10 Things We Love About France: The French Do It Better Than Us/nz!

Tutorial Transcript

Salut YouTube! So in response to popular demand we are back with another video series today to celebrate Valentine's Day we are going to express our undying love for France and we're gonna talk about the ten things that we love about France and that France does better than both the US and New Zealand! For those of you who don't know yet this is Kate she is the mastermind behind the blog Unintentionally Frenchified which I will link down below and of course to celebrate this day of love we have actually done two videos today so there's an equally a video on Kate's channel which is about the things that we absolutely love about dating French men so if you want to check that out go and find her channel and subscribe to her too because she's awesome! So without further ado let's get into the things that we just love about La France! I don't think anyone will be surprised that one of the very first things that we love about France is the food in France, it's so amazing here and so moving to France is definitely a big eye-opener with all of the breads and the cheeses and the dishes no one's exaggerating when they say that the food in France is to die for yeah it's definitely not over-hyped that's for sure and I think through living in France I've fallen in love with the simple pleasures of food and eating all over again I've discovered a lot of things I think you've definitely got to stay open-minded when you see this big saucisson from Lyon in front of you and you think how am I gonna attack that?! It's not just even about the actual food as is taking the time to enjoy a meal it's also just a ritual to sit down and have food then it's really enjoy it when you open that crusty baguette and you put some nice cheese on it and down in the South we often roast chestnuts over the fireplace and it's just heaven, culinary heaven! I didn't realise that I could love something so much as I love this but I love the TGV in France and I know there's gonna be a lot of French people out there who are going to hate me for saying this - SNCF, always late! But we don't have this in New Zealand I mean we're stuck, we either get to fly which is expensive and a hassle you know going out to the airport etcetera, or we drive, we drive everywhere and honestly having a train that can take you from Paris to Marseille in three hours is so handy and so easy. Just in general public transportation is really great in France it's definitely a step above what you can find in the U.S. and the TGV is a perfect example of zipping across the country. Even in smaller cities like Montpellier for example I really loved the tram system I think things come very regularly whereas in New Zealand even in Auckland which is our biggest city I mean sometimes there are 20 minute waits between buses. Definitely France is efficient at this and they do it way better. They do. So the third thing that we love about living in France is the architecture it goes without saying that especially coming from the US such as quite a young country compared to France you can walk by 400 year old buildings and 600 year old buildings and you can live in an apartment that was built in the 1800s and everything has a lot of history and everything can be quite different because it comes from different time periods walking down the cobbled streets of any place in France any small town it's just really beautiful obviously Paris is beautiful that goes without saying I'm not gonna go into too many details about that but outside of Paris this blew my mind All throughout Burgundy you discover these beautiful medieval villages and they've still got the town well where you draw the water up and you've got the bridge and the clock tower and needless to say in Provence those terracotta coloured rooftops with the blue and the green shutters and doors it's just so beautiful, visually in France is a very very beautiful country and the architecture differently helps. This is easily Rosie and my favorite on our list it is the amount of time off work Congés payés! The minimum amount of time you can have in France is five weeks, seven weeks is probably a pretty average time off so yeah what that means it's not just about going on vacation but it's really like that facilitates my life so much I can go home to New Zealand for a month and I can still have three to four weeks off to enjoy Europe I think as a foreigner is while living in France it's a little bit of comfort knowing that you have not only enough time to go home and see your family at least I mean because I'm closer than Rosie with the US so I go home at least twice a year but then we also have time with Robin as a couple to go explore other places where if we lived in the US I know one of the downsides of that would be all of our vacation time would be coming to visit Robins family. Exactly it wouldn't really work the other way around and that's something that I really appreciate about living in France so With that being said I think in general in France you have a better balance between work and life in general and I've noticed over here that it's not very well seen actually to be that super like overly ambitious kind of person that's always working and hustling for that next step up the next pay rise and sort of giving up their lives answering emails up to one o'clock in the morning and in France there's this word called "careeriste" and it's got a negative connotation actually. As a result this is something that's positive for me