Category: Culture

Categories
Culture France

Differences

A view of the village of Bitche

This is a view of the village where my grandfather was born. It’s called Bitche, which is from the Latin for “fort on a hill” and not about dogs.
I still haven’t gotten my copy of WordPress to upload new photos, so I can’t do a picture of my own village, which is smaller.

This is just about a few more differences that I’ve noted. Not social ones this time, rather physical differences between France and the US. First, although I’m sorry I can’t use a photo of my own street, you will note the materials used in the houses in that picture. Stone, tile, and concrete are the usual building materials employed for residential construction. This has implications for how long your house is going to last. For example, portions of our house are over a century old, and aside from a few cracks in plaster from a recent earthquake (nothing serious) is still completely intact. We do, of course, want to upgrade all of the windows, but some of them already are double paned and reasonably good at keeping the outside out.

Something you would notice if I could post a better picture is that the houses sometimes are not up to what you might call “Homeowners’ Association standards.” That’s because there are no such associations. In fact, there is no zoning, and each case for a business is decided by the commune’s council, chaired by the Maire (surely you can translate that word.) Part of our house used to be a Fish and Chips shop, for example. We plan to make it into an en suite bedroom, but the approval for it being a shop came from the commune, not a zoning board. Basically, one can put a business anywhere if one can build a case for it. The local bar is connected to the owners’ house.

Sidewalks. This is an odd one, because while they exist, the sidewalks are mostly narrow and sometimes have light poles right in the middle of them. What to do? Walk in the street, of course! It seems there are also no laws about jaywalking. In fact, in the US, such laws were first promulgated at the urging of the automobile industry. In France, anyone needing to use the street has the right to do so. If someone is walking there, drivers are expected to respect that person’s right to the street and drive accordingly. It is illegal to block a street, though, which makes sense. One thing that is illegal nationwide is parking on the sidewalk. I read that described as the least enforced law in France. I hope so, because I’m parked on the sidewalk out front, as are a number of my neighbors. You can walk past the cars on the building side, usually, so nobody is forced into the street. Usually.

And, of course, those old buildings look old. There is moss and mold growing on them, vines too. In as many as nine centuries a place can accumulate a lot of growth. And the corners don’t stay sharp for the better part of a millennium, either. Add the common roman tile roof, and you get that quaint, sometimes medieval looking, village that tourists like to rave about. Just remember, we do have electricity, high speed Internet, computers, phones, and all that other modern stuff. Mostly inside, of course.

Categories
Culture Food France

Normalcy

No, I didn’t take this one, but it’s public domain

I tried to upload a picture I took of a baseball game, but apparently WordPress is remaining obstinate. Anyway, I was in the supermarche yesterday when I realized that the way they kept everything made sense to me. Same with the brocolage (DIY) store. Nothing they did made sense when I first got here, or at all until recently. Now, what the heck, I’d find the organization of a US grocery store to be odd. Which got me to thinking about what constitutes “normal” situations.

It appears that “normal” has more to do with what you’re used to than anything else. When I was shopping at a Kroger outlet (Smith’s) I could figure out fairly well where they would put any given item. Of course, in France, some of the items are different, but even if they’d been the same (as some, such as Heinz Ketchup, are) I didn’t find them in the expected place. Dairy and eggs, in particular are stored in a manner that seems entirely wrong to an American. They both are simply put out on the shelf like pasta or soup in a can, where you pick them up, take them home, and don’t need to refrigerate them (unless it’s one of those really hot hot spells we seem to get these days.) I even know why this is so.

Eggs emerge from the chicken covered with slime. The FDA decided some years ago that the slime should be removed for sanitary reasons. Without the slime, the eggs will absorb oxygen and rot forthwith. You may have smelled the result? With the slime, the pores in the eggshell are sealed, which is why the European agency equivalent to the FDA decided that the slime should remain on for sanitary reasons. I don’t advocate anything, I just report stuff. You can refrigerate your eggs if you want to, but then you have to keep them cold or face the smelly consequences.

