Apologies for our hiatus from posting. We've had a busy couple weeks (details of which will be in a later blog post).
When we were looking for apartments it became clear that we were going to need to buy appliances for our apartment. This is very common in Europe, when people move they take their kitchens with them. We counted ourselves lucky that we had cupboards and countertops so needing to buy appliances was no big deal. Or so we thought.
Our appliance shopping adventure started with a trip to a store called Darty (France's Future Shop). We were joined by a fellow expat who speaks French that was able to help us communicate with the sales representative. After about an hour of comparing appliances we finally made our decisions, we decided on a Samsung fridge, a Thompson washing machine, an Indesit range and an Electrolux dishwasher. Note: we didn't buy a dryer, we just don't have the room for one, hang drying for the win!
Once all decisions were made the sales representative starting inputting the sale into the computer, everything was in stock... Except for the fridge. Unfortunately, this was the only fridge we wanted so were able to buy it, the delivery date was just going to be ten days after everything else. I thought this would be no big deal, just need to go grocery shopping every day. Which to be honest, ended up being a massive pain. I had to buy the EXACT amount we would eat that day as we had no fridge for leftovers.
We got our first delivery two days after we were moved into our apartment. Unfortunately, none of the delivery guys spoke English, I managed myself through the phone call when they called to inform me they were here but that was the end of my French. They brought everything up and started the install. When they were installing the washing machine (which naturally lives in the kitchen) and the dishwasher they realized that there was only one water drainage port. This was a problem. After some hand signals and some less than Louvre worthy sketches they were able to communicate the problem to me and some potential solutions. They finished installing the washing machine, and the range, and left the dishwasher for us to figure out.
This then took us to our local hardware store with more called Bricorama. After a couple of trips we collected the random bits of plumbing needed to complete this job. It's not pretty but it seems to work. It's pretty obvious we are home improvement novices.
After this plumbing job was done it was time to move the dishwasher to it's home. Jason pushed the dishwasher and then it wouldn't go in. We realized that the top of it was a TINY bit to wide to fit in, no big deal, we removed the top. We tried to push it in again, to no avail. This is when we realized there were some brackets on the floor, and the screws stuck up just enough just to make it impossible to fit. We decided those needed to come out. After some blood, sweat, and tears we managed to get those out and finally our dishwasher fit.
Lastly, it was finally time for our fridge to be delivered. We were VERY excited about this, I was starting to get sick of the daily trips to the grocery store, we were both sick of never having anything cold to drink, having to eat every bit of every meal, and most importantly, not having ice cream. Darty called us about 30 minutes before our delivery and again, they didn't speak English, and our French wasn't good enough to be able to communicate with them. What followed was panic, I thought they were calling to say they were here, Jason ran downstairs to see if they were there, and they weren't. I was starting to think they had called to say they wouldn't be coming or something. I really didn't know. But, half an hour later they showed up with our beautiful, much needed fridge. We figure they must have been calling to say they were on their way.
This story was longer than I was expecting it to be. I guess our next adventure (getting internet and general stories of living in Plessis) will be in the next post!
Thanks for reading!
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Moving: And The Struggles That Comes Along With It.
Hello! Our apologies for our absence, it has been a busy few weeks settling into our new (and permanent) apartment. The biggest issue has been a lack of internet, but I digress.
We finally have French bank accounts. Bank accounts are definitely a bit different from how they are in Canada. It definitely took some doing to get things setup. Also I keep forgetting that Interac is a Canadian thing. There was a bit of an adventure involving wiring some money to ourselves and then walking through a less-than-savory neighborhood with several hundred Euros in Jes' purse, but no one died so that was good.
We have French phone numbers! This was a bit of an interesting process. You need a bank account to start a phone plan and you need a phone number to open a bank account. Luckily, we had temporary UK numbers that a friend procured for us before we moved which made some impossible things possible.
Most importantly, we are no longer "between homes". After almost two months of not having our own place and our own property we finally got to sleep in our own bed, watch our own TV, eat off of our own dishes, and just generally enjoy the comforts of home. There was one minor caveat though: in France, when people are renting an apartment they typically take their kitchen with them. Even renters own their own appliances and cupboards. We were lucky in the fact that our kitchen at least comes with cupboards (no drawers though) but we did have to buy appliances. Attempting to purchase a full set of appliances in French was another grand adventure. But again we had some help from a fellow Canadian that speaks much better French than we do.
Our apartment is not actually in Paris, we now live in a suburb of Paris called Le Plessis Robinson. The best way to describe it for people back home is to think of Le Plessis Robinson as St. Albert is to Edmonton. We are about a 30 minute train (RER to be more specific) ride in to the centre of Paris. Here is some information on our little "town" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Plessis-Robinson. Within walking distance we have a few grocery stores, a huge farmers market (Tuesday/Friday/Sunday) several restaurants and most other amenities. There is also an American style mall a short bus ride away.
The final bit of adventure was getting internet access. Although we both technically had mobile internet, our apartment is somewhat of a dead zone for 3G on our provider. I had 2 weeks of finding the best signal strength in the apartment and leaving my phone there as a WiFi hotspot. But eventually we had proper internet (and TV and phone) installed. We actually have fibre into our apartment. All-in-all, 500 Mbit internet with no download caps for 45 euros per month isn't too bad.
Altogether it has been quite a rollercoaster of a month. We are both starting French lessons soon so hopefully things will start to get easier. But at least we have a comfy home to hide in and speak English.
We finally have French bank accounts. Bank accounts are definitely a bit different from how they are in Canada. It definitely took some doing to get things setup. Also I keep forgetting that Interac is a Canadian thing. There was a bit of an adventure involving wiring some money to ourselves and then walking through a less-than-savory neighborhood with several hundred Euros in Jes' purse, but no one died so that was good.
We have French phone numbers! This was a bit of an interesting process. You need a bank account to start a phone plan and you need a phone number to open a bank account. Luckily, we had temporary UK numbers that a friend procured for us before we moved which made some impossible things possible.
Most importantly, we are no longer "between homes". After almost two months of not having our own place and our own property we finally got to sleep in our own bed, watch our own TV, eat off of our own dishes, and just generally enjoy the comforts of home. There was one minor caveat though: in France, when people are renting an apartment they typically take their kitchen with them. Even renters own their own appliances and cupboards. We were lucky in the fact that our kitchen at least comes with cupboards (no drawers though) but we did have to buy appliances. Attempting to purchase a full set of appliances in French was another grand adventure. But again we had some help from a fellow Canadian that speaks much better French than we do.
Our apartment is not actually in Paris, we now live in a suburb of Paris called Le Plessis Robinson. The best way to describe it for people back home is to think of Le Plessis Robinson as St. Albert is to Edmonton. We are about a 30 minute train (RER to be more specific) ride in to the centre of Paris. Here is some information on our little "town" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Plessis-Robinson. Within walking distance we have a few grocery stores, a huge farmers market (Tuesday/Friday/Sunday) several restaurants and most other amenities. There is also an American style mall a short bus ride away.
The final bit of adventure was getting internet access. Although we both technically had mobile internet, our apartment is somewhat of a dead zone for 3G on our provider. I had 2 weeks of finding the best signal strength in the apartment and leaving my phone there as a WiFi hotspot. But eventually we had proper internet (and TV and phone) installed. We actually have fibre into our apartment. All-in-all, 500 Mbit internet with no download caps for 45 euros per month isn't too bad.
Altogether it has been quite a rollercoaster of a month. We are both starting French lessons soon so hopefully things will start to get easier. But at least we have a comfy home to hide in and speak English.
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