Join French Girl in Seattle’s French housewarming party

May 6, 2018/French Life

Bienvenue chez French Girl in Seattle! I am so glad you could join me for this French housewarming party, ma pendaison de crémaillère. After weeks of hard work, it is time to celebrate: I am happy to invite you to discover French Girl in Seattle‘s new {virtual} home. I hope you enjoy visiting as much as I have enjoyed developing the site with Kim, (creative director of Orsanna,) an American francophile who once lived in France. This website is, in many ways, yours as much as mine: Many of you entered the Giveaway I launched earlier this year to help me find a new tagline. Look for the winners’ names later in this post.

To find more information about the Giveaway, please visit this story. A few months ago, when listing my objectives for this project, I wrote: “I want French Girl in Seattle to be better, with improved navigability for one, so visitors can access easily all the stories I have shared for more than 7 years. I want the new website to be a space francophiles enjoy visiting, and where they find inspiration and resources to help them indulge their French guilty pleasures and plan their future trips.”

Alors, dites-moi, now that you have joined this French housewarming party: Mission accomplie (mission accomplished?)

FGIS: Looking at France like a native (la Tour Eiffel et la Deuche)

Join the party:

As you explore ma maison, room after room during this French housewarming party (tip: the site is mobile-friendly but photos will look a lot better on a computer or tablet screen,) here are some of the surprises awaiting you: destination highlights (visit France, the USA, and more destinations with the navigation bar at the top of the homepage, or by clicking on the photos,) stories and insights on French culture and the French way of life you could only get from a native, travel tips, reviews of my favorite movies, tv shows, places, products and services, and a (budding) YouTube channel featuring vignettes on French life. Finally, the About Page will enable you to meet this French Girl in person via interviews I have recently given while in France (“As seen on.”)

La Mailing List: Reading the stories first

If you have already joined la Mailing List and signed up with your email address, you will keep receiving new stories, like this one, directly in your inbox. There is no need to do anything else. If you have been receiving email notifications via Wordpress, you will need to sign up via la Mailing List to stay in touch. Don’t worry: the site will let you know if your email address is already registered.

Introducing: La Boutique

This is the new place where I hope you have fun finding affordable French-themed gifts for you, or your friends. I will be your personal shopper and will make your French heart smile: Let me know what items you would like to see there! If you don’t want to shop and prefer good old-fashioned lèche-vitrine, (window shopping,) please support French Girl in Seattle by sharing this site, and my stories with your francophile friends. Merci d’avance.

FGIS: Working hard at informing, guiding, and entertaining you!

French Girl in Seattle Giveaway results

This French housewarming party is about to get even better! So many of you offered suggestions for the website’s new tagline, on the blog and on Facebook! Favorite ones included: “Explore France with a French native,” “FGIS: Your direct lifeline to France,” “Whether here or there, France is in the air,” “Beyond the surface of France.” There was clearly a common theme. France makes you dream, even if you live far away, and she inspires you. You want to learn more about the French way of life, and not just as a tourist. You visit French Girl in Seattle because you like to get an insider’s view on French culture and French destinations.

It was challenging to choose a winner. So I chose two. Please reach out to me privately so we may discuss how I can ship your prizes to you! Winner #1: Faithful reader (and former expat in Paris Aussie-on-Ile-St-Louis) left, as always, a thoughtful comment, and made a great point: “I’ve been thinking about your request for a new tagline but can’t improve on what you have. Instead I tend to think your main tag (ie. French Girl in Seattle) is perhaps part of the issue: it doesn’t suggest the blog is going to be about France rather than your experiences in Seattle. (…) The only thing that comes to mind is a modification, very tentatively something like: ‘French Girl in Seattle… Dreaming of France’ or ‘FGiS… Still Dreams of France’ or ‘Dreaming of France by French Girl in Seattle’. (…) It clarifies what the blog is about (…)”

Merci, cher Aussie-on-Ile-St-Louis. I hope you enjoy the website’s new name. 🙂

Winner #2: Long time FGIS reader Betty Moriarty, who left the following comment on Facebook: “(…)You always make my French heart smile.” Even if I did not use your suggestion in the tagline, Betty, I have mentioned it on the website. Merci!

To all of you, who follow French Girl in Seattle here, on Facebook, or on Instagram, to la Belle France, who continues to fuel many travelers’ dreams and to delight visitors, merci beaucoup! I will be looking forward to getting some feedback from you after you browse the site. Please take a minute to leave a comment.