The move begins

The Christensen-Goodfellow

MOVE TO FRANCE

2010

The MOVING PROCESS

Preparing for this move was considerably more difficult than preparing for our move to Pennsylvania a year and a half ago. We knew that wherever we ended up living in France, the house or apartment would be much smaller than our 3500 sq ft house in Bethlehem. That meant that we had to sell or give away as much as we could. In addition, there was an administrative/logistical element to this move that just hadn’t been present when we moved domestically. We had to obtain long-term visas, find a school for the girls, sell our cars and large appliances, and we had to have special exams and paperwork for the cats, among other things. In addition, we had to book hotels and rental cars for the one-month period that we would be out of our house in PA and the one-week period before we could get into our house in France. The paperwork and logistics that we worked on for several months prior to the move were mind-boggling. (The paperwork included making numerous photocopies of passports, birth certificates, and diplomas, getting a French bank account, setting up French insurance for us and the girls, getting international driver’s licenses, and wiring money to pay for the rent on the house we picked out, among other things.)

During this period of preparation for the move, the four of us planned to go to France in April to pick out our house. However, two days before our scheduled departure, the volcano in Iceland blew, and all air travel to and from Europe was cancelled for several days. We had to postpone our trip for several weeks, since it hadn’t been easy to arrange those days off from school and work. Jennifer and I ended up flying to Lyon in May to pick out the house. The house we picked out is lovely and all new inside, but it’s SMALL. (European houses and apartments are almost never as big as American houses and apartments.) It’s in a suburb of Lyon called Charbonnieres-les-Bains.

Besides picking out a house, another big thing that we had to get done before our move was getting our long-term visas. We took the girls out of school on a Friday at the end of May and drove down to Washington, DC. After spending several hours sitting in the visa room of the French embassy, we were told that we couldn’t get our visas because of our unusual family situation. (The head of the visa section was on vacation that day, and the underlings didn’t think they should approve our visas without his permission.) We were very frustrated and disappointed, and we had to go to Washington again a few weeks later, when the head of the visa section was there, to get our visas. After our experiences of having a freak volcano eruption and an unsuccessful trip to the French embassy, we began to think that everything about our move was surrounded by bad luck.

After all of our preparations, the move officially began on June 1, when the movers came to our house to begin packing our belongings. We had had to separate everything into three groups: things going into storage in the U.S., things going by plane to France, and things going by ship to France. The movers came a full month before our move date, since it would take that long for our belongings to arrive in France by ship and to make it through customs.

It was very time-consuming and stressful preparing for the date that the movers came. We sold some of our belongings and donated a huge number of things to charity, but we still had a lot of stuff. It took the movers—a team of three men—five full days to pack and move everything. Once our house was empty, we began a period of more than five weeks in which we would rent eight rental cars and stay in nine hotels in two countries.

The FLIGHTS—July 1, 2010

Since we had to move out of our house and into hotels for a month before we actually moved to France, we saved out quite a few belongings that we needed to take with us on the plane. We weren’t able to pack any liquids or any food items for shipment ahead of time, so our only option was to take those types of items on the flights with us. We had a duffel bag full of creams, lotions, shampoos, etc. In addition, Jennifer saved out a number of food items that she wanted in France. We also had a small suitcase full of books that all four of us had saved out for the month, and another small suitcase full of the documents and paperwork that was needed to wrap things up in the U.S. and establish our life in France. All of that, combined with a month’s worth of clothing for four people, meant that we had nine suitcases to take with us on the plane. We also had three cats, three laptop computers, and various other carry-on items.

Luckily, we flew business class, so there was no problem checking our nine suitcases. However, there was a 50 lb weight limit for each bag. When we got to the Air France counter at the Newark airport, we discovered that two of our suitcases weighed more than 50 pounds. This meant that we had to redistribute some items from heavy bags into lighter bags. I opened the first overweight bag and discovered that Jennifer had packed a case of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup. She loves to cook with it and thought that she wouldn’t be able to get it in France (which is probably true). Needless to say, the soup was very heavy. It struck me as funny that we were well enough off to fly business class, but we had packed a case of soup. I went to throw the soup in the trash bin, but the woman behind the counter stopped me and had me put it in a lighter suitcase. She said she hated for us to waste food.

Going through security was a challenge. We had to take off our shoes, unpack the three laptops, take the cats out of their carriers, and hold the cats to our chests as we walked through the metal detector. Once through the detector, we had to get the cats back into their carriers and quickly gather up all of our belongings.

