Diary of My Country Life-October 16th, 2026

The original source of this blog: https://www.lotusandmichael.com/blogs/diary-of-my-country-life

10/16/2026 Friday 56-71F Mostly Cloudy 

After three crazy days schlepping around from the USA to France, now finally I can have some free time to sit in front of a desk in a small stone farmhouse in Montigny-sur-Liong, a small village located at the outskirts of Paris. 

I still remember vividly how tired we were when we arrived at CDG airport Wednesday morning (the flight only took about 6 hours and 11minutes, but we didn’t sleep a wink on the plane); lucky we met an airport employee who helped us get through the immigration check via vip pass instead of lining up in the queue for hours and showed us the way to our car rental office.  

It’s our first time renting a car oversea. We paid the rent in advance, but before we picked up the car, we were told that we needed to pay another $300 for insurance, otherwise if any scratches occurred, we had to pay $52000. For certain we didn’t want the $52000 fine, so we paid $300. But when we found our car, it wasn’t parked properly and the back trunk got a minor scratch from the ceiling. We told the agent, he shrugged: “It doesn’t matter. They will repair.” Then he noticed the gold chain on my husband's wrist. “You’d better be careful and take it off. There are a lot of pickpockets in Paris. Only Paris.” 

Because of his advice, plus the strikes taking place in Paris, we decided to skip downtown Paris for now and head toward our rented house directly. 

It was foggy; as always, the traffic near the airport was in chaos. Perhaps because it was during the rush hours on a working day, the traffic was worse. Drivers here seem to be very courageous because the lanes were narrow (compared to the roads in the USA) and they still drove fast. Our car is a big Ford, while we used to drive our little mini. So the journey from the airport to our house was pretty scary. Many times we noticed that the speed limit was 80 or 90 kilometers per hour, but the road was single lane, narrow and winding so we could drive at the speed of 50s. At last, the cars behind us lost their patience. Once they had the chance, they passed through the opposite lane and threw us far behind.  

It was a bit frustrating. Then we entered the forest section. Continuous forests stretched throughout the last part of our journey, and the sun started to shine through the clouds. Among the trees, occasionally a roof peeped out; we knew that we were close to our destination. 

Montigny-sur-Liong is a beautiful village. The moment we arrived, we immediately sensed that we had come to the right place. Perhaps it was even beyond our expectations. The village was hilly. Along both sides of the little “main road”, lined with white-washed, pale-yellow stone houses. From solid structures, ancient wood beams, and weather-beaten stones, most of them (if not all) should have been here for hundreds of years. The streets were tidy and clean, though they were very narrow occupied by street parking like in Brooklyn. Lavenders, salvias and even spring bloomer wisteria were still blooming sparsely —later we were told that it was very hot this summer, and there was no rain since May so all the plants were in extreme distress and prolonged their blooming seasons.  

I felt sad to hear about it. The climate changes were worldwide. The plants suffer, the animals suffer, and so do we. But in my opinion, Europeans have been going much further than Americans and Asians to protect the environment. The most direct proof is that so far, all places we have shopped, including pharmacy, bakery, grocery, and gallery, they packed the goods only with paper bags or wraps. And the streets were clean, not only in the towns and villages, but along all the ways we went. That means the goods are not over-packaged; the materials used were natural and can break down easily; and the people are sophisticated. They take care of their living space naturally just like how they take care of their own homes.  

I am very impressed. I haven’t been to downtown Paris yet. But apples to apples, the small towns and villages I have lived and visited in the USA, people are not very much concerned about what they use—polybags are everywhere in the groceries and shopping malls;  though some states like New Jersey encourages people to shop with their own shopping bags, but encouragement isn’t equal to rule; the polybags, plastics are so easy and convenient to get with almost no cost therefore people don’t have a strong sense that it is their obligation to do a little more for the planet. While here, in this area, even if I purposely tried to search for polybags, it’s difficult to impossible to find them. 

I am a naturalist; I live a life with no waste, no plastic; and I avoid all synthetic materials. Now that I find that there are so many people here like me, I am thrilled. Natural, clean, and interesting—the combination is my first impression of this part of France. Perhaps the highest comments I can give to a place. 

Another surprise is the food and drink. On the plane from the menu, for the first time I read about Kir Cassis. I ordered it and liked it a lot. So, on the first day of our arrival, we bought a bottle of Kir Cassis from the local food market. It was just beautiful, and surprisingly cheap. Now every evening I drink some with dinner, and one more glass in bed before I go to sleep. I had dreamed about soaking in different wine in France, now only one type is enough to delight me. Of course, as I expected, the croissants were super here, at least in the bakery where we shopped. In fact, everything we bought from this little village bakery was good: Croissant, baguette, apple turnover, flan nature, and even ham&cheese sandwich. I know I may not be able to find equally good ones once I am out of France, so now every morning I stuffed myself with as much croissant and apple turnover as possible; I need to remember the flavor; even if I can’t duplicate them in my kitchen, I set up the standard of what they should taste like. 

People’s parking skills are remarkable too. Like I mentioned above, since the streets are narrow, in many cases there isn’t enough room to park a car comfortably letting other cars pass on a two-way street. Therefore, it’s common to see parked cars riding on the curbs close to the walls, and the space between them is so tight that I don’t think if I were them, I could make even one move. But it seemed like no problem to them at all. Yesterday in Barbizon, I witnessed a perfect (making me a little nervous though) parking procedure: Right after we parked our car at a nice spot with plenty of room to pull out, a small car drove close and tried to tuck in behind. We signed to that driver that we could pull up our car to give the latter more space; and actually my husband had already gone back to our car. The driver waved his hand to signal no bother, then used his skill to waggle in. Several times it felt like his car almost hit our car or the car behind him, the distance probably no more than 15cm; and my mouth was wide open from nervousness, but he stopped, then turned the wheels. How could he know exactly where and when he should move? Was there any magical sensor in his car? I tried to figure it out. The driver finished his parking which was right at the center between the cars no more than 30cm apart, got out of his car. I think he did give me a faint smirk, as if to say, “you doubted me”, took his dog and walked away. 

This part of the world is like a little paradise. People live here, work nearby; they raise their children in these little cute stone houses, and pass their traditions, beliefs, and esteem by generation. I am sure frustrations, disappointments, and sorrows do exist; they shake them off and move on just like all the other parts of the world—after all, the roots of our lives are the same, just the patterns may be slightly different. 

Is there any downside of this place? Yes, there is—I dislike the coffee here. It’s too weak to me. We are used to make our own heavy toasted Peets coffee in Italian moka pot, while here, Frech press coffee doesn’t work to for me at all; I call it “sock water”, just like how the French laughed at American coffee in the past. 

To be continued.