French Countryside Housesit, June 18-28 + Airbnb in Bordeaux June 28-30

Fucking fuuuuuuck our time in France was a super mixed, bag. If I could go back in time and just straight up not do it, I think I probably would. But that’s sort of a moot point. It was so fucking lovely meeting Kris’ French teacher and her husband though. They literally saved the trip and are the reason I will look back on it fondly.

Okay, so - we started with a house sit. Our second one, after the first fantastic sit in Scotland. Even though it was France, the hosts were a British couple, though we only ever spoke to or met the husband, Charlie. He seemed like a lovely guy. His brother had started coming here about 20 years ago and eventually bought a house, then Charlie and his wife followed and a handful more of their extended family. It’s actually kind of cool - they’ve all just congregated here in the French countryside and their cost of living has dropped dramatically, their pace of life has slowed, and they’re quite literally living the dream. So that was cool to see.

Our travel day from Scotland to France was once again long as fuck. Goddamn we wouldn’t normally do this - plan a lengthy trip where the stops were so nonsensical, but in this instance - we’re just following the house sits since they’re free places to stay. So yeah - getting from Helensburgh, Scotland to middle of nowhere southwest France was a right proper ass fuck.

It started out nice in that the neighbor we had met on the walking trail in Scotland ended up giving us a ride down the hill to the train station so we didn’t have to trundle down with all our bags. That was great. We took a train into Glasgow and that was chaotic as fuck. Glasgow looked amazing at a glance, but goddamn I just am so put off of big cities right now. We were exiting the ticket gate at the Glasgow station and you have to scan your ticket upon exit. Both tickets were on my phone so I was like - I’ll go first and then I’ll pass my phone back to you.

So I did, but then Kris couldn’t figure out how to get to his ticket. Eventually a lady just waved him through and I grabbed my phone to see what had happened and I immediately just swiped left, like intuitively, and there was his ticket and he was like,

“You should pull up my ticket for me next time. I’m such a boomer with this tech.”

We had to walk a few blocks from the Glasgow station to our bus stop and then take a cramped, stinky bus to the airport. It wasn’t great. And our flight was a bit delayed, so we had a wait in the Glasgow airport. Kris was looking at Instagram and he said, “Look at this cute girl, she travels all over the world gettin her ass pounded and then she goes home to her cute lil farm in Arizona. Her husband's like, "my wife travels for work…."

Then we took butt fuck flight number one and landed in Bristol, England in another little shit hole of an airport where we had a nice long wait. And we had to go through security again, which is always lame as hell. Two back to back airport experiences is dumb.

We got into the terminal and it was jam packed and super busy. I saw a Starbucks with a giant seating area and I figured no one would notice if we sat there and didn’t actually order anything. We snagged a table and I went to move the empty cups, but Kris grabbed them and put them back on the table so it would look like we had drinks and I just thought that was so fucking clever, I had a huge boner for him.

After a long wait, we got on butt fuck flight number two and landed in Limoges, France. Also P.S. I started watching Suits on the plane and it’s reallllllllly fun. Super basic, but a great, easy watch to just escape with.

Our host, Charlie, was waiting for us outside the airport and we hopped in his van. It was a beautiful drive through the French countryside and he was super nice. He’s just totally living his best life and has created his own little paradise. We got back close to 10pm and he was pretty energetic so he gave us a tour and that started the first of the, “What the fuck?” moments as he took us upstairs to this:

A big fat huge thing that was not disclosed. That there is a gigantic beam going across the hallway. A beam that is at eye level and is in between your bedroom and the only bathroom, meaning you have to tango with it multiple times per day. I don’t know how the fuck this dude lives like this, or how he thinks he’s ever going to be able to rent this place out. It’s just such a huge liability.

On the second day, Kris was taking a shower and I was in our room doing something and I heard “The Sound” and it was horrific, it made my stomach churn - the sound of his skull hitting the goddamn beam. I ran out and he was just crouched down on the floor with this nasty gash on his head and just probably seeing stars after his teeth clanked together and just oh my gawd what the actual fuck???

