Week 4: Remembrance Day, apartments and cell phones, oh my

Bonjour! (Did you know they don't say bon matin in France? Apparently it's a Québecois thing. The France-French have fourteen ways of saying good afternoon and good evening, but no good morning. Figures).

Just wanted to give you an update on our week.

1) Remembrance Day (Armistice de 1918).  At first I thought there were no Remembrance Day ceremonies happening in Caen. I thought that was very strange since this is an area with a ton of war history. Turns out Jour de Souvenirs, although a direct translation of Remembrance Day, is not what they call the holiday here. It's called Armistice Day, or Armistice de 1918. Luckily Alex didn't trust my Googling skills and found information about the festivities in about two minutes flat after I told him five times that there was nothing happening here.  Since it's a stat holiday here, Alex had the day off and we headed downtown Wednesday morning for the ceremony. It was very long (and in French, of course), mostly because they read the names of every solider from Caen who had died fighting for France in ONLY the year 1915 (a hundred years ago). There were 406 names in total, and they had a French student walk by the podium to represent every name they read. It was quite a sobering representation. Alex pointed out that if they keep up this tradition of calling out the names a hundred years later, in the next couple years they probably won't be able to read all of names of the soldiers who died in 1916, 1917 & 1918,  since there were so many more casualties. As you would expect, there were also French soldiers, a band, and a lot of war veterans. There was even a Canadian flag, as you can see in the photo below.

Canadian flag at ceremony; statue of Verdun

And a black and white version that Google made for me

War veterans carrying flags and French soldiers at attention

Procession, and a Canadian flag to the left

French war veterans

Like good Canadians, we wore red sweaters, and I donned my sparkly silver maple leaf broach. (I'm fitting right in with the fashion here). Interestingly, the French don't wear poppies on their coats like we do at home. We only saw two or three at the ceremony, and they were worn by the guys carrying the Canadian flag. Instead we were given a sticker of a blue flower (le bleuet de France), which is apparently the symbol they use here. (However, very few people were wearing them. We bought them from a woman walking around selling the stickers as a fundraiser, who only seemed to be targeting children -- and apparently us -- so I'm not sure how common they are. Maybe we stuck out).

2) The photo below isn't from a candy store. Let me explain.

Not a candy store

We tried to go to the movies on the evening of Remembrance Day and failed. Since everything else was closed for the holiday, I looked up all the movies playing in Caen (there are three theatres here), and found an English movie with French subtitles that had done really well at the Cannes Film Festival. We took the tram all the way across town, but when we got there, the movie we wanted to see was sold out. Everyone sighed simultaneously and left. Who knew all the citizens of Caen would want to see an English movie playing at 5pm on Remembrance Day?? Unfortunately, it was a small theatre, and the next showing wasn't for five hours. Of course, there were no other English movies playing in between. Since most other businesses were closed for the holiday, we walked to a mall where we'd heard there was another theatre. The mall turned out to be open, so at least we got to do some shopping. We eventually found the movie theatre, which was a big one like you'd find in the GTA. Of course, it wasn't playing any English movies at all. However, it did have a huge room of self-serve popcorn and candy (as per the photos). So obviously we went into the theatre just to take pictures of the concession and not to buy a movie ticket. We plan to go back sometime just to take movie popcorn to go, since watching movies in French that you only understand 10% of sounds boring; whereas, eating delicious movie theatre popcorn on the tram sounds, well, delicious.

Sweet (sucre) and salty (salé) popcorn to go

3) We got an apartment! (Almost). After finding an apartment and having all our documents approved earlier in the week, we went to the real estate agency to sign the lease yesterday. It took about 2 hours and involved about a thousand initials and signatures on the part of Alex, our guarantor, and the apartment owner (le propriétaire), but not myself, because I am a woman. (No, really, it's because I don't have a job here and apparently that makes things complicated. So, my name is not on the lease, but at least I didn't get a sore hand like the rest of them). Alex's boss acted as our guarantor, so he had to sign everything, in addition to hand-copying a long document that basically stated that if we blow up the apartment and flee the country, he'll pay for three years' worth of our rent. I promised him after that if/when I blow up the apartment making muffins, I'll pay my share. That's where the insurance comes in. We were also told we needed to buy two types of insurance, and that once we'd done that, we were to bring the attestations of insurance on Saturday in exchange for the apartment keys. We went to the bank yesterday, were told we needed an appointment, went back today for the appointment, and luckily were able to buy renter's and civil liability insurance in one shot. Phew. Now that we have our insurance papers, we just have to go back downtown to the real estate agency once more tomorrow morning to get our apartment keys. Hurrah! Since all the stores are closed on Sundays here, we are also planning (perhaps rather ambitiously), to bring our suitcases across town on the tram to the apartment, and then jet over to Ikea (aka take the tram and a bus), buy everything we need for our apartment (all our kitchen stuff, bedding, garbage cans, you name it), and bring it back on the tram before the day is done. I'm thinking we might not have time to also go to the grocery store and make a second trip across town to the guest house to get the rest of our luggage, so we might not actually be sleeping there tomorrow, but we'll definitely be in by the end of the weekend. Luckily, the owner is very nice and said he'd transfer the electricity account to our names, so I don't think we have to deal with that ourselves. Then we just need to figure out how to set up the internet. Which I'm sure won't be as easy as it sounds, because...(see #4).

