We’re not looking back, only ahead
Christmas 2025, Nice, France
This is the time of year when we’re inundated with reflections, summaries, and best of lists. Being that it is Christmas week and we’re back home in Nice, we’ve been hibernating a bit more than usual after traveling for the past month. For me, that means lots of YouTube and internet, and cooking one pot comfort meals every night. I can feel my pants tightening by the day. I have seen at least twenty best books of the year lists from the New York Times, Powell’s Books, Goodreads, and the several “book tubers” that I follow regularly. I have also seen another ten or so Best Movies of 2025 lists. I have a lot of catching up to do there. There have been the Best Christmas Markets of Europe videos, the Best Villages of Provence, and even political lists of the best and worst policies of so and so. Well, not so many best videos there.
I considered writing something similar today. Maybe a “best places I’ve traveled this year”' or the “top ten wines I drank,” or the top ten reasons I made Chien-hui mad at me. I know you’d all enjoy reading that one, while literally only four of you would read the top ten wines post. You know who you are and I love you.
No, screw it, I am not looking back. I can sum the year up in one sentence: I can’t believe I am still alive in 2025, that I live in France, and I spend my days chasing after hobbies. Am I grateful, you bet I am. Instead, I am going to write about 2026 and what I am most looking forward to and perhaps dreading a little bit.
This year was the second Christmas we spent in Europe. You can read the last two posts to get my reflections on what the holidays are like in Strasbourg, Champagne, and Paris. Something I haven’t talked about is how much I miss Christmas with my family, or families as it were. This year we woke up on Christmas morning and it might as well been a Tuesday in April. Nothing that resembled the usual excitement of Christmas was in the air. There were no decorations, no smells, no piles of torn wrapping paper blocking the paths to the kitchen or bathroom, and no agendas being discussed regarding how many stops we would be making that day in order to see everyone. Only a forced sense of excitement on how I was looking forward to making a Christmas dinner of salmon with potato and leek gratin, followed by a Normandy Calvados apple walnut cake. Christmas salmon? Very French. Sigh. (It was delicious.) So, as wonderful as being here has been in both 2024 and 2025, for Christmas 2026, I am looking forward to going home.
Fortunately, 2026 will continue to bring more visitors on the conveyor belt that has been running nonstop since we moved here from the US to the EU. I have been very thankful that so many people have stopped by to see us over the past year while they were on their vacations. This upcoming year we have visitors coming in February, March, April, and November already scheduled. Obviously, this makes being so far away much easier to handle. I particularly like playing tour guide for places like Provence, the Côte d’Azur, or Paris now that I am so versed in them.
Travel will continue in 2026 and in a pretty big way. On the calendar, I have tickets already for London in January and June to take two more wine exams in pursuit of my WSET Diploma. Then it’s off to Florence in February with friends and Barcelona in March with my aunt and uncle. In April we’ll take the train to the Languedoc region in SW France to see more friends and then we’re off to Portugal to see my brother while he’s there. He lives and surfs in Central America now. Then it’s the Netherlands in July to attend a wedding, so I’ll get to visit Amsterdam again. The last time was 1998. Finally, it looks like plans for a visit to southern Spain are solidifying for November with Chien-hui’s family. They learned their lesson after freezing in Amsterdam this past November and they are wisely chasing the sun next year. We’re also going to make it to the last major wine region of France that I haven’t been to yet: Bordeaux. My expertise in France and French wine is always on call for any of you, feel free to just reach out. I know some of you already do on a regular basis!
Of course, this will give me plenty to write about and more importantly to photograph. It all reads as very exotic doesn’t it? Would your reaction be the same if the destinations were Walla Walla, Portland, Boise, Vancouver, and maybe San Francisco? I don’t think so. But the distances from Nice to these European destinations are nearly the same as those from Seattle to those Pacific Northwest American cities, and cheaper to get to. This is the true advantage of living here and it makes the bureaucracy and language learning all worth it for me.
But, I did learn a great lesson in 2025: It may be wonderful for me, but travel isn’t for everyone. My assumption that everyone wants to travel or to integrate some place far away is only my projection, not any kind of truth. How do I know this? Over the two years we have been on the road we have run into or even just overheard other Americans while we are out and about, and a lot of them seem pretty miserable. Mostly because they don’t know how to travel correctly and they haven’t done their homework. Simple things like not dragging a giant roller bag, or three, around the cobblestone streets or up the stairs of Europe would dramatically increase their pleasure. And what is the deal with young women carrying around their bed pillows from back home? Worse, and this makes me cringe every time I hear it, is witnessing the interactions Americans are having with Europeans. Inevitably, they don’t even begin their conversations with some form of hello, then they use slang to ask for things, in English. “I’ll do a latte. Do you have oat milk” This earns them a blank stare. The Europeans, especially the French, who have to deal with the onslaught of travelers are considered rude when they don’t smile in these moments.
Listen, the customer is never right in Europe. In fact, their perspective is that you and they are equals and your interactions, regardless of type, are exchanges of politeness and respect. Thus, the French national motto, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Instead, if Americans, but all foreign travelers, really, would just take a little time to learn a little common courtesy, how things work over here, and three words of the local language—please, thank you, and hello—American reputations would improve along with their travel experiences. I think what bothers me the most is that Americans come to Europe expecting life to be just like the USA and so they act as if they are back in the USA. It does beg the question why they have crossed the pond to begin with. For a lot of people, staying home in your sweats and UGG boots might be the better choice.