Then I hit my head on it the next night going piss in the middle of the night so I pissed in a tupperware next to my bed for the rest of the week. We also draped a big sheet over the beam to make for an even more dramatic visual. But just fucking fuck are you kidding me??

Kris submitted it to the “Please Hate These Things” Instagram and they posted it:

ANYWAY okay after the tour he then offered us a beer and we sat at his outdoor bar and chatted for awhile and then finally went up to bed after midnight.

And then that thing happened again where he was leaving early, so we had to be up early so he could “show us where he walks the dogs” which meant taking us on an hour+ walk first thing in the morning before we’d even had a chance to have breakfast. Also he’s a dude….so there was way less “hosting” than with the previous couple where they’d anticipated our needs a bit more, had food for us to eat, etc. This dude didn’t offer us food when we arrived. I mean thankfully we weren’t super hungry, but we hadn’t had a proper dinner or anything and ended up just eating a bunch of trail mix in bed. And he didn’t offer breakfast either, which was also a bit weird. But I mean. We also need to be more assertive, so….

But anyway -- so we go on this walk and it’s beautiful, but goddamn it was a haul and it was really humid so we came back all sweaty and fucked out. Then his sister in law and niece came by to take him to the airport so we made small talk with them and finally they all left and we started raiding the cabinets and somehow missed the cereal? Because there was cereal but we didn’t find it initially so I had just dumped this random can of beans and meat chunks into a pot just to get something in me. It was pretty fucking weird, so after a few bites we threw it out and thankfully found the cereal, for fuck’s sake.

Afterwards we put on the F1 race that we had missed yesterday and I was so tired that I slept through the entire thing. When it was over we went out onto the back patio, which is pretty spectacular. And we spent a lot of time out there.

There was a hot tub and it was just chilly enough that we went in that afternoon. And we had one of those moments where we were like, you know what? We are absolutely not where we want to be. We are financially insecure and still in conservation mode and still just hustling for our dream scenario. But goddammit also we are sitting in a hot tub in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, so I mean. What’s everybody else that we know doing? You know what I mean? We’re doing alright. And certainly doing a good job, with our limited resources, of trying to have a good time in the meantime.

That night we were just way too fucked out for an evening walk with the dogs, so Kris attempted to play fetch with them in the backyard. They sucked at it pretty hard. They’re not super smart in a lot of ways, but they’re friendly, thank fuck.

The next morning we brought a breakfast tray out to the glorious patio and had a really nice breakfast.

Afterwards we decided to walk into town before it got too hot. On our initial call with the owner, he had sold it as “You can stroll into town each morning with the dogs, walking through the french countryside, arriving in the town center to have coffee and a croissant….”

I mean obviously that sounds like the life, right?? But based on the first morning walk with the dogs that the owner took us all on…..we knew we wanted to do the walk into town ourselves and sort of assess the situation before we took them. And holy shit I’m so glad we did. I one thousand percent would not have wanted to bring the dogs. They are big and unruly and there isn’t really a “town center”, it’s not even a village -- it was just literally one boulangerie the size of a small coat closet, one strange cafe, and a small convenience store. So there wasn’t really any town to speak of. Also you have to walk on a kind of sketch road and the dogs aren’t super obedient, so yeah. Hell to the no.

But anyway! On our first morning we went into the boulangerie and got croissants. And they were good, okay! They were good, but not great. I don’t mean to sound like a total asshole, but it would be like - if the only “croissant” you had ever had was like from a 12 pack from Costco - then this croissant would’ve been amazing. But if you’ve had a good and proper croissant - this was not anywhere close to the best one you’ve ever had. But anyway - we had a nice time and enjoyed our treats and had a nice walk on top of it, so that was great.

Me: tilt your phone a bit….more to the right….make sure you get the croissants, and can you get the flowers too?

Him: Jesus fucking christ just smile!!

And the walk itself, aside from the sketchy road bits, was very nice!

