It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here a month already. Time has sure passed quickly as we worked on settling in to our new community.

So far in the last 30 days, we’ve made two train trips to Montpellier; had a sick computer and a sick puppy; rode the bus – mostly successfully; shopped at the open-air market, found a grocery store we like; selected a favorite coffee bar; visited a medieval citadel; taken lots of long walks along the river; have been to the tourist office, the post office, the bank, the veterinary office, the butcher, the pharmacy, the train station and one of the museums.

We’ve talked to people from France, Germany and England, taken hundreds of photos and studied zero French.

We’ve been able to keep in touch with the kids, our family and friends through social media sites and e-mail. Major plus as we miss the kids quite a bit.

We read from others that dealing with OFII would be time-consuming and difficult process but haven’t found that to be true. Within our first 30 days, we mailed our documents to them with the requested copies of our passport, visa and visa stamp. We received our notification that the materials were received within 10 days of our arrival. Ten days later we received our letters from OFII with the time and date of our meeting for our medical exam and general interviews. Definitely not the nail-biting situation we had expected.

Now that we are settled into our Carcassonne home and have completed our first month abroad we are creating a schedule for travel, adding French lessons into our daily routine and making plans for our OFII trip in May.

Living in Carcassonne is wonderful, but it still feels a little like being on vacation and Alan and I keep reminding each other that we don’t need to rush around trying to see everything possible each day. We have 11 more months to wander and explore, learn some French, do some out-of-town travel, visit a friend or two also living abroad and drink more wine.

So far, life is great. Alan and I are so grateful for the opportunity we’ve been given and the love and support of our kids, family and friends.