We're Connected to the World!

After over six weeks of living in France, we finally got our landline phone, TV, and internet service. We ended up canceling our contract with SFR, since we had a contract with them for about 8 weeks and they didn't deliver the service. (The relocation company had put in our order with them two weeks before we even moved to France.) We switched to the French national telecom company, Orange, and in a little over a week we had all of our services ready to go.

The whole saga of trying to get the telecom services set up helped me see some differences between the way things are done in France versus the US. I guess the main lesson I learned is that there doesn't seem to be the same emphasis on customer service here in France. I say that because SFR canceled two different appointments with us on the day of the appointment without giving any reason why.

Also, things here don't necessarily seem to happen in the most logical manner. SFR was supposed to send a technician to our house to set up our equipment, yet we had to pick up the equipment ourselves. For the first appointment (which got cancelled at the last moment), we had to pick up an internet router/modem at a location in the city. When that appointment was cancelled, I had to return that modem and pick up a second one for the second scheduled appointment. (Why, you may ask, couldn't I use the same SFR modem for the second appointment? I wondered the same thing. It turns out that each appointment has a specific modem that goes along with it.) These pickups/returns are in the city, and since we live in the suburbs, it's an inconvenience to do all of this. Now that SFR cancelled our second appointment at the last minute and we've cancelled with them, I have to return the second modem. The most logical solution for all of this would be to have the technician who is installing the equipment bring it along with him or her on the installation visit.

One of my general impressions of being here so far is that many things seem to be unnecessarily complicated and burdened with paperwork. Efficiency does not seem to be a strong suit of the French. (I remember getting our cell phones at SFR when we first moved here. It took about three hours and I had to fill out and sign six sets of paperwork for three phones.)

Since I just mentioned getting our cell phones with SFR...here's one more little tidbit about dealing with them. When I got my cell phone, it was a 99 euro phone, but it came with a 50 euro rebate offer. The woman at the SFR store gave me all the paperwork for the rebate and even filled it out for me. All I had to do was mail it, which I did. Last week I got a letter from SFR saying I would not be getting the rebate because I had bought my phone at a store that was not participating in the rebate offer. How could that possibly be true when the employee at that SFR store was the one who gave me all the paperwork for the rebate offer?

A Bald Mouse in the House

The other evening we were in our living room when the girls noticed some movement in our fireplace. (The fireplace is covered with a glass door.) The girls looked and thought at first that it was a frog that was stuck in there. Then they looked more closely and discovered that it was a small black bat. By the way, the word for "bat" in French is "chauve-souris"--literally, a bald mouse.

Needless to say, we were all shocked and worried. (Actually, we were all freaked out, but that doesn't sound dignified.) We watched the bat flutter around the fireplace for several minutes. We decided that we should just leave it alone and hope that it could get out the same way it got in. It turns out that Anna, who has an almost pathological fear of insects, has an equally strong fear of bats. She wasn't able to sleep in her own bed that night for fear that the bat would get out of the fireplace and attack her. So she slept with Jennifer.

The next morning the bat was still there. It was totally motionless, so I thought perhaps it had died. However, it was just in a deep daytime sleep. When it got dark, it started to flap around the fireplace again. Our cat Cookie Dough, who fancies himself a hunter, couldn't tear himself away from the little creature in the fireplace. Cookie Dough spent most of the evening (and probably all night) meowing and trying to bat at the bat. Once again, Anna slept with Jennifer.

The next morning I decided that something had to be done. I couldn't bear the thought of the bat starving to death in our fireplace. Our main worry was that the bat might have rabies. So Jennifer and I locked all three cats and the two girls behind closed doors, gathered up all of our nerve, and commenced a bat rescue mission.

First we taped a large plastic garbage bag around the fireplace door in the hopes that when we opened the door, the bat would just fall in. Then we put on winter coats and gloves, just in case the potentially rabid bat bit us. I grabbed a toilet scrub brush to use to prod the bat. We were ready to go in.

