Angers: Wait. Why Angers?

3 hours ago

4 min read

So, we arrived in Angers on October 9th.

Noooo - not AngGrrrs. 😡 Like this: Ahhn-Zhay Or this, if it's easier: On-Jay We're here after having the luxury of a lovely month with far-flung family and friends, plus the little top-off of a few days in Lyon to figure out mainland France for ourselves.

But now we're here in Angers to get serious about figuring out what our lives could look like for the next 20 to 30 years or so.

Why are we doing this?

Well, a lot of you - our close friends and family anyway - were already cued into the reality that living in Seattle wasn't gonna be sustainable for us any longer.

It's no secret living in Seattle has become expensive. Between my five years out of the work-force, the travails of menopause, and the existence of AI 🙄, I knew I couldn't compete in Seattle's already tight job market. Oh sure, there's that Pilates certificate I'd pocketed. Alas, as much as I enjoyed teaching Pilates, I wouldn't have been able to teach enough of them to make Seattle viable for us. And, after running Hampsten Cycles for twenty-seven glorious years, Steve realized retirement held more than a little appeal. With these points in mind, we knew we'd have to sell the house and get out of town.

To that end, last spring we toured the Olympic Peninsula for two weeks thinking it might be an affordable corner of the world to weather climate-change. But dang if my old stomping ground no longer felt like home. And sour grapes tells me we wouldn't be able to afford to live there long anyway. 😔 Studying maps, weather-disasters, and news from around the rest of the country, we couldn't find anywhere that captivated us. Which really bummed us out. But bully for the rest of you who feel you can stick it out. More power to you! 🍻✊

But, as it turned out, both of us had long harbored fantasies about living abroad.

Anyway, we turned our attention to Italy. Who wouldn't want to move to Italy?! What a wonderland! So, we did a shit-ton of research, dove into the logistics, committed to learning the language . . . and eventually sobered up; Italy wasn't gonna fly - the hurdles to score an Italian residency visa were just too high for us. Then we looked at Uruguay. After all, Steve's mom was deeply fond of the place. Plus, it looked pretty easy to get a visa. But again, after we dug a little deeper we learned Uruguay "didn't check enough boxes" and settling there would've presented more challenges than we knew we could bear.

We also briefly considered Mexico whose visa requirements were way out of reach and Costa Rica where there didn't seem to be much in the way of cycling infrastructure. Several friends recommended we check out Portugal. But we already knew the Portuguese had regrets about how wide they'd opened the door and the visa would also be difficult for us to obtain.

Ahhh, but what about France? 🤔 More research, more weighing of logistics. Yet again, we discovered a few hurdles but for once, they seemed leap-able. We even started to dip into the language, which had long intimidated me - et voilá! - it's my new(est) hobby. Turns out, even children can learn it. 😂

So, now that we settled on France, it became of question of where in France: Lyon? Dijon? Bordeaux? La Rochelle? Bastia? Oooh, Nice looks nice. Probably too nice ...

Beziers? Perpignan? Montpellier? Somewhere with pretty beaches and places to ride bikes would be fantastic.

Then, starting this summer, a few out-of-the-blue happenings narrowed possibilities, in chronological order:

The fantasy of southwest France melted under the relentless inhumane heat dome.
Then those wildfires chased us away from the Atlantic coast.
Then some health-issues cropped up to remind us we ought to keep close to convenient medical care - and eventual geriatric-assistance - so that nixed island-life. (Take it from us, it's never to early to start thinking about life in your 80s-90s: "If I knew I'd live this long . . ." -kind of planning. Start now - or live to regret it.)
Then headlines about a resurgent xenophobic movement had us seeking areas with more tolerance to outsiders, steering us towards mid-sized university towns.
Then we figured out the Loire Valley falls along the same latitude as Seattle. Everything north of the Loire River gets more winter than we're suited for, and everything south of there would likely make us wilt.
So, then we found three towns in the Loire Valley that seemed worth a sniff: Nantes, Angers, and Tours.
Then, one of my dear writing buddies connected me with one of her old school-pals who'd settled in Angers and after an e-introduction, we were invited to a "chin-wag" whenever we planned a pass through town. (Funnily enough, we later learned this Angers-connection was also a school pal with one of Steve's buddies - so how 'bout them apples?!
Sometimes, the world just gets smaller n' smaller.)
Then, while chatting with Steve's Aunt Fifi in Cambridge, we learned she adored Angers during her years of researching French feminists and gave it a hearty endorsement.