One of the worst things about not comprehending the language in the place you reside is not knowing when someone is yelling at you. ‘But Nate,’ you might say, ‘Is that really a problem? People don’t just randomly yell at […]
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Learning French ‘On the Fly’
There are many ways to learn a language. It can be a strictly academic pursuit involving years in school studying verb conjugations; it can involve a combination of years of study followed by a stint abroad; or, without any formal […]
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May in Montpellier: The “Joys” of the Slow Life
What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘living the slow life’? If you are from the US, you may have a number of reactions, from ‘Yes, please!’ to ‘That sounds pretty boring!’ to ‘I can’t even slow […]
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April in Montpellier: The Cactus, the Plague, and the Dumpster Fire
I’m still behind on my blog, but I’ll start off with a recent Nate-story related to a health scare I experienced a few days ago since it fits in with the subject matter of this post. I don’t have anything […]
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March in Montpellier: The Epic Adventure
I was really on top of blogging our adventures in January and February. And then I kind of fell off the blogging wagon until publishing this post last week. When I recently shared our blog with a friend and sheepishly […]
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Getting around Montpellier ‘sans voiture’ (without a car)
Bonjour, mes amis! It’s been too long. Last you heard from me, I was struggling with the French language so much so that I was told that I ‘speak French like Donald Trump’. Guessing that is a put-down! We’re now […]
January in Montpellier: A Series of Interesting Guesses
“But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in […]
A Year in…Languedoc-Roussillon?
2018 was admittedly lacking in Joy Adventuring posts. Don’t get me wrong, Terra and I certainly had some adventures. We logged 6,000 miles on two cross-country road trips, one of which was highlighted in this post. We took our remote […]
Big Days and Cold Nights – Wandering Through our National Treasures
Wander here a whole summer, if you can. Thousands of God’s wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. If you are business-tangled, and so burdened […]
If ‘Bliss’ is a Place, We Found It
By now, you (my faithful reader) probably realize that we are no longer travelling through the Land of Enchantment – or Europe, as it’s most commonly known. What have we been up to since then? You really didn’t have to […]
Ill Abroad: My Journey Through the French Health System
When we think of travelling the world for lengthy periods of time, we often think of the glamorous aspects. The culture. The food. The people. New experiences. But what about the “hard as a rock” bed, or the perfect restaurant […]
Guest Post #3: Embracing the Unexpected in Iceland
We must travel in the direction of our fear. – John Berryman Last year, as you may recall, Terra and I had the privilege of travelling through Iceland for just a few short days (read about it here). We were […]
Nice is Quite…Nice: Our Journey to the South of France
I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to […]
A Perfect 10: Building a Dream Itinerary in the ‘City of Lights’
“I guess it goes to show that you just never know where life will take you. You search for answers. You wonder what it all means. You stumble, and you soar. And, if you’re lucky, you make it to Paris […]
The Joy Guide to Amazing Eats in Paris (and the Five Categories of Paris Food Failure)
You knew it was only a matter of time, didn’t you? In our posts we’ve covered numerous cities and palaces throughout Europe, multiple Nate-stories, and house sitting adventures, but have yet to write a post focused exclusively on the Joy’s […]