The bat was in a deep sleep, upside down, in the very corner of the fireplace. It didn't move when we opened the door, which meant I had to prod it with the toilet brush. I poked at it, and managed to make it fall toward the bag, at which point Jennifer maneuvered the bag over and managed to catch it. I pinched the bag shut and dashed through the patio door and outside.

Once outside, I ran under a tree near the outer edge of our yard. I wasn't looking forward to shaking the bat out of the bag, but I made myself do it. I shook and shook the bag, and finally the bat fell to the ground. It started to flop around, at which point I ran like a crazy person back into the house, undoubtedly shrieking the whole time. At least we knew the bat was alive. (Zoey would have never forgiven us if somehow the bat had died. She's a die-hard animal lover.)

So it wasn't pretty, but we managed to rescue the bat and get it out of our house. I could have called a pest control company to deal with it, but the prospect of dealing with another French workman was daunting. Besides, knowing how things work here, it probably would have taken several days to get a pest control person to our house, by which time the bat would have died. All I can say is that I hope we don't have any other creatures fall into our fireplace in the future.

The Art of being Patient

I've realized that we Americans are accustomed to instant gratification. When we want something, we want it now. I've only spent 4 and 1/2 weeks in France, but I've already learned that living here is going to teach me patience.

My number one example is our landline phone/internet/cable TV service. We still haven't gotten it. As I mentioned in a previous post, when we moved to Pennsylvania, we had all of those services set up and ready to go in less than 48 hours after moving into our house. Our order here in France was put in almost 6 weeks ago, and we still have no service.

Example number two: our garbage service. We moved into our house here on a Friday, and on the following Monday morning I put in an order for a garbage bin. (You have to have an approved bin to get your garbage picked up by the city of Lyon.) I had to pay for the bin, including insurance in case it gets broken or stolen, but that was okay. What was worrisome was when the woman told me it would probably take about 15 days to get the bin.

Needless to say, by the time 15+ days have gone by, a family can accumulate a lot of garbage. I started putting it outside the kitchen door, but every night some animal would get into it, and every morning I had to clean up the mess. I emailed the garbage bin woman twice during the two weeks to ask if there was any progress with the bin. She said no, I just needed to wait longer.

Finally, right at the end of the 15-day period, the bin was delivered to the house. I was so excited! It's amazing that an event like that could make me so happy, but after all those days of picking up garbage outside, the bin looked really good to me. I emailed the woman who had helped me place the order to tell her I'd gotten the bin. Her reply was classic. Translated, it was something like this: "See, with a little patience, everything does happen."

There are other things, too. For example, if you go out to eat at a restaurant or cafe, there is no rush. You can sit and talk in a leisurely fashion with absolutely no one pressuring you to leave. This is a pleasant contrast from some places in the States, where you feel like the server wants to rush you out the door, especially during busy times. When I go out to eat here, I appreciate that I'm not rushed. However, when you want to get the check, you need to prepare yourself to be there for the long haul. The servers are in no hurry to bring you your check.

Another example is in check-out lines at stores. Jennifer, in particular, likes to do everything quickly and efficiently, and she expects others to do things quickly, too. Every time we wait in a line at a store, it drives her crazy that the people ahead in the line empty their cart slowly and deliberately, and then take several minutes to dig out their card or cash to pay the bill. (This has happened to us at toll plazas as well. We always get our money ready ahead of time. The people we are inevitably stuck behind, however, apparently have to dig through every possession in their car to find some money to pay the toll.) The etiquette here is that you wait patiently for the person ahead of you to finish their transaction. Muttering in a stage whisper about how long things are taking or honking your horn at someone at a toll plaza are not done, at least as far as I can tell.

More about patience. Most stores and businesses are closed all day Sunday and for two hours around lunchtime on Monday through Friday. Most businesses, including gas stations, aren't open much past 7:30 pm, either. This means that now that we're living here, we have to plan our shopping and our business dealings accordingly. In the States, if you want to go to a store, chances are you can get in your car, drive off, and find the store open. Perhaps that's because it's all about making the sale in the States. In France they don't seem to mind that there are several hours a week and all day Sunday when they could be selling things to customers but aren't.