The cats were well behaved on the flights. They did meow a lot on takeoff and landing, which were both bumpy. And Cookie Dough meowed through a lot of the flight from Newark to Paris. When we landed in Paris, the plane became very quiet except for the loud, choral meowing of the three cats. Several of the passengers in business class craned their necks to see where all of the hullabaloo was coming from.

ARRIVAL—July 2

Once at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, we had to get off the plane and take a long, slow, crowded bus ride to the terminal. Then we had to walk a long distance, go through passport control, take another long walk, and go through security again. After another long walk, we were at our gate for the flight to Lyon. The girls hadn’t eaten much of anything on the flight to Paris, since they’re such picky eaters. So once we got to our second gate, I dashed off to try to find food for them. I was able to buy chocolate croissants and drinks and get back to the gate just in the nick of time before the final boarding. We got on another overcrowded and stifling hot bus that took us out to our plane.

I haven’t mentioned yet that the weather in France had been very moderate for the whole spring and summer up to the week that we arrived here, but it turned very hot a couple of days before our arrival. Jennifer and I were covered in sweat after our bus rides, long walks, and rush through the Paris airport. When we landed in Lyon and walked out the door, we were greeted with hot, humid air that was in the 90’s.

Jennifer had arranged for a van to meet us at the airport in Lyon. The van driver loaded up our luggage and then drove me into the city, where I went to the relocation office to get the keys to our new house and our bank cards. (The people at the relocation office were the ones who helped us find our house, set up our French bank account, etc.) While I was in the city, Jennifer and the girls were at the airport renting a car. We all met up at the hotel outside of Lyon a couple of hours later.

Once we had checked into the hotel, we all needed some food. Jennifer and I left the girls in the room, and we set out in the car to find some food and to buy a litter box and litter for the cats. We told Anna to lock the door of our hotel room from the inside while we were out on our errands. We wanted the girls to be safe. Jennifer and I had a rough time on our expedition. The people at the hotel reception desk had told us that there was a small grocery store about a mile away. We found it very easily. Unfortunately, though, it was closed from 12:30 to 3:00. We were there at 2:00. So we had to find another place to buy food and cat supplies. The rental car came with a GPS, but it was hard to use and seemed to give very circuitous directions. We drove around the suburbs of Lyon, lost, for quite a while. We knew that the girls were starving back at the hotel. Finally we found a McDonald’s and decided that that was better than nothing. The cat supplies would have to wait. Miraculously, we found our way back to the hotel.

We got to our hotel room and knocked. There was no answer. We rang the bell repeatedly. There was no answer. We couldn’t even put our key into the lock, since the other key was in the lock inside the room. We went to the reception desk and used the phone to call the room. There was no answer. The man at the reception desk said that the only way to get into the room if the door was locked from the inside was to call the fire fighters. We knew that the girls had fallen asleep in the room—after all, we’d missed a night of sleep. We decided that it would not make a good impression to have the fire fighters come to our hotel room on our first day in France. (The man at the reception desk also said that he had never seen this happen before. He said that everyone except us knows not to lock a door from the inside.) We knocked, rang, and called off and on for over an hour. Meanwhile, Jennifer and I were outside in the hot sun. We couldn’t believe that the girls were sleeping so hard. What if they slept through the whole evening and the night? Would Jennifer and I have to get another hotel room? We were hot, exhausted, and frustrated. Finally we called and Anna answered the phone. She said that they were, indeed, sleeping. She let us into the room. After all of that, though, we still hadn’t found a place to buy the cat supplies. Jennifer and Zoey ventured back out into the suburbs later in the afternoon to buy cat supplies and fans. After all, we arrived in France during a mini heat wave, and the French don’t do air conditioning. (Or at least not in most places, and not in our hotel.)

Apparently Jennifer and Zoey had quite an adventure when they went shopping that first afternoon. They went to Carrefour in Ecully. It’s a huge grocery/department store—sort of like a Super Walmart. They didn’t know where the cat supplies were, so Jennifer said to a clerk, “Les chats—pee pee.” It seems rudimentary, but it did the trick, and they found the litter boxes. At one point Zoey got separated from Jennifer in the huge, packed store. She managed to convey to customer service that she’d lost her mom, and Jennifer managed to find her. It was good that they were successful in their expedition without the benefit of my language skills.

July 3

The day after we arrived, we set off to do more errands. We wanted to get cell phones right away, since we wanted to be able to be in touch with each other and with the business people we’re dealing with. (The land line phone wasn’t due to be installed for several days at the new house.) Jennifer and Zoey had seen an SFR phone store at the mall with the Carrefour, so we headed back out to that shopping center.