Milk is pasteurized in the US. In Europe it is irradiated and sterile. This means that it is probably immortal in the bottle, and needs refrigeration only after the bottle is opened. There are some brands of milk in the US that are ultra pasteurized, but some say that they taste off. The milk in France is not pasteurized at all, but irradiated, which kills anything alive in it (the stuff that makes it curdle and spoil) but so far as I can tell leaves the milk as it was formed. This is handy, as I buy six-packs of liter bottles, put them in the cupboard, and only refrigerate whichever one I’m going to open next. I’ve never had milk turn, although it is certainly possible once you crack the seal on the bottle. Also, I drink it up fairly quickly. Sealed up, milk has a use by date of four months from the day it was bottled. I’ve never had any around that long, but I imagine it would last even longer than that.

But, is that better? Heck, I don’t know, but all of a sudden that seems normal. I’ve thought for years that a good idea to prevent salmonella and similar infections would be to irradiate meat. France doesn’t do that, either, but then France also doesn’t have huge industrial sized feedlots, so maybe they don’t need to.

It’s odd when I think that, after three months here last year, and five months now living here full-time, my normal has shifted. I’m fine with it, just as I’d be fine with normal in the US if I moved back. After a few months, at least. Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever had your “normal” shift on you.

Categories
Culture France

Here is (Maybe) Why

Maybe why the French are so particular about manners, that is. I’ve mentioned before that using “bonjour,” “s’il vous plait,” “merci” and “au revoir” are requirements to be polite in France. Failure to use bonjour in particular can result, in some cases, of you not even being acknowledged as being in the room. In the United States, one can skip politeness to an extent and still be thought fine, polite even. This doesn’t happen in France, and I think I have discovered why this is so.

Looking back a few centuries, France was an absolute monarchy, with nobility running around trying to stay that way, a well-entrenched church taking up the middle tier, and everybody else, whatever their profession or station, mucking about on the bottom. Then came the revolution of 1789, which you’ve probably read about. It got pretty ugly, and not just because of the terror. The revolutionaries invented a new calendar, ran the nobility out of the country (the lucky ones, that is) and also came up with new ways to greet each other. This reminds me of the way the Communists in the Soviet Union were all “comrades.” Sure, they were. Anyway, what with Napoleon, a second republic, a restoration, a second Napoleon (III?) and then into a third republic, a lot of the more nonsensical revolutionary ideas were discarded. For instance, France uses the same calendar as everybody else. But, this still left an open question: if we believe in egalité, (we’re all equal), how do we address one another? Good one, when you think about it.

Well, consider how one would address a noble, should one not be of that class. First, you would wish them “good day.” That was, originally, bon jour. Bon jour still means, technically, “good day,” but nobody uses it for that, because bonjour has meant “hello” for so long that a new term, bon journée, was adapted to mean “have a nice day” or words to that effect. A journée was originally a day trip, such as one might take to a neighboring village to visit the market there. Now French people get to wrestle with the difference between jour and journée. Lucky them. Next, if you want anything from that noble, you say please, which is written s’il vous plait. It sounds more like see voo play, because, well, that’s for another time. When they’ve helped, you say thank you, or merci. And before you part ways, you politely tell them, one way or another, how happy you are to have interacted with a noble, and that is au revoir, which literally means ‘until we see each other again!” You can just say it like “oh vwah” and nobody will complain.

And, there’s more! The word monsieur, taken to mean “mister,” is a compound of mon sieur, which literally means “my lord.” Similarly, madame, or ma’am in the US, is a compound of ma dame, or “my lady.” So when you say Bonjour, madame, you are saying, and this is true, “Good day, my lady!” How’s that for respect?

In short, whereas in the US we decided in favor of everyone being a commoner, in France, they opted for everyone being nobility. It’s as simple as that. If the President of France wants to talk to some poor beggar on the street, they’ll start with a bonjour. That poor beggar is, in spite of appearances, a noble, and deserving of respect. Therefore, one must deliver, and may expect, respectful terms of address in any interaction. If a French person doesn’t receive respect, they won’t be very polite in return.

And there it is. There are exceptions, of course, especially in heavily touristed areas, but in a nutshell, that’s why you always must be respectful of a French person, even a pimply-faced ice-cream vendor. The upside is, that, if you are, you will be respected in return, and undoubtedly enjoy your French vacation a great deal more than you would have other wise.

Categories
Culture France Healthcare

Healthcare

Looks healthy to me . . .

Yesterday I had my first experience with French health care. Also, a comment on some French prejudices. Read on.

