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Living In Paris As An American

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Aug 14, 2012
in Retirement/Living
0
having the Louvre at your doorstep is one of the perks of living in Paris, France
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Paris Is…Still Paris

At the height of the French Revolution, in the year 1794, the guillotine that had been erected in the square then known as the Place de la Revolution, today the Place de la Concorde, was in very regular use. One month that year, more than 1,300 people were “chopped,” as 12-year-old Jackson refers to it. Notably rendered headless at this site, in front of cheering crowds, were King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, Madame du Barry, and Maximilien Robespierre.

Jackson and I reminded ourselves of this bit of French history as our taxi passed through Concorde this morning on its way from Charles de Gaulle to our little apartment in the 7th.

It’s been some time since Lief, Jackson, and I were in Paris together. Returning this week, after more than two years away, we find Paris just as we left her…

In striking contrast to Panama City, the place we currently call home, where, day by day, often, seemingly, overnight, the landscape is being remade, reshaped, reconsidered, re-dug…where, if you blink too long, you may re-open your eyes to a scene you don’t recognize from only moments before.

Here in central Paris, after centuries of reconsidering and reshaping, it seems prudent to leave well enough alone.

We wondered how Paris would strike us after this extended absence, and, here now, we note that, while she is unchanged, we are not.

“My head feels funny,” Jackson said, looking up at me with bloodshot eyes as we stepped from the airport terminal out into the morning sun.

“That’s jet-lag,” I explained. “We’re not used to this trans-Atlantic travel.”

Not so many years ago, when I traversed the ocean regularly from the New World to the Old and back again, I could go from airport to breakfast meeting to productive day in the office. Alas, this morning, all I wanted was a shower and a bed.

We’ve arrived in August, when most of Paris decamps, to their French country homes, the Mediterranean seaside, or farther afield. Driving from our home in Panama City to Tocumen International for our departure flight yesterday morning, we traveled through morning rush hour in that town. Miles and miles of bumper-to-bumper.

Driving into Paris this morning, we had the city nearly to ourselves. Most of the shops and galleries in our neighborhood are closed. “Back In September,” read the signs on the doors (in French, of course). We don’t mind. Our plans for Paris these next three weeks are more about walks along the river, picnics in the park, and long café afternoons than shopping.

I sit again now at the old desk I purchased years ago at auction, remembering that I must hold it steady with one leg while working or my typing tips it back and forth, back and forth, click, click, click, click, as the legs tap the stone tiles beneath. Not only because the desk is old and unsteady, but because the floor is likewise.

The floors, the window frames, the doorways, everything in the apartment slants and slopes. Nothing is level or square. Tomettes in the kitchen and tiles in the entry, original to the 300+-year-old building, are cracked and chipped. We notice these things now, anew, and are glad to find that we still don’t mind.

Other observations are less cheerfully acknowledged.

“You better finish that jar of yogurt, boy,” Lief joked with Jackson earlier, when the two came back from a trip to the corner grocer. “We’re not in Panama. Food here is expensive!

“Though, to be fair,” Lief added for my benefit, “the wine I bought for us amounted to about a third of the total.”

In Paris for the next three weeks, our agenda is to revisit favorite haunts (Jackson is making a list)…to take care of some maintenance and repairs in the apartment (Linda, our property and rental manager, has sent us this list)…and to write. With Lief’s help, I’m working on a new book, for Wiley, on “How To Buy Real Estate Overseas.”

While I’m focused on that, tap, tap, tapping away at this old secondhand desk, key correspondents from our Live and Invest Overseas team will be keeping this conversation going. You’ll be hearing more from Lee Harrison (on the Americas), Lucy Culpepper (on Euro-land), Paul and Vicki Terhorst (in real time from their current position in China), Wendy Justice (reporting in from Asia), attorney Joel Nagel (who’ll be keeping us current as we count down to year-end, FATCA, and the end of the Bush tax cuts).

I look forward to hearing what they have to share.

Kathleen Peddicord

Continue Reading: How And Why To Go Offshore

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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