Afterwards we went into the “grocery store”, but it turned out it was just a convenience store, so it had very little to choose from and was expensive. So that was kind of shitty on the host’s part - to sell it as a grocery store when it totally wasn’t. On top of that he left us his van to drive….but he also didn’t shut up about “what would happen if someone crashed it”....and to add to that - it was a right hand drive. And France drives on the left. But the real kicker was the narrow as fuck roads and the giant ass tractors and other crazy ass farm equipment that drives down these narrow as fuck roads and having to play chicken with them, oh AND he left it with no gas in it. So it was kinda like all of that stacked together and it was just too stressful.

But also. If there’s no grocery store in your town. And there isn’t food available elsewhere on foot. And your van is fucked and there’s no public transport….you need to fuckin get your housesitters some food - you either need to leave your kitchen stocked, or you need to take your sitters to the grocery store before you leave, or you need to otherwise arrange for them to get fucking groceries.

So that was super annoying.

About halfway in, we did text the host’s sister whose number had been left with us in case of emergency. We just asked her if she would be going to the grocery store in the coming days and if we could go with her. She said yes and picked us up the next morning. She then picked up her adult daughter and we started the drive to the next town over.

And it was just a little weird? Like we sat in the back and they didn’t converse with us at all and it was just kinda….weird. And remember they were British, so it’s not like there was a language barrier. We got to town and parked and then walked through this open air market -- that part was actually really cool.

Their other sister and her daughter met up with them at one point and then we all sat down at a sidewalk cafe and had coffee. And again they just like…didn’t talk to us. They just clustered at one end of the table and had their own conversation. So we were kind of just bored as fuck. And the coffee sucked so much ass, it was nasty. But it was very sexy to hear my boyfriend order for me in French!

After that, we went to the actual grocery store and got our stuff. Then they made a stop to buy a bunch of baby chicks. And then another stop at another store. So we ended up being gone about 4 hours and bored most of the time all just to buy a few bags of groceries, it was kind of comical actually.

But anyway that night we roasted a damn chicken, which was nice.

Him: This chicken says one hour per kilo ... And it's 1.3 kilos.... How long is .3 hours?

Me: It's 20 minutes, are you kidding me?

We didn’t actually walk the dogs that much because the backyard was so huge and they ran around out there all day, but one day we did walk them down to a little lake. And we never did that again, lolololol. They’re just not very well trained so the entire walk is just managing them every two seconds, especially along the road, which you are on for a fair bit before you hit the foot path. They have those electronic collars and that’s nice and all, but it’s still annoying to have to click the goddamn thing every ten seconds to keep them in order. It was so annoying that one day we decided to try regular physical leashes….and that was fucking awful because they’re not leash trained. So they just pulled like mother fuckers the whole time.

At one point we stopped taking them on walks because we had taken them out on one and they were prancing through a field that they supposedly play in all the time. It’s a field that is along the road, but is protected by a long, thick row of hedges. But then one of the dogs took off running and tore through the hedge and into the road and it couldn’t figure out how to get back in and we couldn’t go out and get it because we couldn’t go through the hedges and clicking the fucking electronic collar didn’t fucking doing anything and it was basically a nightmare. So like yeah. Hard no. Gonna stick to the backyard.

That was another sort of misleading thing about the listing -- the dogs behavior and lack of training. Also the interior of the house was very small. So it was not fun to share with two big dogs.

Another kind of misleading element was that there was AC…but the AC unit was mounted outside of the bedroom. It was in the hallway. So you had to have your bedroom door open if you wanted any of the AC in there. But if you had your door open, both dogs would wander in and out all night. Not to like snuggle up in bed with you, but to like come and lick your hand and put their wet noses in your face and oh my gawd fuck my life. So you had to sleep with the door closed. Which meant there was no AC. So we took to just opening our door in the early evening, cranking the AC for a few hours, and getting our room nice and cool before having to close it up for the night. But we still woke up sweating in a dank room. And there were no fans or anything to help circulate the air. So that sucked a bunch of ass.