Woah, sidetrack rant over. Continuing with things I am looking forward to in 2026…
I recently received my French health care card, the carte vitale. Which also means I now have a French social security number. This also means I am allowed to use the French health care system, and I will be reimbursed for up to 70% of the already very inexpensive costs of visiting my doctors, the pharmacy, or God forbid, any kind of catastrophic health scare. (The remaining 30% is covered by a very inexpensive annual top-up policy.) By no means does this make me French. I will never be French, I am just a fortunate guest in this country. But receiving the carte vitale does make me feel like I officially belong here.
Actually, what will really accomplish that will be to receive my permanent resident card. This is sort of the equivalent of the American green card. We have been staying here all year on what is called a long-stay visa, which was granted to us by the French embassy in Washington, DC. Normal travel for any Americans visiting France allows us to stay for 90 days and then we have to leave Europe, not just France, for another 90 days before we are allowed to return again. The long-stay visa granted us an entire year to live in France and travel throughout the EU without the 90-day restriction. At the end of the year you either have to skedaddle and go home, or you can apply to convert your long-stay visa into a permanent residency, which is good for two years. If granted, the government sends you a document proving your validity to stay in the country, and a picture ID which you can use for travel or other services. At the culmination of the two year residency, you are able to apply and renew it again for two more years. Then with the total of your one-year visa, and your two two-year residencies, you can apply for citizenship (a French passport) assuming you pass the history, culture, and language tests. Or you can instead apply to receive a 10-year residency card, but you will be unable to vote. It’s exactly the same way in the US.
You can’t apply for the first two year residency until you are within 60 days of your long-stay visa expiring. In typical French fashion, we have been told by numerous expats that we should actually apply 90 days ahead of time, since the government is so back logged. We both applied this week and so, yes, I am very much looking forward to receiving those cards some day in 2026. We have been very welcomed by France since we arrived, and by the French people we know. They literally say to us, “Welcome to France,” which let me tell you, is music to my ears. When you worry about your language skills, or if you belong in the place you live, having someone who is French say to you welcome, it goes so far in making you feel a sense of relief and belonging. Having the official recognition will be even sweeter. The day I get mine, I am going to run outside and call out to the first person I see with a rolly-bag, “Tourist!”
This week our American neighbors lost their dog to old age. Anyone who has been through that experience knows how truly awful it is. The dog, Koval, was well-known throughout the building because the poor little guy had bladder issues, which meant that his Mommy and Daddy had to take him out about every twenty minutes it seemed. This meant that everyone in the building knew them and had run into them many times. To their credit, and given how distraught they were, they still managed to invite everyone to the lobby of our building for a Christmas day Champagne farewell toast. There are twenty units in our building, most of them owned by French people. I was honestly surprised at how many people showed up in the lobby at 1:00pm. I don’t think it was just because they provided the Champagne, although that didn’t hurt. Rather, I think the little dog, Koval, had touched everyone in some way. We honored Koval with a toast, and did our best in multiple languages to help the red-eyed grieving parents to find some kind of solace. The conversations flew after that. There was a friend of one of our neighbors visiting who was a professor from Chile, who spoke four languages. My next door neighbors are from Turin, Italy. The conversations moved between French, English, Spanish, and Italian. Everyone was so kind and welcoming and although I don’t think it was the intent to build community through the loss of a dog, that’s kind of what happened. So, in 2026, I look forward to spending more time with my neighbors and getting to know them better while we continue to find our place here in France.
I’ll end this post and my last of 2025 with a bit of exciting news. I hear from a lot of you how much you enjoy this blog. I am always deeply flattered when I do, and I love reading the comments on either the site or in social media. So, thank you. It’s a toss-up between the writing or the photography that people seem to enjoy the most. Either way is fine with me, and I plan to keep the blog going for the foreseeable future. That isn’t the exciting news, however. What is is that I am publishing a book of my travel photographs early next year. The book will encompass the best of my travel work from 2023-2025. If you didn’t already know, I had a long career as a graphic designer and art director, so I have designed a truly collectable and beautiful art book. Gorgeous paper stock, large format, large lush images, crisp detail, rich color, and a not-too-long essay, all in a fresh design with an elegant cloth bound cover and foil stamp embossed typography. The book features 85 images from around the world. A true collector’s item. I hope you’ll keep your eye out for it and order your copy. I will be happy to sign them.
I published my last book, Answer Yourself, in 2003. Entirely too long ago. While I did spend a decade painting between then and now, I never gave up photographing. In fact, I have been photographing seriously since I was 12 years old. Many of my art photography projects took years to complete and they have been sitting in limbo waiting for the world to see them. Now that I am living in France and I have more time to dedicate to publishing, I will be release not only the travel book in 2026, but two more books based on those photography projects, forthcoming in 2026-2028.
You can see that I have so much to look forward to and I hope you’ll continue to follow along and add these books to your collections as they appear. Here is a tease of the cover of the forthcoming book.
Publishing early 2026
Happy New Year and see you in 2026.