BIG NEWS
A spread from LET’S BEEN THERE, Matt’s new travel photography book
After teasing this book for the past few weeks—no, months—I am proud to announce that it is finally available for purchase. And like everything in my life since I moved to Europe, it has been a supreme test of my patience. I just looked and saw that I paid the first deposit with the printer back in January!
This is how these projects tend to go, however. The design, proofing, and printing process takes time to perfect and that all actually went pretty smoothly taking about six weeks. It was the shipping of the books from Europe to the USA where they will be warehoused and distributed (nobody wants to pay $35 per copy to have them shipped from Europe) that ended up taking so long. And we can thank the outbreak of the war and the impact on fuel and shipping for this.
Today is a big day and one I have been wanting to share with you all. The book is beautiful and designed with all of my intent to share my travels of the past couple of years. For those that follow this blog you may recognize some of the images and there are many others that I am showing for the first time. Seeing them in book form does something to the way the photographs are absorbed. The book form encourages you to linger in a way that looking at images digitally just can’t accomplish. Each time you look at them you’ll notice something else you hadn’t before. They’ll remind you of the time you were there yourself, or perhaps they will inspire you to finally book those tickets.
The cover is a beautiful linen cloth and the text in embossed with a stamped foil. The interior pages are thick high quality art paper and of course the printing is superb showing all of the detail and color that are in the original images. I can’t wait for you to hold it in your hands.
Many of you have asked me repeatedly when the dang thing was going to be out and that has kept my spirits lifted, so thank you.
High quality printing and binding
In other big news, we are moving to Dijon, France, in Burgundy, in just four days from today. My last post explained in detail the why and how of choosing Dijon, so please catch that post if you’re at all curious.
We were in Dijon last week doing the final inspection of the apartment and receiving the keys. The process here in France for this is very comprehensive. It is somebody’s job to come do this and they are hired by the owner’s agency. The man who met us at the apartment was very kind and we bumbled along in broken French and English as he literally inspected every square centimeter of the place. He tested every faucet, burner, shower head, window clasp, lock, hinge, blind, shutter, well you get the point. Nothing goes untested and unrecorded. The tiniest ding in the 126 year-old walls is marked and recorded. It is simultaneously very reassuring to know you are moving into someplace that is so cared for, and also a harbinger of what will come on the day you move out.
After three hours with this guy, we were handed the keys and we stood inside the empty apartment and just looked at each other. Were we really doing this…again? I am positive that those of you who know me understand me to be someone who has a chronic mental illness. How else can anyone explain the number of times I have moved in my life. I did an AI search to find out if there is any scientific name for this condition, you know, like ______phobia. But nothing, really. Peripatetic, nomadic, or itinerant, defines someone who perhaps doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Somebody who moves because they were forced out of their home and are searching for safe harbor. I did see the term “Akathisia",” which is defined as: The clinical/medical term for a profound, uncontrollable inner restlessness and a physical compulsion to constantly move (often a side effect of medication). But I think that is more like when my brother could never stop shaking his leg when we were growing up. He just had endless energy to burn. I just don’t see any medical term for what I have continued to do my entire life.
So when I say I hope this apartment will be it. The last place. It has everything I need and could want. It’s in a great location and fits my lifestyle perfectly. I will understand when I hear your muffled chuckles across the pond.
Before we left Dijon we went to a furniture store to buy some furniture. Our place in Nice is furnished and while that made for a soft landing here in France, the reality of that is also you are living on couches, chairs, and beds that aren’t something you probably would have chosen. We sold all of the furniture we owned as part of the house package back in Federal Way in 2024. That furniture was collected over decades. It is a decadent feeling to walk into a furniture store and point at things and say I’ll take that, and that, and that. We had a terrific young man helping us who spoke perfect English (he majored in English, he said) and he was also very stylish. That translated into an ability to understand our aesthetics and help us make good choices. Furniture in Europe is so much cheaper than in the USA. I don’t mean the quality, I am talking price. A $5,000 dining table and chairs from Renovation Hardware or Crate & Barrel in the USA is about €800 here in France. We spent four hours with Jules picking out the things we will need in our unfurnished apartment. I walked out in a bit of shock, but have not yet experienced buyer’s remorse, so I think we did okay.
Here is another thing about Europe that is different than the USA. When you rent an apartment, there are usually no appliances or light fixtures. As a renter you are expected to buy your own and you take them with you when you move. There are holes where appliances go in the kitchen and there are raw light bulbs hanging from the fixtures by two wires in all of the rooms. So the next day we went off to an appliance store at the mall in Dijon. The tram picked us up near our apartment and deposited us at the front door to the mall, very conveniently.
Again, we got so lucky. We were milling around the dishwashers—they all look the same—when Yann (pronounced Ian) approached us and spoke to us in pretty good English. It turns out that this guy worked at the appliance store for 15 years and he was an absolute guru. We spent another four hours with this guy picking out a dishwasher, fridge, washing machine, a toaster, a coffee maker, and a TV. He broke down all of the pros and cons for us of anything we looked at. In France, they are very preoccupied with the power and energy usage of their appliances. They are all rated A–F and the differences between them translate into bigger or smaller power bills. Yann pushed us towards A rated appliances, things that were built tough (at one point he opened a dishwasher door and jumped up and down on it) and things that were made in Germany. Yes, we bought that dishwasher. I have never been to a store and bought all the appliances.
So, in those two days I felt like I had done something very naughty, but we are going to be very comfortable. And since we got back to Nice last week we have packed everything up here and we await the movers and truck coming early next week. We have an intense schedule for the next ten days with scheduled pick ups, cleaners, a final train journey back to Dijon, and then the move in and deliveries.
As I walk around Nice this week, the weather is perfection. The tourists are in full descent. And I am feeling a mix of excitement and a bit of regret. Our time here has been perfect and by that I mean perfectly timed. It was the exact right place to land and acclimate to France. I’m sure we are going to miss it. Now, with some experience under our belts, we’re ready for the next big chapter in this crazy life.
I hope you’ll order your copy of the book.