I have a not especially dangerous (as I take aspirin) heart thing called A-fib. It started in my 30s, and has been off and on ever since, but for the last few months, it’s just here. Sometimes worse than others. So, even though I’m not on French insurance yet (I’ve applied, but this is France, so I’m hoping by May, when my current insurance expires) I checked around and found a doctor taking new patients. Her name looks Spanish, but she’s native French. She’s not far away, down some amazingly rural roads, so it takes over half an hour to get to her. Once there, her office, in a medical complex that looks a lot like 1950s tourist cabins, is modest, but modern and nice. Right on time, she called me into her exam room.

She asked about insurance, and for a while was pretty adamant about why I needed to have some. I told her I did, but she didn’t seem to believe me, until that is I gave her my passport as ID, and she said, “Oh, you are American?” in her good English (one reason I chose her). I said yes and suddenly we were good friends. This is the French prejudice part. Brit? Pouffe! American? Do come in! I do not exaggerate. So anyway, she took down my information, listened to my story, and I was there for a full 1/2 hour. She set me up with an appointment with a cardiologist (in another town, but one down better roads) and gave me some forms for both the cardiologist and to get blood drawn (fasting of course.) None of that is unusual. What came next is, to an American.

She charged me 25€. That was the price, not a copay. In fact, I don’t think my insurance will cover that low a charge, which is okay, because 25€! I don’t know what the cardiologist will charge, but I’ll find out as soon as I get the official appointment (rendez vous) confirmation. Half an hour of a doctor’s time, being listened to, and sent to the appropriate help, for 25€. That is the difference between US healthcare and, I guess, anyplace else. Seriously, the US has some catching up to do in matters pertaining to serving citizens’ needs, doesn’t it?

Categories
Culture France info

The Metric System

Either you can’t see the label, or the numbers are upside-down. The manufacturer was obviously not thinking of photograpy!

That’s my tape measure. 8 meters is roughly 26-1/4 feet. I have it because I bought a barn door to install in an upstairs suite (in Las Vegas) and the instructions were only in centimeters (!). Converting makes for some really odd fractions, so I ordered that device from Amazon and used it to install the door. And, it was so much easier than fractional measurements that in all future home projects, I kept right on using my metric tape measure, which I brought with me to France in my luggage. Just landed (I hope) in Rotterdam are our household goods, which include some more tape measures with both scales on them. I haven’t rejected US Customary measure (not the same as Imperial, but similar) and even in France not everything is metric. For instance, socket wrench sockets come in 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 drive. Yes, folks, your ratchet or breaker bar will be compatible with any sockets you buy here. My biggest project using centimeters was to build a base for a new shed. I followed the directions carefully and, boy howdy, the shed fit perfectly. No messing up how many eights in a half or that sort of thing. 235 is 235 (unspecified it always means centimeters) to use a quick example. So, yes, folks, metric is easier to use for construction.

And for distance, honestly, how far is a mile? Don’t give me any other measure to answer because that’s just putting off the inevitable. How long is a foot? How wide is an inch? What’s 3/8 inch plus 5/16th? It always gets messy. And I’m not saying that kilometers are superior to miles. But, honestly, it takes maybe a day or two driving using metric and you figure out how far a kilometer is the same way you figured out how far a mile it. You just know it. I can’t tell you how long a kilometer is without referring to another measure,* the same problem as I’d have with a mile. Honestly, it’s not worth worrying about. Ask a Canadian, you just do it.

Weight? Well, I still say that I weight 192. That’s 87 kilos, or kilograms, but somehow 87 doesn’t mean as much to me. But for buying stuff, half a kilo is a tad over a pound, so that’s how much butter I buy at once. I have a kitchen scale that does grams, and a bathroom scale that would give me kilos or stone if I set it to, so it doesn’t matter. I’ll no doubt flip my scale to kilos at some point, but I haven’t done it yet.

Volume is easier than you’d think. 5 ml to the teaspoon, and you can run that right up if you’re cooking. It varies some with larger amounts, but how much buttermilk are you putting in those biscuits anyway? The trouble in cooking is that in Europe everything is by weight, which some say is more precise, and they may be right, but cooking isn’t a precise art because one must allow for ambient temperature and humidity in many cases. I have standard US measuring cups and spoons, and a scale in grams, so I’m good either way.

The one thing that I am reluctant about, for some reason, is temperature. Fahrenheit, with narrower degrees, gives a closer look at the temperature. Mid-80s says more than Mid 20s, and I like that. I’m okay with hearing Celsius because I’ve lived with it long enough to get it, but, really, I prefer Fahrenheit for determining comfort levels. Pauvre moi, huh?