We did go on a few more nice walks without the dogs though:

One afternoon we were sitting outside with lunch (we had a lot of cute lunches outside) and the dogs were lounging on a couch outside and Kris looked over and said, “Whoa, now he's lickin' his balls…. His dick…. He's really goin to town on himself…. He don't know how good he has it…. Man, he's just goin hog wild on his unit…. Alright buddy, calm down…. Is that jizz?” (it wasn’t)

I said: By saying “he don’t know how good he has it….” - you mean cuz he can lick his own dick??

The cats were fuckin adorable though. Holy shit we’re cat people 100%.

So yeah I mean. It’s not like it was horrible. And the backyard area was fucking lovely. But overall it was just….oversold and a bit misleading and was not the best time. And if the place had been truly represented (unruly dogs, no grocery store options, not much on foot, no real town center, limited walking paths, small interior of the house, the fucking beam, the AC situation, no public transport, no car to use, etc.) we would not have booked it. That’s the really frustrating part. We know ourselves. We’re realistic and we know the scenarios in which we thrive. So it’s a bummer when you feel like you’re making an informed choice, but actually you’re not.

Our host returned the night before our departure and then the next morning drove us to the train station where we began our journey to Bordeaux. Another dumb ass thing, just to add to our awesome French time - the fucking bathroom in the train station?? So it’s this automated door on a one-person-at-a-time bathroom. Generally there’s a line outside the door. So a person comes out and the door opens slowly, leaving plenty of room for the person to exit and the next person to naturally walk in. But you walk in and then the door automatically closes….and the fucking lights go off?? Because apparently you are supposed to wait for the door to close after the person exits? But that is so not intuitive and it’s just so fucking weird. And there was no goddamn toilet seat?? Like - on purpose. Not like it was broken. It was by design. SO that was fucking disgusting.

The train ride itself was….fine? Nothing special, but it was totally fine. We arrived in Bordeaux and it was hot as balls -- 89 degrees and HUMID. So not a super nice welcome, ha. We had some trouble finding which tram to get on to make it to your Airbnb, so that was annoying. But we found it, took a quick ride, and then had a bit of a walk to the house -- we were renting a room in a townhouse.

The host, at first, was….fine I guess? She greeted us via the garage and just immediately it was a barrage of information, before we’d even put our extremely heavy bags down. I always find that kind of rude and weird. It’s like hosts have never traveled. What do you want when you arrive via public transport after a travel day and it’s hot as fuck? I mean maybe a spot to drop your bags and a glass of water? Two minutes to just decompress before you start the whole “intro to the house”. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just cranky.

Anyway, it was just immediately, “have you read my house guide?” Like - no. Sorry, I legit forgot. And like. Why are you showing me your trash cans and trash system? I’m here for two nights. I don’t need to know that. And then it’s no shoes in the room under any circumstances, so you have to take them off in the garage. Okay. And then into the room (no access to the house, by the way, just the room). So the room was dark and dank and hot as fucking balls. It was so off putting and so oppressive. This host had advertised AC and that’s why we booked her room so I asked her if the AC was on or if she just ran it at night to sleep comfortably, or what her routine was. She was like, “Oh - do you want the AC on now?” And I was like, “I was just asking what you normally do - we’re going out now so it’s fine if you just want to turn it on for the evening.” Then she was like, “What time will you be back and I’ll turn it on?” And it was just….akwward? Like - I don’t know what fucking time we’ll be back. What? Just fucking turn it on this evening. Why is that so hard? Anyway - ultimately she said she’d turn it on later that day, so that’s great.

Then she did the other awkward thing where she’s like here’s the room, here’s the bathroom, here’s the trash can and I’m like -- I really don’t need you to show me all this? Then she started taking everything out of the desk drawers - including two huge binders full of menus and tourist info and she started literally flipping page by page through them and again like -- I can do that myself? Like I don’t need to stand here awkwardly with you and flip through all this info that I’m not even interested in? You don’t need to do that as a host. The whole “check-in” was just mega overstimulating and she was kind of abrasive and just, fuck man.