4) ...Everything here is circuitous. So far, there have been a lot of steps associated with each task we need to do here, each of which is contingent on something else. For instance, I want to buy a new French cell phone, because my Canadian phone hasn't been working very well for a few months (might be the brook I dropped it into in summer 2014). Nevertheless, I didn't bother buying a French SIM card, and I cancelled my Canadian plan before I left. So naturally I can use my phone only with WiFi, but not to text or make calls. I tried to do buy a French phone the first week I was here, and have tried several times since. To illustrate the circuitous process of things in France, I'll outline how this has gone down so far:

Step 1) Spent a full half-day doing research on phones and plans. Figured out which phones are sold here through various French phone companies, read reviews of the phones, and decided which one I wanted.

Step 2) Went to the cell phone store of our choosing. Alex bought a phone plan and French SIM card to put in his phone. Simple. It worked. However, they didn't have the phone I wanted in store, and all the phones they sold in store required a 2-year contract. The plan Alex got has no contract, is 20€ per month, has free international long distance and 50 GB of data, and obviously I want the same one. So I decided I'd buy my phone outright (online) instead of signing into a contract, and come back to buy the plan. Easy-peasy.

Step 3) Spent forever picking and customizing new phone online. Decided which case and cover I wanted. Did I want engraving? What about a welcome message? Was "Hello Dr. Goodman" better than "Bonjour Samantha?" Was pink better with gold or silver trim? Hmm, maybe purple was nicer. But did it go with the magenta case? Did I want 8 GB or 16 GB? (Obviously this took over an hour and much consultation with Alex regarding colour combinations). Finally made up my mind, proceeded with the order, and got to the payment step. Needed it delivered in France but were living in a hotel at the time, and we realized we didn't have an address.

Step 4) Alex emailed a colleague to ask if we could use his address for our shipment. Went out to dinner. Waited for his reply.

Step 5) Came home. Put Alex's colleague's name and work address as the shipping address. Put my Canadian address as the billing address associated with my credit card. Wouldn't work: France is the only option in the drop-down list of countries. Put Alex's work as my billing address. Wouldn't work: billing address doesn't match up with actual billing address on my credit card. Put my actual Canadian billing address but with France as the country. Obviously didn't work. Cried a little. Had a small inward (ok, outward) temper tantrum. Didn't buy a phone. Decided we needed to wait until we had a French bank card associated with a French billing address so we could make this (and any) online purchase.

Step 6) Waited until the next week when Alex had started work. Went to bank with Alex four days in a row. On the third day (a Thursday) we got an appointment set up. On the fourth day (Friday), we went back for the appointment. Got a bank account. Were told our actual bank cards would come in the mail in the next few days. Hmm. Still can't buy my phone, but have a bank account. Slow progress. Feeling better.

Step 7) Waited another week, didn't get bank cards in the mail at Alex's work. Went to the bank 5 minutes before they closed on a Friday. Turned out bank cards were waiting for us in the mail AT the bank. Asked how to activate them. Was told that I needed a code which I should have received in the mail. Went home. Alex checked his mail at work but obviously had none.

Step 8) Waited another full week. Got codes in the mail at Alex's work today (Friday, two weeks after setting up the account). Went back to the bank with codes in tow. Huzzah! However, bank account is empty since Alex's pay hasn't gone through yet (obviously). Were told we needed to make a withdrawal in order to activate bank cards. Since account was empty, deposited 20€ and then immediately withdrew the 20€ to activate my card. Card activated, success!

Step 9) Immediately after this, had appointment with banker to buy insurance. He noted that our account was in the red by 20€. We explained that we'd deposited and then withdrawn 20€ to activate the card. He explained in French that when you make deposits, they take one business day to go through, so we had just put ourselves into overdraft. Normally, he continued, you'd incur charges, but I'll wipe the fee since you are apparently five years old and don't understand simple things like not withdrawing money from an empty account. (See, the French are nice!). Decided not to activate Alex's card, so as not to go into overdraft twice in one day.

Step 10) Bought insurance. Banker then showed us how to set up Alex's card for online purchases. Asked about mine, and he said we can only use Alex's card to make purchases online because he is the primary account holder (and I'm a woman, duh). We said ok. I asked Alex to pretty please share his bank card number with me in the future. He said yes, since it's the same account anyways. (I made that up - I didn't ask his permission, but plan to stealthily copy the number down and hide it on a secret sticky note). Asked if we can use the card (which is a MasterCard) as a credit card while the account is empty. You know, like what credit cards are for -- buying things that you can pay off later. He said yes, but you'll be charged every time you do this. Credit cards here are not credit cards as we know. They are basically debit cards with overdraft. Learned something new today. Do not buy cell phone on newly activated credit card while account is empty, unless you want to incur fees.

Step 11) Came home, reluctantly closed cell phone company tab that was waiting with order ready in online shopping cart. Will not be ordering phone today immediately after bank appointment as I had planned/hoped. Alex went back to work to find out when he'll be paid. Secretary was away all day. Obviously. He asked a coworker, turns out they get paid once a month at the end of the month. Guess I won't be buying a cell phone until December. As the book my friends gave me is titled, le merde!

All of that to explain to those of you who keep asking why I don't have a French phone number yet.
Vive la France!!

A hilarious book my friends bought me (thanks, girls!) which I read in the first week I was here and learned a lot from!

P.S. I'll post pictures of the new apartment once we've moved in!