You might be interested to know that, as of 2021, about one-third of US manufacturers were fully metric, one-third were partially metric, and one-third used no metric measures. If you want to sell at export, you have to be, it’s as simple as that. Also things like lumber dimensions are metric even though they rarely say so on their labels. Sneaky, those decimals!

The truth about metric is that you’re most comfortable with what you’re most used to, and it takes very little time to get used to a different system of measurement. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me a bit. For building something, I highly recommend it. For driving, so long as your speedometer and the speed limit signs use the same system, who cares? For cooking, well, whatever works for you. Now I’m gonna take my 87 kilos and move on. Later, Gator!

*Well, I kind of can, because originally a meter was one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the north pole along a line passing through Paris, France. Okay, I had to use the size of the planet for a reference. Ignore me!

Categories
Culture France language

Parlay Voose Francis?

Taken in Spring of 2019. You must know what this is, right? (La Tour Eifel)
In case you missed it, all photos are by the author unless noted otherwise.)

French people speak French. That may be their worst quality, but there it is. Many don’t know more English than what they maybe gather from watching a few American movies. Which is less than you might think, buckaroo! So I’ve been studying French for a spell, and I know most of the common words, but there are specialty words that I’ve never seen. Like, for instance, where do I get Drywall Mud?

Drywall mud, properly called in the US Drywall Joint Compound, and in Canada simply Joint Compound, is called mud by professionals mainly because that’s what it closely resembles. Other than being plaster white, it could be clay scooped out of a mudpuddle. I’ve used lots of it in Nevada, especially. I even successfully replaced a kitchen wall in a small place we once owned in Arizona. Seriously, you could not tell it was a new wall, with no seams showing and all. (That may give you an idea of how much practice circumstance has forced me to take.) So, when we had the living room door moved over a few feet, I wasn’t worried. In fact, when we had the old radiators and associated pipes removed, I wasn’t worried. I simply looked up “Drywall Joint Compound” in a couple of translation apps (I always like confirmation, and they don’t always agree) I found the word remboulage. Well, remboulage is what you use to patch cracks and holes in walls. So, I headed for the Bricolage, meaning DIY, store, went to the paint department, and found some stuff called, ahem, remboulage It was soft, sort of grey, but it filled holes and so on pretty well so I filled quite a few holes in several walls with it. (The radiator project left some rather large holes.)

That stuff turns into concrete! Have you ever tried sanding concrete? There has to be something better, right? I mean, French houses do use gypsum drywall, and lots of it. Well, the man who moved the door (sounds easy, doesn’t it?) had some white stuff that stirred up just like mud. I asked him and he gave me the brand name. Cool. Back to the same brico for some of that! What they had in that brand name, in the drywall department, was plaster of Paris (Plâtre fin de Paris, to be exact.) Nothing else. Now, Plaster of Paris works as joint compound, except that it sets up in ten minutes. I ended up mixing many batches, which meant climbing up and down a ladder a lot. Good exercise, but . . . And then I ran out of plaster of Paris! So, today I went to the biggest brico in the area, looked in the paint department first, and eh, voila! there was the brand again, but this time with a box of stuff that promised to mix just like plaster of paris, give one half an hour to apply it, and be sandable after 24 hours. If you’ve ever used Mud, that looks familiar. I found MUD! As a bonus, they had some seuil, or threshold, that the other bricos didn’t seem to carry.

But, this is a post about language. The title, spelled correctly, is Parlez-vous français? You see what being unfamiliar with the language and common terms and uses for things gets you? Unnaturally rough looking spots on your wall (still a lot better than radiators and pipes) and quite a bit of bother. Of course, now, I know where to get what I need and what to call it. But I do wonder what else I’m going to have to mess up before I’m familiar enough to stop making stupid mistakes like that. Anybody? Hello?

Categories
Culture France Life

America the Odd

US as US Flag Image from Wikipedia

There are a few things that the last few months of living in Europe have made me feel about the US of A. Not that anything is bad, mind you. Different strokes for different folks and all that. But some things that seem normal in America seem odd to someone living abroad. How odd some things must seem to someone who has never been to, or lived in, The United States!

