As we plan to live in the country it was obvious that we would need a car. As it turns out it’s pretty much impractical to import a car from Canada - many things like rear-view mirrors, headlights, side marker lights and a dozen other things would need to be replaced. It would be long, slow, and expensive, so it was better to sell our lovely Fiat 500 Turbo and buy new in France.
We’ve been renting a Citroën C from Hertz, and honestly it isn’t a very nice car. It reminds me, and I am not joking, very much of my first car: a 1964 Vauxhaul Viva. The gear shift is imprecise and all over the map. The clutch pedal is the same, with a long travel before BANG it catches with no warning. The car is just, um, sloppy.
We did consider the big three French marques - Citroën, Renault, and Peugot, but our fondness for Fiat won out and we visited the Fiat dealer in Angouleme.
What we discovered was that our Fiat 500 Turbo was a rather rare Fiat that was both small, affordable, and snappy. The Fiats on the lot included some non-turbo 500s, the 4 door Fiat 500X, and the Fiat Tipo, a station wagon that you can’t find in Canada. At the end of the day none of them fit what we wanted and, although I’ve discovered that diesel cars are actually pretty enjoyable to drive, we ended up signing for a lightly used Hyundai i20 Active.
I’m old school. When I think of buying a used car I imagine walking in, paying money to a dealer, and walking out with the keys. That, however, is not how things work in France. Without exception everything in France takes days, or weeks, and the best one can do is embrace that slow pace.
Because we still didn’t have a French bank account (It took a week and a half to get an appointment to set it up) we had loaded up a visa card in expectation that we would buy the car that way. We were mistaken.
The payment, we are told, must come from our bank, so can’t happen until the account has been set up. As well, even if we had that available to us, the car won’t be in our hands for seven or eight days because the dealer needs to clean, tune-up, oil-change, and generally check out the car top to bottom. I’m not sure why, but suspect that this is a French consumer protection law thing. In any event we’ll be renting for another week, and presumably will have a car in spectacular condition when we pick it up.
And then we need to arrange insurance of course, choosing between several companies with widely varying prices. Once again, getting quotes involves setting up appointments and meeting them in person.
So to summarise:
Sometime around eight days after signing the deal we will likely take delivery on a new car.
That assumes that our new bank accounts, for which we signed all the paperwork today, are up and running before then. Again, it will take “several days” before we get our bank cards and on-line access.
And of course I wouldn’t begin to guess how long it takes to get the insurance up and running, except that it too will rely on the bank accounts being in place.
Now here’s what really amazes me. I like all of this. I like not rushing, ever, for anything. I like the days of anticipation while we wait. I think what makes all of this agreeable to me is a trust that yes, everything will work as planned without nasty surprises.
That slow, careful pace is the thing that makes me love this country. Whether I’m in a supermarket line-up, or buying a car, and just walking through town, I like the feeling that we’ll all get to where we’re going, but in due course, and at whatever the right time is.
That sense of measured pace is reflected in the lunch time shut downs. I suspect it’s different in big cities like Paris, but everywhere around here businesses shut down from 12:30 to 2pm every day for lunch. Restaurants and cafes have menus designed specifically to fit this gap in the day, and it simply doesn’t pose a problem to anyone.
in the same vein the Intermarché supermarket where we shop closes at noon on Sunday, and the competitors don’t even open. And I’m positive that next Monday November 1st, All Saints Day, every business will be closed for the holiday.
After two weeks in Varaigne I’m really understanding just how frantic life was in Vancouver, and how nothing ever really closed down for any reason. That pace, and that sense of never really being able to get caught up on life is something that I’m only now appreciating, and am only now understanding how damaging it it is to our psyches.
And somewhere during the six hours car purchasing process we all seemed to lose our COVID masks…..
Oh Barry!!!! I laughed (from sentence one!!!), I cried (at your observation that life MUST slow down and our mental health requires it desperately!), I sighed. Learning to enjoy life as it was meant to be. Good on you, mate!!!! 👌