Last two weeks of January

Looking for an apartment

This took really long – we checked out a number of them, some too small, some more than our budget …. There was one which had a terrace bigger than the total square footage of the actual apartment. We quickly learned that you cannot conduct any business between 12:30 and 14:00 as a lot of places just shut down for lunch and a lot of things are closed on Sunday and Monday!! We finally found a cottage in Grasse.

Our Lake

Opening a bank account and getting a cellphone

We had so much fun…it took a long time to do this as Gene and I have different last names…. The French system just assumes that the wife’s name is Mrs. whoever … if you are married to the GUY!!!!. Christine, the customer service rep, at the Société Générale Bank was really helpful (and spoke English!!) and worked really hard at trying get the information correct. We also went and got a prepaid cell phone so that we could keep in touch.