  • American Corporations: All incorporated enterprises exist to make money. That’s not unique to the US. What is unique is the apparent lack of any meaningful controls on corporate behavior. In contrast, what you hear referred to as “the nanny state” in the US seems like normal government regulation in Europe. At the same time, some government interference seen as normal in the US is lacking in France. Different people fear different aspects of modern life, obviously.
  • A Sense of the Primacy of Efficiency: In France, and in much of Europe (not the UK, hoo boy no!) efficiency sometimes takes a back seat to enjoying life. The way it’s put in France is that you “work to live,” whereas in America many people seem to “live to work.” There’s a big difference if you think about it. You think France has a problem due to inefficiency? The French economy is more efficient that the German economy, true story. Most productive in Europe, in fact. Maybe happy people work better? (Everyone gets 30 days of paid vacation per year. If they’re an employee, that is. People typically take August off. If it were me, I’d head for a vacation in Scandinavia, or up in one of the French mountain ranges. Who needs the heat, huh?)
  • Lines at the grocery store. They have them. There is self-checkout too, but it’s generally limited to smaller loads, such as you’d find in the handbasket, not a big old cart. But the lines move pretty quickly and are not nearly so irritating as similar lines in the US. Why? Small talk, or the lack of same. French people don’t engage in a lot of small talk. The reason I prefer self-checkout in the US is that it takes forever for the clerk to check out someone if they’re having a conversation about Mac and Cheese, or the weather, or whatever. French people occasionally indulge in a little small talk, especially in small towns, but normally, the clerk just scans the groceries as quickly as possible, the customer stuffs the order into their own bag, or as I normally do, into a cart and then bag it as I load the car, the customer pays, and that’s it! Bonjour!, load load, payé, and the end. Next customer.
  • Being Polite: I’ve written of this before, but as I observed on my first visit to France in 1976, you get a lot better service when you’re polite. This is true in America, too (try it and see!) Say hello, please, thank-you, acknowledge the clerk as a person, and something like “have a nice day” at the end. I think this goes back to what I call rule number one of human interaction: the way you see the world treating you is the way you’re treating the world!

There are more things I’m sure. Next time I’ll talk about a few things that still seem odd to me after living in France for a total of six months (three of them in 2021.) Oh, yeah, it’ll be seven months by then, almost. Ciao!

Categories
Culture France

Things that Shocked Me When I Moved to France

A View from the Citadel Hill in Bitche, Moselle, France in October 2019

NOTHING

That’s out of the way, then. That’s right, nothing shocked me when I moved to France last May. What? Am I saying that France is just like America? Nope, pardner, I ain’t a gonna try to tell you that! (Read it in a stereotypical Western Movie accent.) That’s because I did do my homework prior to setting out from Reid Airport that morning. In fact, the first time I visited France was in 1976. We took a Laker charter (you may remember them if you’re as old as dirt like me) to London, then a night train/ferry from London to Paris. Got off the boat in Calais and discovered that the French railroad workers were on strike until 6 am. It was now 4:30 am. I was desperate for coffee and hungry. Luckily there was a counter where one could buy food. We had some Francs. Then, SHOCK! Those people selling the food spoke FRENCH! YOIKS! Luckily for me, the person I was with had taken French. Unluckily, they were afraid to use the language because they might do it wrong? Might? If you weren’t born in Paris, that’s a guarantee! But I asked them how to pronounce various menu items, and ordered and received coffee and some sort of food. Lesson one: French people speak French!

In a few hours we got off the train at Gare Du Nord in Paris. We needed more francs. I trotted over to a change booth and started asking to cash a traveler’s check. SHOCK! The soman in the booth did speak English, and she was extremely nice to me in explaining that it was imperative to use a polite form of address in France, and she explained about Bonjour, Au revoir, S’il vous plait, and merci. (Even in French, those words don’t necessarily sound the way the look like they would.) I’ve followed her instructions with every person I’ve interacted with in France since that morning, and boy howdy, people here are almost unfailingly polite, helpful, and friendly. Lesson two: If you’re polite in the French manner, you get treated well in France.

Those were the biggies. Besides them I came to expect that many businesses close for lunch from roughly noon to 2 pm, many more businesses simply close on Sunday, and traditionally and still today, many businesses that are open Sunday (restaurants and such like) are closed on Monday. Lesson three: be adaptable to local customs.

