Week 5: We're officially residents of France!

Salut!

Comment ça va? J'ai entendu qu'il y a des neige au Canada! Ici en Caen il a plu pour trois jours, mais aujourd'hui il fait beau! (Your French tidbit for the day: the weather).

Now, what you've been waiting for. 

1) I bet you're just dying to hear the latest updates about my cell phone buying process. Well, here goes. After a few weeks of having an empty French bank account, we got fed up and transferred Canadian money into our French account using a fancy Global Currency Transaction. (Even though I did this from my Canadian account in English, I felt kind of proud that it was successful, because you had to enter all kinds of French bank codes and I was kind of nervous that we might screw it up). Once the mulah came through a few days later, Alex was finally able to activate his French bank card by withdrawing some cash. Woo! On Friday (it seems to be a big day for banking related moments, as I've had something arrive every Friday for about three weeks), we finally received our secret security key in the mail, so now we can make online purchases. 

This is the secret key card you receive from the bank. Whatever site you're using to make purchases asks you to enter
for instance, the number in "F7" or "G3"... kind of like Bingo.

Receiving the key card also means that we successfully received mail at our new address! If you're wondering why that's exciting/a triumph, read the aside below. 

[An aside about the mail here: It is very rare for apartment numbers to be posted on apartments or mailboxes, which we noticed when we were apartment hunting. Most apartments we viewed just gave their street address. If you're setting up an account or filling out an online form with your address, you give the bâtiment/escalier (building/stair) number (ours is 'C') and the floor number (ours is 1ér étage, meaning first floor, even though we're on the second floor, because the floor above ground level counts as floor zero). It's all very confusing. We've realized that since really no one uses their apartment number, it's very important that the names of everyone in your household are written on the mailbox and the plaque beside your buzzer, along with your floor and bâtiment/escalier, otherwise your mail/deliveries will probably never reach you because the postal worker won't know which apartment you are in. This is in stark contrast to Canada, where it wouldn't matter whether the mailbox in your apartment building said the name of the person three tenants before you. Needless to say, we put stickers on the mailbox, our door, and the buzzer plaque that listed both our names, stair/building number and floor number - and our apartment number, just for good measure.  Our apartment building here has three or four entrances (A, B, C...corresponding to the bâtiment/escalier) and the postal worker has to go into each entrance and look for the tenant's name on the mailbox, since the bâtiment/escalier isn't necessarily included on your mail. If they can't find your name, they might have to search another part of the building until they find it. Wouldn't an apartment number on the mailbox make everything so much easier? Our system at home makes so much more sense to me... Note to family in Canada: you might want to add "Bâtiment C" to the address I gave you!]

Back to my story. After receiving the secret key card in the mail, I finally ordered my cell phone online. The purchase went through without any frustrating pop-up messages telling me that my address wasn't acceptable, my bank card wasn't acceptable, or that the phone I was ordering wasn't in stock, as had happened so many times before. Yay! The confirmation page stated that my phone should arrive by Dec 2nd - so I should be able to buy a French SIM card and get a cell phone package just in time to go home to Canada for Christmas. Figures.

Later that night, I received an email from Motorola that started with "Nous sommes désolées..." and was instructed to call their customer service department. Le sigh. I called the next day and successfully navigated the phone call in French. I think I resolved whatever the issue was (something about our change of address, the fact that the bank card was in Alex's name but the order was in my name, and that our online account was in Alex's colleague's name, since when I'd first tried to order the phone we'd been living in a hotel and I'd put his colleague's name and address). What a mess! I successfully cleared up the confusion, and the woman said she'd send me an email in which I needed to click a button to confirm the order. Of course, this was Saturday morning and I haven't yet received the email (which at home would've come through immediately). I called back today (another French phone call!) and the man I spoke to said the confirmation email usually takes 3-4 days to arrive. So I guess my order probably won't even begin to be processed until later this week. Oh, how I love France. 

2) In happier news, we got the Internet this past week at our new apartment! I picked our FreeBox up at the FreeMobile store and set it up all by myself (a big success for me). Similar to the cell phone packages, the internet plans are way better here, and ours includes: unlimited internet, a TV box with 200 cable TV channels, AND a landline in which you can make free international calls. This is all for about 30€ a month. Crazy, right? 

