We are moving exactly 23 minutes from our apartment in Basel to a house in France - but it might as well be halfway around the world. There are times when I wonder why we even thought this might be a good idea...
Thanks to local friends we have a team of very good movers scheduled. Very thorough, very competent (well at least we hear they are). I am a bit hesitant to say the name of the lead mover who helps English speaker...not because I don't want you to know but because his name sounds a bit odd in English. He is Mr. Sexhauer. I always want to say - dude if the day job isn't paying enough you have to use that name in another way. But it is a German name - nothing sexy about it.
Switzerland being Switzerland we found the price of the rental boxes and packing a bit high with Mr. Sexhauer. So we have decided to go it alone on the box purchase and packing.... After a little research we managed to find a source for boxes. Dirt cheap. But I had to pick them up at a vacant loading dock at a specific time and then get the cash to a man (we'll call X) through a third party. A bit shady but again - cheap. I was set to go - map in hand. But Aimee and I couldn't find the loading dock or the 75 boxes. Panic. We call X - he pretends not to understand and gives the call to his assistant. What boxes? is all we can understand. So we are left with the map and no clues....
OK - I may be exaggerating a bit here - but it was very odd. So I dropped Aimee back at work and went to get the kids at school. After a bit of research we found the real location and I went with the kids to get the boxes.
Note to self - never try to fit 75 moving boxes and two small kids in a VW Passat wagon. I just told them to pretend it was a cave and watch their ipods.
Boxes - check.
Then the weekend rolled around - time to pop over to France to do a little consumer research. I am not sure what we were thinking but we started the day by going to Darty to look at appliances. Of course the GPS took us into a field as usual in France - not sure why but our GPS loves to put me on dirt roads, in the forest or going the wrong way up a one way street in France. The reaction at Darty was great. Usually you walk into an appliance/electronics store in the US and sales people are all over you. The same would be true in France but they saw and heard us in all of our loud English speaking glory... Oh dear.
The kids wanted to look at TVs and games. We needed a washer and dryer. We got a smile and a bonjour but that was about it. Took the pressure off and let us look at all the equipment. I am always amazed that the French love their top loading, ancient washing machines. I had one of these in France 10 years ago and thought it was left over from the 1970s. No - they are still a staple appliance. I guess it must be that they are quite narrow and fit nicely in the kitchen. We looked and quickly moved on to a furniture store - things went downhill with the kids...
What to do next? What do kids hate more than appliance and furniture shopping? Car shopping! How hard could it be - we had already decided on a car - the Fiat 500C. So we plugged the address of the Fiat dealer into the GPS and we were off. Upon arrival we found that there was no Fiat dealer - just apartments. Starting to rain...cranky kids...no car shopping. But we need a car. There isn't any public transportation at the new house and we wanted to get the ball rolling on a second car. Now in France every town has a number of streets and most of these streets are named Rue de (insert another town or city here). So in a general area every town will have the same street names (except of course a street name naming the town that you are in) leading to other towns. So in this town we were on the Rue de Kingersheim or Wittenheim or Somethingheim. Every other town around will also have that street name but it won't necessarily be the same actual road - it will be the road from the one town to another. Confused. So were we. So I put the same exact street address in the next town over into the GPS and voila. We had Fiat.
Easy enough - we walked in and saw the car we wanted! Just a quick test drive to confirm that we liked and that is it -and done. A kind salesman approached us and we exchanged pleasantries. Then I asked to drive the car. All of this was in my 8th grade French. He didn't get it. Then Aimee mentioned that it said TEST DRIVE in very large letters on the ground outside in front of a few cars. Tried the English words TEST DRIVE. That didn't work. We'd have to talk to Fred. He is the English speaking guy. So we waited a few minutes for Fred. And we spoke French. He was younger and much more willing to let us drive - he did understand my version of French and a bit of our English but he could only say two things in English. 'Sounds good and black.' Fair enough - this is France - why should everyone have to speak English. We were fine....
Took the car for a nice long drive. Enjoyed. (except for screaming kids destroying the backseat of the TEST DRIVE car) And then back to see Fred. Well Fred was a bit busy...by this time it was closing in on 4PM and the kids were tired. Fred was in the middle of selling a Fiat Panda to a nice couple and so we were left to wait - for an hour and a half. Come on people it is a Fiat Panda! Cool little car and all but not as if it is a huge decision. Buy the little thing or not. It is about a step up from Seth's ride around mini-jeep...
This gave Seth and Fiona plenty of time to play with all the nice Italian cars - at one point I heard a THUD. Oh no. Seth opened the massive door of a Lancia Phedra (interesting name) into a little Alfa Romeo. Of course that wasn't Seth's fault because as Seth said 'what kind of car dealer puts the cars so close together!' Great. Fiona meanwhile sat in the corner with her ipod - occasionally we would hear hear sing at the top of her lungs 'do-ya do-ya do-ya do-ya wanna da..a...ance.' It wasn't pretty.
Finally Fred came back to us and we said we wanted to order the car - real simple in France. Financing is American style - as opposed to the all cash world of Switzerland. Just needed some basic info, passport, visa (we have that), bill (we have house papers), and a deposit check. Whoops. A check? We don't really do checks anymore...everything gets paid directly from the bank. When we opened the French bank account we never ordered them! Could a credit card work? Nope. Just a check. An American check? No. Only a French check. From a French bank. So car order off - back to the bank to get some checks.... Add in a couple more weeks for the car.
Monday brought even more amusement in France. Time to talk to Mr. J the insurance guy. Now Mr. J has been recommended by a number of other expats living in France. Thank goodness we have so many friends that have been through different parts of this process. At first we had some trouble finding his office - it was cold - again we were confused (or at least I was) and things started to go south. But then we found Mr. J. We had a 9AM appointment to discuss house, car and health insurance. I figured an hour - Aimee said she couldn't stay past 10. Let' just say by 10.15 we had made it through the house and the car but weren't quite to the health insurance.
Mr. J is a wonderful man - but loves to talk. And again - it was a mix of English, French and German. Talking about the house he says - 'if a large eclair hits your house and breaks everything you are covered.' Um ok - what about croissants and baguettes? If he were speaking only in French I might have understood but the mix of English and French threw me off...we had to go over to German and he explained that a 'blitz' could hit our house. Then he drew a zig-zag and an exploding house. It went like that. Trees on fences. Kids in pools. Lots of fun cartoons.
The best part with Mr. J had to have been his facial expressions. He has the classic French mustache with just that little bit of hair on the upper lip and he can raise one eyebrow so high it is almost comical. He gave us some interesting insurance advice - while raising the eyebrow and produced some pretty fair quotes (at least compared to what we pay here in Switzerland). The only problem was the auto insurance. Our Swiss licenses state that we have only been driving since 2003. So he bases the insurance quite on 6 years driving experience... Now we have to prove that we have been driving since the 80s if we want to pay less for the insurance.
Things continue to keep us on our toes - got a note from the bank telling us that we had dated some papers incorrectly. We were supposed to date them the 26th not the 15th. I think I knew this but I am not sure why or how I know this. We always seem to date things wrong. What happened to the day when you just signed and dated things the actual day? So I am off to correct this tomorrow. Hopefully two weeks from now we will finally have access to the house! And we may actually be able to live there too....
I love the cave on wheels with futurisitc technology entertainment. But wasnt the cave inside a car enough entertainment?
You are a terrific writer. Congrats on the house and all the best of the new joie de vive of france.
Im keeping sunny california warm here for you Ll.
Posted by: Nicole graebner | 10 November 2009 at 23:42