There are a few more unfamiliar things. Buying gas (essence) by the liter, lotsa roundabouts everywhere, a couple of odd traffic rules, but nothing else that I found shocking, even when I first encountered them. France is, amazingly enough if you know the history of the place, a free country, with the biggest difference being that everyone is expected to consider neighbors and others before acting on one’s own behalf. That, and this has caused me problems a few times, is how my mother raised me to act, although I never really started doing it before that morning in Gare du Nord.

So that’s cool, huh? And my advice from this post, wrapped up nicely? If you’re thinking of moving to France, forget all those wonderful notions of France as a hotbed of culture and refinement. France has culture and refinement, but in the end, what you bring with you is what you’ll notice, at least in terms of interpersonal relations. France is a place. A nice place, not without its problems, but then so is every state in the US, when you get right down to it. Visit a lot, get to know the country and the people and their “French” ways. That way you can get all of your shocks out of the way and settle right into living your life in your new home. Hey, worked out for me so far!

Categories
Culture France

“Just Go With It!”

Inside Orleans Cathedral, May 2022

I was out on a walk in the country today with some new friends (acquaintances in France, I suppose) when I mentioned the fact that some French cultural norms drive me nuts. One of my walking companions provided the suggestion that I am using to title this post. A good idea, I suppose. Just go with it. I mean, what are you gonna do? Sue? Let me cite an example.

As you may have read, my Surface Pro 4 battery died. I got a new battery and took it to a shop in Angouleme that advertises that it can fix any sort of device. Well, their technician said “no” and they sent me to another place (after about a week.) That place, after about the same amount of time told me that their technician said that fixing it was “impossible” because one has to remove the screen. This is not true, although it was true of earlier models. I cracked the screen on a Surface Pro 3 myself. For the 4 and newer, one removes the back. It isn’t easy: 58 steps, rated “difficult.” But, it can be done. Misinformed? Simply don’t want to fix the thing? Well, maybe. In France, you almost always start by saying that something is impossible. “Walk across the street? Impossible!” Then the other person (me in this case) argues, and you go back and forth, and oh, hell, after a while maybe “no” becomes “yes.” For me though, it just wasn’t worth it. See, the first place first told me that they couldn’t find the battery. I bought one for 50 Euros from Amazon. Then they sent me over. They told me there that their tech was out of town, then a week later that he said it was impossible. If the aim was to wear me down, it worked. I shall attempt to replace that battery myself. Might as well, even though my wife bought me a new laptop on Amazon Prime Day last week, which, as you can maybe tell, works just fine.

For me, a misinformed American, being led around like I was is grounds for never speaking to any of those people again. But, this is France. That’s the way they do things. I used to be a computer systems guy, so I actually have a decent chance of getting that new battery installed and the old tablet working again. A Surface Pro tablet is kind of fun, doesn’t take up much room, and you can get a decent docking station for it and use it as a desktop, which of course is just what I did, for years. So I might as well have a go. If I weren’t knowledgeable in computers and their various quirks, I don’t know what I’d do. Probably just buy a replacement first thing. But, I strongly suspect that, had I persisted long enough, I’d have gotten one of those places to put the battery in for me. For the record, I don’t blame them for not wanting to, but as an American, I say just tell me that. What the hey, you don’t have to fix anything you don’t want to, do you? Does anybody? No, outside of peon-level jobs, nobody does.

I am not complaining, just illustrating a prime difference between French and American culture. In France, the blunt, plain-spoken American response (Sorry, we just can’t fix that old thing ’cause it’s just too damn old) would sound impolite. Saying it’s “Impossible” doesn’t. Get it? Yeah, me neither, but I’m going with it. When in Rome, er, Angouleme, right?

This gives me a prime opportunity to plug frequent backups, preferably to the cloud. (Off-site, as we used to say.) I was able to post here using a Kindle Fire HD 8, a device I like to call the “Windows 98 of tablets” because, technically, it does work. I use Microsoft OneDrive, and Word automatically saves my work for me in real time. I never have to worry about it. I was able to edit an ongoing book project, again with my Kindle, because I had full access to all of my files and data, right there in the cloud. You don’t have to use OneDrive. There are several other services offering the same results, but you should, you really, really should, set up something to do that for you. Local external drive is okay, but if I’d had that I wouldn’t have been able to use my little (cheap) tablet to do any work. I love storage on the cloud, and if you have anything you care about and don’t want to lose, that’s where you should keep it!

End of lecture. Thanks for reading!