Sunset

So it certainly looked like it would be a fantastic sunset tonight...

 Was I right, or was I right?

France by the Numbers

France by the numbers

60's) This week, high temperatures are forecast to be in the 60's :-) and sunny!
12) Yesterday, I counted no less than twelve kite surfers
5) Today, we went to five sports equipment stores (we got weights, and looked for a camp bed)
3) Tomorrow, I will use three modes of transportation to get a coffee (and croissant!): drive to the tram station, take a tram (and transfer to another), walk through downtown Montpellier
fractions) Our usual afternoon walk is short (3/4 mi) to the end of the walkway at the canal or longer (1.2 mi) to town and marina

Weather Warnings

As my hometown in Northern California is under evacuation orders, I anxiously watch from a fair distance. Will the dam's spillway fail? Will it be repaired well enough and in time to withstand the next bout of rain? All serious questions, but at the same time, my friends and family in the area have dealt with flooding before. And, I know what the response actions are for the most part - police and national guard hustle folks out of the area, news outlets and emergency services tell people where evacuation stations are and what roads are closed, people are glued to their phones for the latest info.

So, from my couch in France, I actually have a better sense of what's chaotic and what's not in California than I do right outside my back door. I woke up to an "Orange Alert" in my area - and I realized that I had NO idea what that really meant! Well, I looked around a bit, and found something of an explanation - I still have no real sense of what to do or expect, but, for today, our orange alert seems to be in place because we have had rain for a few days, more is expected, and along the coast, we have high tides and high winds - so possible flooding.

This is a quote from the (Irish!) weather bureau*:
"This category of ORANGE level weather warnings is for weather conditions which have the capacity to impact significantly on people in the affected areas. The issue of an Orange level weather warning implies that all recipients in the affected areas should prepare themselves in an appropriate way for the anticipated conditions."

Hmm - so flooding. Prepare to move to higher ground. Well, most of our stuff is still in suitcases - check. We're in an apartment building, with easy access to higher floors - check. But! We're currently on the ground floor, and it slopes down a bit from the very short sea wall - ack! We have a car - check! But lowlands, canals, and bridges are between us and high ground - ack! And I'm not sure where we would even go - ack!? Or when?

Oh yes! I do have the SAIP** app on my phone - it has do's and don't's and will alert me if evacuation is necessary. :-)

~~~
* France's weather site: http://vigilance.meteofrance.com
Europe weather alerts: http://www.meteoalarm.eu/
Ireland's explanation of alerts: http://www.met.ie/nationalwarnings/warnings-explained.asp

** SAIP which stands for “système d'alerte et d'information des populations” (public alert and information system) is the French Government's location-based alert system

Mornings and Evenings

Mornings and Evenings - two of our favorite things :-)

House Hunting in France

House Hunting. In France. Turns out, this is not "rental season" (don't ask me when that is; I'm focused on NOW)

~~~~
Wow - I wrote that last night after we got home. Then I let the wine and cheese apéro take over - between that and the heat-and-eat quiche dinner, followed by Columbo in French, we let the day's events percolate :-)

So. Househunting. Before we left the states, I thought I would get an idea of what sort of apartments were available, so I looked at websites like SeLoger.com and LeBonCoin.fr. There were plenty of places, encouraging information, and they seemed to be long-lasting (that is, I looked off and on over several months, and saw a lot of the same ads. Well, that probably made me too complacent. It turns out that many of the furnished places (our going in position) were rented for some part of the year as holiday lets; they just kept the ad up to fill in the down-times - so, *not* available for us year-round. Fortunately, we had some history with Renestance, a company that helps expats get settled in France. While we typically do prefer to go the Do It Yourself route, this promised to be a bit more stress than we could stand. While it is still extremely stressful, we have Dennelle and her team on our side!

Yesterday, we went to see our first possibility - it's furnished, and in a good area of Sète, but it is quite small. We decided to keep it as an option, but expand our search to (1) furnished apartments in Frontignan as well as Sète, and (2) unfurnished apartments in Sète. (3) extend our need-by date by a couple of weeks (somehow!)

We've been through this before - in Costa Rica, when we failed to find a furnished place, we did rent unfurnished - and bought a few (very few) necessities right off. We know we can do this :-)

On our way back from Sète, we stopped off in Frontignan to get a feel for it. At ~20,000 people, it's about half the population of Sète, has a train stop, tourist office, and beach community.

Dennelle and me in front of Frontignan's Mayor's office

Frontignan - no idea what this building is, but I liked it!

We talked about a great many things on the drive, from French legalities to music and social groups.

Back in town, we drove off to look for a scanner/printer - no luck, but we now know a new shopping area, with even a couple of used-stuff places. And finally, home! Well, temporary home, but it does have a couch and wine ;-)

~~~ UPDATE ~~~
Here is Dennelle's blog post about the week at Renestance: https://www.renestance.com/a-week-in-life-of-renestance-team/

For Your Enjoyment

A few pictures For Your Enjoyment - and mine :-)

Saturday Chores

We woke to a sunny day! And it's Saturday! Which means... Relax? Non - it means tomorrow is Sunday, when even grocery stores take the afternoon off. And we have a small fridge. Which means we have to pretty much fill it to make it through to Monday afternoon :-)

It also means that our best chance to have clean clothes actually get dry is to wash them this morning - yep, no dryer.

My final Sunny Saturday "chore" was to walk along the boulevard - the beaches were *quite* crowded for a Winter afternoon! A lot of fathers were out trying to teach their kids how to fly kites - these were 3-5 year old kids - very cute! I purposely left my camera behind (don't want to flood the interwebs with too many photos, do we?)

~~~
So:
- small fridge
- no dryer
+ washing machine
+ beach
(no, it's not a wash, not for me!)

Sunny Waves

It's starting to get sunny! And we still have waves!

Today's Walk

Out our back door is a pedestrian trail along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea - on days like today, even with the terrace doors closed, we can hear the waves, beckoning...

And we are not the only ones - see the masts of the boats in the marina? In front are surfers!

We're making headway, slowly but surely.

• We're still jet lagged, but walking along the sea certainly helps :-)
• We have a rental car for a month; we have to drive almost everywhere (except to the sea!)
• I've been cooking :-) 
• We have French SIM chips on the way, so we should have phone numbers within the week. Meanwhile, we have Wi-Fi, so my USA cell phone works at home, as does Skype.
• Most official things require a French phone number, unfortunately.
• Because we're Americans, many banks don't want to deal with the added paperwork associated - so we're searching for one. But we need a phone number ;-) 
• Housing depends on having a bank account; we're enlisting the help of a company here that helps people like us settle in.
• My immigration paperwork depends on long-term housing (what a cascade, eh?)
• We're becoming less stressed each day :-)