Foreign Perspectives

Archive for May, 2007

Although your first thought might be that Americans in France would end up, for the most part, in the same areas of France as the Brits, this isn’t actually the case so funnily enough there is very little interaction between the two communities.

Generally speaking, the Brits end up in Brittany/Normandy, Dordogne/Loire, and Provence with the Americans largely confined to Paris, though obviously there are a lot of exceptions to this.

One of the more complete sites is Americans in France which seems to be a fairly complete reference guide for Americans aiming to move over here. Interestingly for me is that they still need to declare their income to the US tax authorities.

Of interest to the parents amongst us is the list of bilingual schools. You might think that the list on the site “must” be too short. There are bound to be more bilingual schools in France, aren’t there? Well, there might be a few more but there aren’t an awful lot more which is something you may want to factor in when you’re considering where in France you might want to settle. If you don’t arrange bilingual teaching for your children from about age 11-18, they will not be fluent English speakers and that will set them at a major disadvantage in their future life.

Not listed on the site are the international schools though there aren’t many of these either and bilingual is the way to go. International schools don’t raise children to fluency in both languages as you might expect.

Anyway, lots to see on the site.

One of the advantages of the various link exchange schemes that I’ve been getting involved in lately is that I come across quite a different range of blogs than I would have done otherwise and have been pinching good ideas all over the place as you’ve seen from the changes in the site.

Anyway, the latest one of these is Infektia.net which runs through quite a range of things in a stream of mostly short posts. She’s also running a mutual blog review project which should bring a few more blogs to my notice over the coming weeks.

Interestingly, for me, is that she’s actively searching out for places running sponsored post schemes which is something of an interest for me at the moment. Don’t panic about there being a glut of sponsored posts here though as I’m very picky about such things.

Anyway, worth a look if you want to see what a more “girly” blog can look like.

After you book your holiday, there are a number of things that you need to do in advance of the vacation itself. This is a fairly comprehensive list so not all items will be required for every country you visit.

Visas. Check with the embassies in your own country if you need a visa to visit the countries you are going to (this information is usually available online). It’s best to do this well ahead of your vacation as visas can take months to issue.

Vaccinations. Ask your doctor which vaccinations that you should have for the countries that you are visiting. For the most part, you don’t need vaccinations to visit mainstream countries but there are some surprising exceptions to this eg Tetanus for Hawaii, Typhoid for New Zealand so it pays to ask. You need to have some injections months ahead of your travel date.

Passport. You obviously need a passport but check that it will have at least six months remaining on it by the time you are coming home. A number of countries require this.

Insurance. Whilst you might think you only need insurance for the trip, you actually require this insurance as soon as you make the booking in case something comes up requiring you to cancel. If you already have health insurance, you may be able to extend this to cover you abroad. House insurance may cover your belongings whilst on holiday too (check this with your insurance company).

Debit/Credit cards. Change to a four digit numeric PIN. Not all countries accept more than four digits. Check the cost of using your cards abroad both in shops and in ATMs. If you don’t have both Visa and Mastercard, get the one you don’t have as not all countries accept both in equal measure. See our holiday money article for more information on this. Make a list of the numbers and cancellation phone numbers for the cards that you plan on taking. It’s best to limit the number of cards you take to about three or four in case of theft. Don’t forget to check the expiry dates!

Driving license. Check if you need an International Driving Permit (IDP) for the countries you will be visiting. Even if you aren’t planning on driving, it’s best to be able to drive. You can get an IDP from the motoring organisation in your own country. Check the expiry date on your driving license.

Guidebooks. Whilst the Internet is wonderful, it’s not practical to carry it around in your pocket so buy a good guidebook for the areas that you will be visiting. Buy the guidebook covering the area closest to that which you’ll be visiting. So, if you are visiting Paris, buy a guidebook for Paris, not one for all of France. Excellent series are Lonely Planet and Rough Guide. Fodors and Michelin aren’t really as useable or as useful.

Tickets. Check exactly when you are travelling. Remember that you need to be at the airport a minimum of two hours before the flight leaves. Be wary of the actual date of flights departing at 00.00.

Is it safe to go? Check the travel advice sections in the American State Department and the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Are you allowed to visit those countries at all? America forbids its citizens to visit both Cuba and Vietnam all the time and sometimes adds other countries to that list.

This article is part of our series on holiday planning which covers things like how to book your holiday, how to take your holiday money, what to pack, etc.

You might think that medical treatment in France would be pretty much the same as it is elsewhere in the world once you get to the point of visiting the doctor, but it isn’t.

Assorted link trains seem to be the flavour of the season from the original Technorati Favourites Exchange (still plugging a way a month down the line), to the MyBlogLog train  (on a slower line) and now we have the BlogCatalog My Neighbourhood train which I came across at SYAF the Geek just yesterday. 

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Here are the rules:

1) Write a short introduction about how you found this list and include a link back to that blog.

2) COPY the rules and ENTIRE list below and post it on your blog.

3) Take My New Neighborhoods Members’ and move them into the The Original Neighborhoods Members’ list.

4) Find 3 new blogs, join their Blogcatalog Neighborhoods and add them to the My New Neighborhoods Members’ section. Remember to also add the Join this Neighborhood’ link next to your new blogs. ( Example: http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/syaf-the-geek.html )

5) Join as a member to each Neighborhoods listed here by clicking on Join this Neighborhood’. The goal is that all of the new Members listed will join your neighborhood, and you should do the same!

My New Neighborhoods Members

The originals

1. Foreign Perspectives Join This Neighborhood
2. MdRafi2k Join This Neighborhood
3. ByDesign Join This Neighborhood
4. Blog To Profit Join This Neighborhood
5. Another Maria Join This Neighborhood
6. Webee Join This Neighborhood
7. Zakman Join This Neighborhood
8. One Eyed View Join This Neighborhood
9. Syaf The Geek Join this Neighborhood
10. Esplanade Join This Neighborhood
11. Wampago Join This Neighborhood
12. WonderWoman Join This Neighborhood
13. Kucau Join This Neighborhood
14. Cymru66 Join This Neighborhood

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