As was my intention, I have come to the UK for the summer. It is exactly what I wanted and needed. Peaceful, green, no drama.

To knit up some loose threads from last time – I didn’t put my stuff in storage, I did find wonderful housesitters, the Cuenca airport has not closed as yet and Africa is not happening, which I think is a good thing really.

There was some last minute drama before I left Cuenca again, but that’s for another day. The stress did result in a recurrence of my upper respiratory problems, which is typical, so I no longer go to get it checked out. Thankfully, it more or less resolved before I had to get on the plane, which was a big relief. I had visions of a mob of passengers demanding that I be thrown out without a parachute as I went into spasms and paroxysms of wracking coughs almost turning my body inside out. So yeah, grateful that is over, for now at least.

A lot has happened, or rather not happened, since I last posted a week and a half ago.

I got as far as arranging for an inspection of the second apartment I saw in Saint-Etienne. By then I had just two business days left in Saint-Etienne. I hadn’t heard from the guy who was supposed to show me three apartments Friday afternoon. Or Enzo, the guy who showed me the first apartment in Saint-Etienne, who had told me there was another to see.

I was feeling a lot of pressure. Pressure, I realised, that I was putting on myself. Why was I so invested in the idea of living in Europe? I knew why. Cuenca was painful. But I also was avoiding the stark truth. Which is, that if I left Cuenca for France or Spain, or Portugal or anywhere in Europe where I would want to live, my finances would be so tight that I would be unable to afford to engage in the very activities I wanted to move to Europe for.

PART I – Saint- Etienne

I’m loving Saint-Etienne. As I said in my last post, it is a medium sized city (about 174,000 people) in the Loire Department on the Central Massif. It is 60 kms from Lyon and two and a half hours from Geneva. Five hours by train to Paris. An hour by air. It has a vibrancy to it that Beziers lacks. Perhaps because there is a large student population.

It is quite green. It edges into the Forez Mountains, the gorges of the River Loire and the Pilat Regional National Park. It has a lower part and an upper part, somewhat like Cuenca.

I came to France after my truly absorbing travels through Egypt and Istanbul, to see if there is an apartment I could buy within my 100,000€ budget, with costs I can afford, somewhere I want to live.

Sitting in Cuenca, mining through real estate aggregate sites like Bien’ici, it seemed there should be lots of possibilities. Not in Paris of course, or bigger, more sophisticated cities like Lyon, but in smaller cities like Beziers, or Bordeaux. I was intrigued when I came across Saint-Etienne in my researches.

I am in Istanbul, after eighteen wonderful days in Egypt. What an experience. I have thousands of photos and hundreds of stories about that, especially the magnificent tombs.

Just three short days in Istanbul have resulted in lots more photos and stories. That is the Topkapi dagger up above. For now though, I’ll leave off the sights, historical and architectural monuments, art, jewels and treasures, and move to a lighter topic – shopping!

I had arranged to be taken to the post office. I had 13 postcards to stamp and mail. Abul, my guide on the day I made this request, complied with good humour. But I have no doubt he was thinking loudly to himself “For this I got a degree in Egyptology?” I figured we go in, we buy 13 international stamps, stick them on and off we go.

Not quite.

Abdul took a number. Next thing I knew, he was standing at the counter – without me. I hadn’t heard a number called. He had suggested that I stay in the car too, which I didn’t. I think he thought things would proceed more smoothly without me. He might have been right.

I came to Egypt because I was accepted for a housesit in Cairo. Due to my uncertainty about whether I’d even be able to get out of Ecuador, I suggested to the homeowner that he try to find someone else while here was still time. I didn’t want to leave him with no one if my Ecuadorian residency visa and passport issue didn’t get sorted out, and I never arrived. He did get someone else, and even though my issues also got sorted out at the last minute, it was the right choice for me to back away and ensure he would not be left in the lurch.