Naturally, Alex went shopping after work the very next night and came home with a fancy new smart TV. I's an Android TV with all kinds of apps and stuff, and given that I haven't had cable TV in about a decade, I feel super fancy just having cable, and will probably never make use of the apps. (Alex mentioned that he downloaded me a fitness app, but I don't want to disturb the neighbours so I'm going to ignore his subtle hint and continue eating baguettes and camembert). However, I now know how to turn it on and navigate the 197 French channels (BBC, CNN and Sky News are in English, so at least I can stay somewhat up-to-date on world events). 

Alex also picked us up a cordless phone, which I also haven't owned for about ten years. So, now we have internet AND a TV, AND a landline in which I can call Canadian numbers for free. [As another aside, the phone plans here all specify whether you can call landlines - les numéros fixes - or cell phones - les mobiles - which is different than at home where it doesn't matter what type of phone you're calling. Luckily, we are able to call mobile phones with our mobiles and landlines with our landline, so it's not too confusing].  All in all, although I still don't have a cell phone in which I can call or text, having a landline, a TV and the internet makes me feel much more connected, and I have the sense that our life here is really starting.

3) On that note, we moved into our new apartment a week ago and are starting to feel much more at home. I really like our new place - mostly because I convinced Alex that we should get the apartment with the nice kitchen. This past week I got to spend tons of money buying everything you need to furnish said kitchen: dishes, cutlery, glasses, mugs, cooking utensils, pots, pans, etc... plus essentials like a variety of matching purple and green baking pans and muffin tins. 

On top of that we had to buy pillows, bedding, a vacuum, an iron, towels, garbage cans, floor mats, and all the other things you need to run a household. You don't realize how much stuff you use on a regular basis until you have to buy it all in a one week period. Or until you go to make a recipe and have to use an empty can of beans to measure out the amounts because you don't own measuring cups. Or when you successfully make the recipe that will feed you for three days, and then realize you don't own any containers to put the leftovers in. (Needless to say, measuring cups and tupperware were moved to the priority section of the To Buy list that night). 

First night in our new apartment! I exploded half this bottle of champagne
in our brand new fridge half an hour after arriving. A true "Sam moment".
I also cut off a (tiny) piece of my thumb the next night. It's still healing.

Alas. Yesterday we ordered our washer-dryer online and I THINK that's the last big purchase we needed to make in order to set ourselves up. Phew! The washer-dryer is due to arrive on Wednesday, and the control panel in the online image looks super confusing, so I'll probably write a whole post detailing the learning process. Which reminds me...

4) All appliances are a little different here. You'd think it would be easy enough to turn on a new stove - or oven - or dishwasher. These things are all basically the same, right? It turns out they aren't, and it actually isn't that intuitive when all the symbols are different and you don't have a manual. Or when the manual is all in French, German and Swedish and you don't know any technical terms in those languages. For instance, both the washing machine in the guesthouse and our dishwasher here have settings for 3h, 6h, and 9h. Alex and I kept marvelling at how a cycle could take so long. We learned from his colleague this week that it's actually a delay - you can set it to START in 3, 6 or 9 hours. I understand that on a washing machine - you can set it to start in the afternoon so your clothes aren't wrinkly by the time you get home from work. But a dishwasher? I'm not sure why you'd need to delay that for 9 hours. Maybe so it can wake you up in the middle of the night?

I'll give you another example.

Mini bottles of wine at the Ikea cafeteria

The first night we tried to cook in our new apartment, we were exhausted after our trip to Ikea, which involved taking a tram, a bus and a walk in each direction, and buying as much stuff as we could possibly carry on both shoulders. (On the plus side, as per the image to the right, we had a nice French sit-down lunch at Ikea. The cafeteria-style restaurant had the option of bread, appetizers, entrées, desserts, coffee, and of course, mini bottles of French wine).

After arriving home from Ikea with sore arms and legs and unwrapping all our new stuff, we opened a celebratory bottle of champagne and placed one of our new pans on the stove. After purchasing so much new kitchen stuff, we were determined to cook dinner in our new place.

