Odds and Ends
A new town, and new things to figure out
On Friday we moved from Thézac to Alençon; from the Occitanie to Normandy. One of our big challenges is to figure out where all of our day to day things can be found, while still getting a handle on the language. The big difference though is that instead of being in a tiny rural village we’re in a proper city.
Sadly we’re now in a place without an InterMarché supermarket. Today we checked out Carrefour, but the big flagship store leaves a lot to be desired. So now we’re hunting for either a good farmer’s market, or at least some smaller but equally good food stores.
Alençon is an actual small city of about 26,000 people, which means (praise god!) restaurants! Lots of them, and not just brasseries! We already know of two great spots, both near the Ibis hotel where we stayed on our last trip. One is next door to the hotel: La Suite, which is good enough to get a nod from the Guide Michelin. The other, across the street, is Why Not, which makes what is hands down the best hamburger that I have ever eaten.
On our way to the Carrefour we had the distinct irritation to find a major intersection blocked by the goofs from the Gilet Jaunes. And the spray painted bedsheet banners are still showing up all over the place. Given that the government of France has pretty much eliminated all COVID restrictions I’m not sure what the point is any longer.
I’m finding that I finally need to bite the bullet and start dressing like a French man. The classic west-coast jeans and T-shirt wardrobe just doesn’t do it here.
We’ve both filed our first French tax returns, which were much, much simpler than what Revenue Canada demands. The latter of course winds up requiring bits of information that are packed away in boxes, waiting to be shipped to wherever our final address will be. And we’re learning that getting our own information out of Canadian companies is very hard. Next time we keep ALL of our various accounts open even though we expect to never need them.
A big thank you to our friend Elizabeth who has become our go-to person for picking up statements and handling things that absolutely need to be mailed.
Ameli is where you go to manage health care stuff. ANTS is where you go to manage auto registration and drivers’ licences. Associations.gouv.fr is where you go to register a new non-profit association. URSSAF is where you register your new business. Impots.gouv.fr is where you go to pay taxes.
All of the above make me realize that there was a very large similar group of Canadian ministries and departments that we used to deal with on a day to day basis.
Overall though, we’ve reached a point where we no longer spend every day going “Oh wow! That’s amazing!” Both of us still sometimes slip into comparing Canada and France, but we’re now more likely to compare different aspects of life in France. We understand the basics of day to day life such as everyday stuff like shopping, and who closes for lunch, and when you need to sit down and plan before setting out to try and do something.
In other words, life in France is now just normal, with the kind of everyday irritations that you get anywhere. On one hand that’s sad. I loved the sparkle when everything was new and wonderful. On the other hand we can now start describing ourselves as residents of France, not just visitors.
And we feel that we can continue to laugh endlessly at Facebook’s utterly horrid auto-translations.