Anyway, finally she got the fuck out and we immediately took showers and then tried to get dressed and get out before we started sweating again. We were meeting Kris’ French teacher who he’s been taking lessons with over Skype for nearly 3 years. SO that was really exciting!

She wasn’t able to meet us for another hour or so, but we just headed out anyway lest we rot in that dank room. We were pretty hungry so we went into a grocery store to try to find some grab and go food. France doesn’t have a lot of cafes or easy lunch options. It’s mostly sit down places or McDonalds. The grocery store didn’t have much, but we got what we could and then went to the park.

Aurelie (Kris’ teacher) came a bit later and we went and sat at the cafe in the park and that was lovely. We had cold beverages and just talked and she was just the best. She was just super sweet and really engaging and asked us loads of questions and we asked her loads and it was just fun. Her husband joined about an hour in and he brought their little baby who was cute as fuck and we ended up sitting there all together for like the next few hours.

Her husband was so nice and from Mexico so we talked a lot about travel and lifestyle and just had a lot of the same core principles and priorities and it was really cool. Also just - I love the cafe in the park thing. That is so popular all over the U.K. too and I’m like - why don’t we fucking do this in the U.S.?? Like there is nowhere in the U.S. I could just sit and have a $2 coke with a friend in a nice setting and not feel like I needed to order something else, spend more money, not sit there for too long, etc.

Towards the end of our hang time, the Airbnb host messaged us. Well actually -- I had messaged her to ask if we could borrow two extra pillows. There were only two on the bed and they were super thin and limp and awful. She straight up wrote back no, she wouldn’t provide extra pillows and then she messaged again saying she wouldn’t be turning on the AC and claimed her AC “didn’t turn on until the EXTERNAL temperature reached 32 degrees C” which makes no fucking sense and even if that’s where it’s “set” - she can change the goddamn setting. Also setting your AC to the external temperature literally makes no sense because we all know that it can be, let’s say 75 degrees F and sunny - an objectively nice day, but if you’ve got a house or a room with windows that get hammered by the sun all day….and you don’t open the windows or otherwise have any air flow -- that house / room is gonna be hot as fuck. Which is what was happening in our room. And we couldn’t open the windows hardly because they were on the goddamn sidewalk and there were loads of bugs and it was loud as fuck and also busy - so like you couldn’t sleep with the windows open because of all the reasons. And even then - there was no cross flow…..so opening the windows to let in 89 degree air just like….wasn’t gonna fix anything either. There wasn’t a fan in the room either. It was kind of a mind fuck. It felt like a fucking joke. Also just. Regardless of the host’s personal preferences with the AC….she just didn’t give a fuck that we were uncomfortable. No solution offered. This is how it is and just eat a dick.

Anyway, we finished hanging out with Aurelie and then set off to have dinner somewhere they had recommended for us. But in the end, we were so downtrodden and bummed out about the host, and just kind of hot and overwhelmed, and didn’t feel like having some two-hour fuckin dinner experience and I was internally just kind of feeling a melt down coming on and trying to keep my shit together as we tried to find dinner and Kris said, “You know there’s a McDonalds at the end of this block….” and that, my friend, is how you end up at a McDonalds for one of your two nights in Bordeaux. Desperation.

We ordered from a computer and sat upstairs in the fucking glorious air conditioning and just. I mean. It wasn’t great. And then we went back to our dank shithole of a room and barely slept.

Which meant we woke up the next day feeling like shit and had a kind of shitty day. I mean who feels like getting up and running around like a tourist all day after a shitty nights sleep? I sure don’t. We went out for breakfast / coffee and that was nice - the cafe was bomb and the coffee was proper.

Afterwards we went over to this pedestrian area, but it was just rammed with tourists and dank piss-smellin’ streets so we quickly got out of there. Then I had to pee and finding a bathroom was an ass fuck and just omfg I hate traveling like a tourist - while on a budget anyway. I was just wishing I could walk into the 5 star hotel and drop five hundred bucks for a room and fuck that nasty ass host, but I mean. If I was in a position to pay that much for a room, I wouldn’t have booked her dumb ass Airbnb, so it’s sort of a moot point.

