We received our keys on November 15th, and spent the first night in our apartment on November 17th. WOOHOO!!! It took longer then anticipated, yet as I have learned to say: Chaque jour, nous apprenons quelque chose de nouveau = Every day we are learning something new about living in France!
On Tues November 7th, we wanted to open a new bank account, yet the bank we first approached wouldn’t even talk to us until the following Friday. Another branch of the same bank talked to us on the 7th, only to tell us a couple of hours later, that they will not accept our apartment rental agreement as proof of residence and thus wouldn’t open a bank account for us.
Fortunately we received a more welcoming reception at another French bank, with a very friendly representative, who spent 2 hours with us in her office filing a very elaborate application. At the end of that meeting we still didn’t have the needed bank account to open a household insurance, the requirement for receiving the apartment keys, yet we learned that the bank still required more documentation from us, like a signed statement by a French citizen, stating that we’ve been residing with them.
Our friendly and very helpful AirB&B host Sylvie graciously filled out and signed all the documents required by the bank for us, including copies of her French passport, telephone and utility bills. Two days later, after another 1.5 hour meeting at the bank with plenty of paperwork, we were told that we might receive a decision on our bank account application in approximately 1 week! By then, our apartment rental was not only more and more delayed, but at that point, our entire France project became questionable. Our mood hit a low point.
We weren’t done yet. The following afternoon I received an email from the bank asking for a copy of Lauri’s birth certificate and our marriage license. The problem being, that when Lauri worked in Germany in the late 80’s, she was registered as “Pakkala-Kreutz” for family name, instead of her maiden name of “Pakkala” being listed as a middle name/second first name, as she requested at the time. The difference between her US Passport showing “Kreutz” vs the “Pakkala-Kreutz” in her German work documents from the late 80s created a problem.
Preparing for our French adventure I read a few stories from US expats living in France that motivated me to prep thoroughly for our endeavor, and that work was now paying off. I had lots of our potentially needed or useful documents scanned and readily available on iCloud, so that the bank received the required documents that same day.
The right to open a bank account is granted legislatively to every French resident. If a bank refuses to grant one, one can appeal their decision to the Bank of France, which, after a likely lengthy and elaborate process, will assign you a local bank which will be required to open a bank account for you. That was a reassuring piece of knowledge, yet naturally we were just hoping we didn’t have to go that route especially since our rental contract stipulated that we pay by the 15th and it was already the 10th.
Sooner than anticipated by the French bank we were working with, and by French bystanders like Sylvie and my cousin Werner, everything came together and on the 15th we had our keys!
Yes, we are being eased into the French way of living. Getting used to the fact that almost nothing is open or available from noon to two in the afternoon, nor on Sundays, and to an extend on Mondays is a work in progress. Pretty much everyone is very friendly and helpful, yet the American, or German, sense of efficiency and urgency we are used to, is frequently missing. People exude a sense of confidence that things will work out and be taken care of.
Just today, Lauri and I were shopping in a big discount market and had a very full shopping cart when we got in line at the register. A dishtowel didn’t have the proper tag, so the clerk asked me to find another one of the same kind to enable her to ring it up. A long line of folks were lined up behind us, waiting for us to get done, yet nobody, not the clerk, nor the people behind appeared agitated. In fact they started to pleasantly chat with us. A demonstration of civility and patience that we have noticed on more than one occasion.
Here is another, and this time frustrating example along that character line: We were to have internet installed in our apartment last Tuesday between 11 and 1 PM. We had planned our day around that appointment to be home, and waited for our door bell to ring or a phone call, until 12:45 when I received a text from the internet company technician, stating that he’d been unable to find our place and that he’d tried to call me several times without success. Further, he texted that we were now to call the company and make arrangements for another field appointment in 1+ week…. Time for us to practice our patience…
Back to our apartment move-in quest. Reading all this, one might get a sense that it’s been a dreary ordeal for us. A sometimes trying roller coaster ride? Yes, certainly! Yet we have been, and are, enjoying our time here! Multiple times per week shopping at Les Halles, – the fresh farmers’ market with the amazing displays of fresh, local, and varied produce, or at the Boulangeries and Charcuteries, – where we are trying to find an ever better bread, pastry, pate or jambon (ham) one hasn’t yet tasted. All this, in walking distance from our beautiful apartment, within a very charming French city.