Our stovetop and its mystery symbols

We tried pressing all the buttons to turn on the element, but it kept making a noise and turning off, or displaying a mystery symbol that looks like the top half of the letter 'H', as shown above. Since we had no manual or even model number, Alex had to Google the brand name of our stove and look through images online until he found one that looked like ours. Once he had determined the model, he tracked down someone's English translation of the manual, which was a bit tricky to follow. After trying everything the manual instructed us to do, we figured out that our new fancy induction stovetop has automatic sensors so that it turns off if a pot/pan is not on the element. (I guess so the element isn't left on and you don't burn yourself. Smart).  However, it only senses magnetic pots and pans, and we'd opted for the more affordable frying pans at Ikea, rather than the more expensive stainless steel ones. Thus, the element was automatically turning off because our pans weren't magnetic and were not being detected. Fortunately, our pots were magnetic and we were still able to cook dinner that night. The following Monday I made another tram-bus excursion to Ikea and returned our already unwrapped frying pans, which the cashier nicely agreed to give me store credit for. He even drew the symbol for "induction" for me so I could purchase ones that would work on our stovetop (it's a swirly symbol, in case you're wondering).  Since I was there, I bought several more things that we'd 'missed' on the first trip, like red wine glasses and champagne flutes. ;)

The oven won't turn on unless you set the timer. The whole thing turns off when the timer runs out, so you have to make sure to watch it. Or maybe we're missing something.

All microwaves have dials rather than an electronic screen and buttons, so it's really tricky to put things on for <1 min.
 I've had a few accidental steamy baguette slices!

5) I'm learning French! (Slowly). I've signed up for French classes, but unfortunately they don't start until January because we moved here in the middle of a semester. However, I think my French comprehension is improving a bit. The first two weeks we were here, I couldn't even answer the phone or call about an apartment viewing. I've been getting some practice with French every time I need to email a company about something, which is helping quite a bit. In addition, this morning I called Motorola for the second time AND called to set up an electricity account in French. The latter was probably a 30 min call, and involved navigating the French touchtone menu, answering a lot of questions about aspects of our apartment (type of heating, number of people, what appliances we had, whether heating was included, etc.), finding our apartment's kilo-wattage from our home inspection document, relaying our banking information, and setting up how and when we wanted to be billed (every month? every two months? by mail? automatic withdrawals?). Alex received a confirmation email, so it looks like I successfully completed a full service call in French! I think we should probably set up a sticker system on our fridge, because I definitely feel deserving of a gold star today. 

6) Finally, I wanted to reiterate a few things from previous blog posts. 

- The French really are nice. The Ikea man drew me a swirly symbol so I could buy the right frying pans. The lady at the electricity company made sure I understood everything, and told me at the end of the call that I did a good job with my French. (So what if that's something you say to a five-year-old? I was proud). Our landlord is super nice and friendly, and was really impressed when he learned this weekend that we'd just moved here from Canada. He even offered to buy our washing machine and other stuff off us when we leave, so we won't be out so much money. Lastly, everyone says bonjour/bonsoir, even if you are just passing them in the hallway or on the street. 

- Tout c'est jambon. I wasn't lying. The grocery store by our new apartment has about three aisles of pork products, and a full aisle of beef. Chicken is in a separate aisle that is shared with le lapin, le canard, le dinde et le veau (rabbit, duck, turkey and veal). All frozen pizzas are topped with either ham and cheese, or four types of cheese. There is no other option. Similarly, Alex's friend who lives in Strasbourg (which is in the Alsace region of France, on the border of Germany) told us that an Alsatian salad is literally just ham and cheese, so you really can't be a vegetarian around there. Alex ordered mignon at a fancy restaurant this weekend, assuming it was filet mignon, and naturally it turned out to be some sort of pork roast. (Luckily he eats pork and really enjoyed it). To top it all off, check out la vache qui rit, below.

Does this cheese look familiar? Look more closely. It's ham flavoured.

As I sign off, I would like to acknowledge my awareness of the fact that all my posts so far have been about the mundane details of my life. Somehow these anecdotes are (somewhat) interesting (I hope), just because they are different. However, I'll try to have some actual adventures soon so you don't have to keep reading about frying pans and ham. We're off to Strasbourg this weekend to visit Alex's friends and to check out the famous Strasbourg Christmas markets. Hopefully I'll have some good stories (or at least photos) next week!

Bonne journée!