Finding a Home

My desire for regular posting seems to have gone out the window already.  I suppose it was inevitable, but I was hoping it wouldn't happen quite this quickly.  We've had a busy week and a half since my last post.  Most of that, unfortunately, relates to more mundane tasks than trips to Versailles.

The biggest thing that happened last week was our house-hunting trip.  Firstly, to clarify, no it was not like House Hunters International.  Yes we have seen the show.  No it doesn't really work like that.  The main difference comes from how ridiculously competitive the market for apartments is here.  Our relocation representative Beatrice said that in the 15-or-so years she's been working in the industry, she's never seen it so tight.  To be fair, there are always new apartments popping up but, unfortunately, they will often be gone within days (or hours).

We were trying to find something that would give us a good mix of a short commute for me to work (in the village of Clamart just outside of Paris...for those in Edmonton, think St Albert) while staying a reasonably short distance to Paris.  Our first stop was in the village of Chatillon which connects Clamart and Paris.  As soon as she arrived, Beatrice informed us that one of the appointments she had gotten us an appointment to see had already been rented.  It was not a good start to the day.

The apartment itself wasn't too bad despite being a bit small (something we were trying to get used to).  Unfortunately it was next to a massive construction site.  In even worse news, the renting agent we had met informed Beatrice that the owner of the next place (also in Chatillon) we were due to see hadn't left the keys so we couldn't get in.  Naturally, that place was the largest apartment on our list.

With effectively two cancellations, Beatrice worked some magic and got us into our next appointment a bit early.  This apartment was in the village of Plessis-Robinson which is next to Clamart.  Our first impression of the village was fantastic.  They seem almost obsessed with covering every square inch of public space with flowers.  In addition, just down the street from the apartment is a farmer's market that makes the Strathcona market look small.  The apartment was great but the renting agent told Beatrice that she was showing it to three other people that day.  For once that didn't seem like a hard-sell tactic.

We took a quick look at the remaining apartments we were scheduled to see.  All of them were all quite close to Paris (meaning I'd have a long commute), were much smaller, and the communities lacked the charm of Plessis-Robinson that we had already fallen in love with.  We said we'd take it on the spot.

I took a quick video tour of the apartment while we were there which you can see here:

I apologize for the potato-adjacent quality and more-so for the fact it was taken in portrait mode.  Once we're back in the apartment I'll be able to take some better pictures and video.

All that remains is the paper work (which, apparently, is no small amount of work).

This story took quite a bit more space to tell than I was expecting.  The remaining stories for this past week will have to wait until later.