or more 12 months per year, in Florida, out Internet is around 29 dollars per month instead of over $150 to Comcast Xfinity every month and we dropped our $178 part B medicare deduction....and so on and so on. We paid off all of our creditors before we left and simply live on our Social Security benefits and a modest savings account we put together only in the last few years. If we can do it, anyone can! Good luck to you!

@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears Thank you very much, See you in Nice I hope , especially Bella

@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears You are very charismatic couple, good luck! You are our heroes!!

We did not bring televisions. We purchased a new one here. We did bring both of our laptops, but ordered new power cords for both of them from Amazon France, to be sure they would arrive with correct EU plug ends, by default, the day we arrived, in France. Until we received the new power cords, we used the ones from the US with adapters, and they worked just fine. We also brought our Amazon "Alexa" and an electric wine cork remover, both of which work just fine with power adapters. Also our cellphone chargers are from the US. We use power adapters for them as well.

@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears so happy for both of you to be living a great new phase of your life.. enjoy watching these stories. so interesting ..

Most of us who grew up in the 50's and 60's grew up with mothers who hung the laundry outside. Miraculously, we didn't have bird poop on our towels or pollen, that we're aware of, and if it was there but invisible we built up a tolerance to it. We grew up in young suburban communities, built after the war, in the early 50's. Interesting that you and your husband are considering buying an old castle in France. You seem to dislike the idea of a lot of the things you would have to do without while you are renovating the place. No clothes dryers, no garbage disposal no screens on the windows, to keep the mosquitoes out in the summer. Many have no heating system and are very drafty in the winter. They don't come with air conditioning either. Many need new roofs, new flooring, new electrical wiring and plumbing. $300k is a drop in the bucket considering what you will need to spend to renovate one of these grand homes to make it livable and lovely. You seem like someone who appreciates all the conveniences that come with living in the US. And, don't forget the taxes. Many of the castles are empty and left in ruins today, because the heirs of those who built the homes hundreds of years ago, could not afford to keep them up and pay the taxes on them. I hope you have very deep pockets for an undertaking like that. Oh, and those 300k chateaux for sale aren't near lots of shopping. You have to drive to big cities to find malls and stores where you can "shop shop shop". You have to be ready to give up the conveniences of living in SW Florida and higher end stores. And you're going to let your poor husband do all the work? Why would he agree to an agreement like that?

@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears 🍎 Fabulous, blue skies, gorgeous day in our part of the world! We watch a lot of RU-vid channels on the fabulous Chateaux in France. If you read my comment again, the part about the Chateaux, I said we're looking to buy a Chateau for $300K and up. We're not talking about a bad run down Chateau to purchase. #1 The mayor of any town in France that you're going to purchase a Chateau in, whatever major work you do on the chateau, you must request what you're going to do and submit blueprints of the work that's going to be done. He will determine and make a decision of your request and you can't do anything on the chateau without his permission. So if you watch a lot of the DIY Chateaux in France for the major work, 90% of the people will hire an electrician, a plumber, all the major work if they don't know how to do it by the standards of the county, then you have to hire someone. As far as my husband, just like all the other husbands if there's one in the Chateaux they bought, they do the other handyman work because it's their passion and the love for owning one of these fabulous Chateaux. So since my husband is from Denmark and is tall, handsome and strong and knows how to do a lot of DIY, he will even help the neighbors with their DIY as 95% of European men even in their 20's know how to do all kinds of DIY, not to mention construction work. All of the RU-vid Chateaux we watch how the work is done in the Chateau, all of them have the biggest appliances in the Chateau that you can buy and have installed with the right plumbing and fixtures. As big or even bigger than the ones in America. As far as having screening in the windows, some Chateaux don't like the screening, but it doesn't mean that you can't put screens on the windows. And yes, they all have gas heaters and AC if they want to purchase it. So stop being negative about you can't do this and you can't do that in a Chateau because it's just the opposite. What I have just told you in this comment, it seems like you have no idea about Chateaux. Some of the DIY Chateaux people have chosen to have antique furniture and try to keep the original looks with wallpaper, and some of the other Chateaux being purchased, they want everything to look Americanized. So you can say No No No to this and that and the opposite of your negative thinking. We are going to do whatever it takes to purchase a Chateau whether it's $300K or more. For your information, when you purchase a Chateau, the mayor has to come over and see how you're improving the chateau to the standards of the town. I don't like negative people, especially when you tell them something good and they try to make it wrong. So I think I'll have to divorce you, but you have Jeff to say yes to everything that he doesn't agree with what you're saying and put up with you, but we don't. So we are so divorced and really don't have any more time, as we're shopping, shopping, shopping with a realtor for that fabulous Chateau! It seems like there's a lot of things you don't know about Chateaux so I've got to go! We know a hell lot more than you do and we don't live in France as yet! 🌴