We entered the SFR store and I began talking to one of the salespeople, a young woman named Marie-Laure. (Jennifer asked if anyone in the store spoke English, and no one did.) ML described various possible cell phone plans to me, and I passed the information on to Jennifer. Then Jennifer, Zoey, and I picked out cell phones that we liked. (Zoey originally wanted a phone that cost 249 euros. We said “no” to that. However, when Jennifer expressed interest in the same phone, we were told that it would cost her only one euro. We’ve heard that the French often think they know what’s best for people, and in this case, they had a pricing plan that let us know that they didn’t think an expensive phone was appropriate for a child.) After we picked out the phones and heard about the various plans, which took probably about 45 minutes, ML went up to the front counter with me to write up the contract, and Jennifer and the girls went to Carrefour to buy a new TV.

The way that the phone store worked was a sight to behold. There were four employees working there, but only one small counter/work space. The store was small and crowded with customers. ML had to print out extensive paperwork for me to sign, so the paperwork and the sundry boxes for our three phones were spread out over the counter. Every time one of the other salespeople needed to use the counter, various papers and boxes got knocked onto the floor. When ML was trying to use the computer and cash register for my transaction, other employees would break in to ring something up for their customers. I had to sign six documents for every cell phone that we got. When it was all over, I had spent over two hours in the store getting the phones. I felt like my experience there was a mini demonstration of the French penchant for bureaucracy that one always hears about.

While I was waiting endlessly for Marie-Laure to finalize my contract, a middle-aged couple came into the store. The woman asked an employee a question in broken English. The employee turned to me for help translating into French. I heard the customers talking to each other and realized that they were Russian. So I ended up translating from Russian into French for the Russian couple. Marie-Laure and her colleagues were quite impressed with my language skills.

July 6

Today I took the bus from the hotel here in Marcy l’Etoile into Lyon to meet with the people at the Chambre de Commerce de Lyon. I had already been offered a position teaching English at the Chamber of Commerce in the suburbs—that had happened when we took our “discovery” trip to Lyon in November. But the people at CCI Villefranche had passed my name on to their colleagues in Lyon with the thought that I might be able to teach at both places.

The people at CCI were impressed with my credentials, and especially the fact that I have an MBA, since much of their training is aimed at business people in French companies. They would have offered me a contract on the spot, if not for the fact that I reminded them that I don’t have a work visa. (You have to be guaranteed a certain number of hours per week at your job to get a work visa, and CCI can’t guarantee that many hours, so I can’t get a work visa. I found all of this out when I talked to the people at CCI Villefranche during the spring.) The people at CCI Lyon were very helpful and tried to suggest ways that I might come up with a work visa, but in the end there was nothing they could do for me. They told me to call them when I get a visa.

I walked back to the bus stop feeling very dejected. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the number of things that we need to do here to get our household setup, and now once again I was met with bad news. When I got to the bus stop, there was a group of about 20 four- or five-year-olds, accompanied by their daycare providers, waiting to get on the same bus. They were headed to a huge park that’s near the hotel we’re staying in. One of the little girls took a look at me and said, “Oooo, vous etes vieille.” (“Oh, you’re old.”) That felt like the icing on the cake after my frustrating experience at CCI.

July 7

I wanted to say a few words about everything we had to do in the States to get our cats ready to come to France. They had to have special medical exams and international ID microchips inserted under their skin. They had to have their shots updated. After all that was done, the vet in Bethlehem filled out extensive paperwork, which I had to FedEx to the USDA office in Harrisburg. The official Pennsylvania vet certified that our cats were healthy, and then he sent all the paperwork back to me. We carried all of the cat documentation with us on our flights. Unfortunately, not a single official in the U.S. or France asked to see any of the paperwork. The whole process from start to finish cost us well over $600.

Well, back to today. We bought a used fridge, dishwasher, and washing machine from a British man who is moving back to the U.K. (Actually we bought a used Peugeot from him, too, that I'll be driving.) So we arranged for some deliverymen to bring the appliances to our house in Charbonnieres and then set everything up. Talking to the deliverymen reminded me of how many things I don't know in French. They tried to explain things about what they were hooking where, and they mentioned various tools. I got the general idea of the technical explanation, but I didn't understand everything. The French I know tends to be general stuff and stuff related to linguistics. I guess my linguistics knowledge doesn't help me much in the real world.