We were both tired and just not feeling great so we grabbed sandwiches from a deli and went back to the room and ate lunch in our bed and opened the windows and just tried to nap, but it was hot and I was just so miserable. We contemplated going somewhere else for that night, but it’s like either way you’re fucked - you either stay there and you’re fucked, or you spend the whole day frantically looking for a new spot and then having to shell out money and basically double pay for the same night because Airbnb’s customer service is nonexistent and then having to pack and haul all your shit on public transport again and that fucking sucks too.

In the end we stayed, but fuck me, it was miserable.

That night though we were meeting Aurelie for dinner, so that was the light at the end of the tunnel. We went to a really cute restaurant and sat outside and just had such a lovely dining experience in that we were there for close to three hours and it was completely natural. Like that’s what people do - they meet with friends, they sit and linger, they take their time. You would never ever sit at a restaurant for three hours in the U.S. Again - unless you were continuing to order food and/or drinks.

The food was super delicious -- I had a thai salad that had cooked wheat berries, steak slices, pickled veggies, a yummy thai dressing, and crunchy onions on top. And Kris had the most insane looking burger. Actually Aurelie had a burger too and she ate the entire thing with a knife and fork and it was about the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

And we just had conversation the whole time. She was super intrigued by our life and our plans and what we were doing and how we were doing it and she was a super reflective listener and that was really cool. Like it’s always such a nice reflection when someone hears something about your life that is normal to you because it’s just your life - but they’re like….WHOA. WAIT WHAT?? Wow, that’s so brave/cool/awesome. And then you’re like. Oh. Yeah. You’re right. That really was and thank you for noticing and seeing me!

Like I told her how when we were in the early stages of crypto and realized it was “a thing”, we both kind of ate shit for a minute and got jobs - we used Kris’ salary to live on and my entire salary was invested and that it totally seeded our future. And to me, this is just normal, doesn’t sound that crazy, etc. but she was like holy shit what? 100% of your entire salary for an entire year??? She had never been that committed to anything in her life or that “sure” of anything and it just really kind of blew her mind and that was sort of cool to hear.

But the whole evening was just interesting conversation - about her travels in Mexico, their life in Paris and moving to Bordeaux, having a baby, quitting her job and going full-time with her private language lessons, I mean it was all just so juicy.

It was sort of sad to say goodbye, like that was just it. It will probably be years before we see her again. Things like that are always so weird.

And then we went back to our shit box room. Thankfully it was cooler that day and that night so it wasn’t as bad, but just the energy and the vibes were so fucking bad. We had only booked two nights, this was the second night, but our flight wasn’t until like 6 pm the next day so we had planned on leaving our luggage all day. We decided we didn’t want to though - we just wanted to get up and get the fuck out of there and away from that evil lady. Also Bordeaux was just okay? Like there wasn’t all this shit we were dying to see that warranted storing our luggage and spending the day touristing around.

Bordeaux was funny like that. It felt like generic Europe? Like I didn’t know I was in Bordeaux. I was just in a random European city, but there was nothing special about it? I know people love Bordeaux, but neither of us really got it. Maybe people love Bordeaux if they have a car and are driving around the countryside going to wineries or to the coast? But like central Bordeaux was just kinda dingy and basic.

Anyway, so we did just that — woke up, got dressed and got the fuck outta there. We went back to the same coffee shop as the sidewalk seating was an easy place to sit with all of our luggage. We lingered there for a while and then got sandwiches and went to the park and literally just laid under a tree and listened to a podcast, just killing time before our flight. It seemed better to do that than go to the airport early.

And then we took a nice flight back to London - it was a B.A. flight too, so much less insane than Ryan Air or Easy Jet.

Our new housesitting hosts picked us up at the airport and started the beginning of our lovely 3-week stay in Kent.

France was a real bag of dicks (June 2023)