because I have learnt to chill a little bit about work. Kate and I were saying the other day like France is the only place where we've actually been told by our managers to care a bit less about work, don't be so invested! The French really enjoy a balance between your work life and your personal life and that's not to say that there aren't people who aren't working long hours they're doing similar things to being in the US but as a whole we find that it's a more laid-back society and you should work hard at work but then you should really appreciate your personal time. That's not to say though if there's something really busy going on at work that people don't bring work home or when there's like a high period - just like anywhere - but just not on such a regular basis that we can find I think in The US and New Zealand. Exactly. So the next one is a little bit egotistical on our part but he would say most expats when you are living abroad whether it's in France or anywhere you become a little more interesting than when you are living back at home because you're not French you're not the typical person that they meet you don't have the typical background you don't speak the same language and so there's naturally a little bit of curiosity around you, a little bit of mystery that would never happen back home I kind of love this halo effect that I seem to have in that I say hi I'm Rosie I'm from New Zealand and they're like "Wow!" where are you from I'd love to go there and suddenly you're interesting without doing anything! I didn't do anything, I don't deserve any credit, I can't help where I was born! You do feel special people are interested in you and it's really easy to connect with people and to tell your story and so that's also just a nice little side benefit The next two are directly linked to the fact that France is a socialist country and so there's a lot of protection around citizens and one of the ways that French people are very protective is in the workforce so it is very expensive and difficult to fire somebody but mostly expensive so if you happen to lose your job or there are pay cuts you're always taken care of from the government Exactly it's you know thank you to the forebearers of France who have absolutely fought for their rights on this because you don't have to stress about work you never have to think about the plan B you know what if I lose my job because if you lose your job you'll either have six months notice and a huge pay out or you'll be protected through you know comfortable unemployment allowance there'll be all sorts of things that will allow you to be okay and that brings us on to our next point which is of course around the universal health care that we can find in France and I'll pass this one on to Kate because in general we are taken care of quite well (in NZ) but I know it's not necessarily the case in the States It's very very different versus here so I take just a little pill every day for my thyroidism and just for example in the States with insurance that cost me every month $30 and it's free in France and before I had all of my medical stuff set up in France I was paying out of pocket for this this medicine it was the exact same innocent it cost me 2€ I mean there are exceptions to things but all major things are free. I'm never worried about am I going to be able to pay my coverage if I lose my job what's gonna happen with my insurance and it's just a really relaxing feeling I pay around 50 euros per month for my "mutuelle" or health insurance which just tops everything up to 100% coverage and it means that for example every two years I have a brand new pair of reading glasses can get contact lenses for free I go to the dentist and get my teeth cleaned for free all of these things mean that you never have to worry about your health Number nine is about cheap alcohol so not everything is cheap in France but one of the really interesting things that I was surprised about when I came over here is that wine is incredibly cheap but you can easily get a good bottle of wine for four euros in the supermarket and drinking wine in a restaurant is cheaper than ordering a Coke so don't become an alcoholic when you move to France! It's just really surprising how wine is often the cheapest thing to drink on the menu. So the last thing that we want to say that we love about France that we love where it's located in the world because you can take a train and you'll be in London or you take a one-hour flight you can find yourself in Italy and when you cross those borders the world changes you've got a new language a new culture new food new fashion and it's like you've been transported to another planet yeah coming from the US it's such a big country and got a drive a while to get there so you can't find it as easily and as quickly as you can find it in France you just take a train two hours and you're in London. Even within France that France is such a mosaic of different cultures last year we went to Corsica which is a beautiful island just a post off the South of France and it really felt like I could have been in Australia you just feel that you're transported somewhere completely different and it's just a few hours away from Paris! Alright guys I hope that you enjoyed this video on the things we absolutely love about France! Let us know down below in the comments what you love about France or what you love about your own country and we wish you a very happy Valentine's Day today May lots of love come your way this year and until next time I'll say: A bientôt! Bye!