Here is a picture of Sylvie & Guy Ottin, the very friendly, très sympathique, French couple who helped us in so many ways! After all the things they did for us, they invited us for an “aperitif” into their home. When we sat down in their salon, they spoiled us with a full blown “Welcome to Burgundy” reception with Kir, home baked Gougere (light, puffy baked buns with Comte cheese) – delicious!, Jambon Persille (ham with parsley) and Saucisson a l’Ail (garlic sausage), to a perfectly baked, tasty Tard aux Pommes (apple tard). We could only keep on saying … Merci Beaucoup, Merci Beaucoup, Merci Beaucoup…
Our apartment is slowly coming together. Furniture shopping, especially the bargain hunting for the abundant used, old furniture has been lots of fun. Our apartment building is at least a couple hundred years old, and has been used as military housing and, until a few decades ago, as a convent boarding school for young women. All this prior to the more recent renovation into an apartment building. The exposed, original oak rafters constantly remind us of it’s ancient age.
Besides the main room in our apartment and the guest room, there are three pictures of the entry gate to our apartment building and parking lot. Yes, we have a guest room with a queen size bed awaiting users! If you’re interested in checking us out on Google Earth, our address is “4 Rue Chancelier de l’Hospital, 21000 Dijon, France”.
Besides the French bank account, home insurance, etc, I also had to acquire a French phone number, as everything, from electricity billing to shopping discounts etc, is run via the 10-digit French phone number. Good to have a smart phone with dual SIM card capability, as keeping the US line is important for the ever increasing 2 factor identification requirements.
On the activity side, we’re enjoying going swimming together at Piscine Olympique or Piscine Carrousel. Both are up to date public city pools with 50 meter lanes available for lap swim. Piscine Olympique being all indoor, and Carrousel being year round outdoor with comfortable water temperature for lap swimming. It still feels very special to swim 50 meter laps through the steam in the cold and rainy outdoors. After decades of not swimming, Lauri hasn’t lost her stroke and enjoys the regular exercise. We’ve also slowly picked up our twice weekly yoga routine again.
The weather over here has been seasonal and not all that much different to Washington. I am still adjusting to the French optimism in their forecasts, as they do not mention any kind of precipitation amounting to less than the outright measurable rain for an hour or more. Like a lot of French people, we’ve learned to carry an umbrella.
A week ago we were at Werner & Nathalie’s in Paris and picked up our 4 suitcases plus my long missed bicycle! Unpacking our goodies in our apartment was a little bit likeChristmas. We’d gotten used to living with our limited clothing and were partly surprised by what all we had packed to bring several months ago.
Last Wednesday I was finally out on my bike for the first time in over 2 months. I was a little concerned about riding the approximately 1-2 miles to get out of the immediate inner city center, yet it turned out to be quiet simple. There are lots of bike lanes and symbols marked on the city streets, and in no time I was out on the Canal de Bourgogne bike trail.
This canal parallel bike and pedestrian only recreation trail runs from Dijon westerly up the Ouche and to the Yonne rivers. 150+ miles of contiguous trail riding! The trail was originally used as a canal support line for horses drawing the barges. Nowadays, the canal is mostly used by leisure canal boats.
Completed in 1832 with 189 locks, the canal connects the Yonne at Migennes with the Saône at Saint-Jean-de-Losne. The canal completes the link between the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea, via the rivers Seine and the Yonne to the Saône and Rhône.
Burgundy has a rich abbey history, with large, famous abbeys of the Benedictine tradition like Cluny, and with Citeaux and Fontenay of the Cistercian tradition. This Sunday we took a day trip south to Cluny, the site of the famous Benedictine Cluny Abbey or Abbaye de Cluny.
The abbey was constructed in the Romanesque architectural style, with three churches built in succession from the 4th to the early 12th centuries. The earliest basilica was the world’s largest church until the St. Peter’s Basilica construction began in Rome. Cluny was founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in 910. He nominated Berno as the first abbot of Cluny, subject only to Pope Sergius III. The abbey was notable for its stricter adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict, whereby Cluny became acknowledged as the leader of western monasticism. In 1790 during the French Revolution, the abbey was sacked and mostly destroyed, with only a small part surviving.
Visiting the site and the remnants of the Cluny III church, one can only realize how awe inspiringly grand and elaborate this church must have appeared to worshippers in the 13th century. The resources for construction and maintenance required must have put an enormous strain on the general population, which apparently got vented during the French Revolution, when this magnificent cathedral was being salvaged for its building materials and literally turned into a rock quarry.
This last foto shows the barn, grain/flour shelter of the abbey, large enough to hold the supplies to feed the approx. 900 inhabitants for one year. The original, oak roof, was built in the 13th century.
https://www.cluny-abbaye.fr/en/discover/history-of-the-abbey-of-cluny
A big Thank You to a couple people in Chehalis who made our move possible:
Suzan, who takes care of the flower beds at our house and picks up our mail,
Steve Creel, who takes care of maintenance in and around the house, and
Scott Amrine, who helped move our stuff into storage.
This will have to do for now, and I’ll promise that the coming posts will be shorter and hopefully more frequent.
Barney & Lauri's Burgundy & Beyond Adventure 
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