Bonjour...
We are less than one month before our departure date & are busy making the last of the arrangements for our move. While most things in France will be less expensive than here in the US, we are finding that moving is definitely not one of them.
First of all, our shipping company informed us that there are additional fees we will incur for documentation, port fees, etc., with an estimated cost of $450. On top of that, while we search for our permanent home, we will be storing our furniture & household goods in a self storage facility, for a cost of €175/month, substantially more than it would cost here. Then, we will need movers to unload our container into the storage box. Our US-based moving company can have it done for $1,000, a cost we thought was ridiculously high -- until we started looking for movers in the local area & found that the cost would be at least double that! To make matters worse, we'll need movers again 5 months after that to move our goods into our new home. Well, it's all for a good cause: our new life in Languedoc.
Even with the frustrations and expenses, we are confident that we will love our life in Languedoc...beautiful villages, wonderful wines, delicious food, calm lifestyle, and the opportunity to explore and meet new people.
À bientôt
We are an American couple who fell in love with Languedoc and decided to make it our home. Here's a little bit about each of us:
Chris: Born and raised in New York City, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area 30+ years ago. In between he lived in Aix-en-Provence and has always wanted to return to La Douce France.
Holly: Another ex-NewYorker who moved to the Bay Area shortly after Chris, with an 18-month detour to Kauai, Hawaii.
We made the decision to move late in 2010, and at that time it all seemed so far away, both in terms of miles and months. Well, we are now only 1 month until departure!
We signed an agreement for a 5-month rental of a furnished house in Pézenas, a medieval town we've visited and really liked, and it's a great base from which to explore the rest of Languedoc. Once we arrive in Pézenas we will start looking for a more permanent unfurnished residence, in or near Pézenas. Here's a link to the Pézenas Tourist Board: http://www.ot-pezenas-valdherault.com/index.php?lang=en if you want to check it out.
As we have heard so many stories from other ex-pats, we are bracing ourselves for the French bureaucracy. So far, our first experience with it has been much easier than we feared. Chris has Irish (hence EU) citizenship while Holly only US citizenship. Per the French Consulate website, Holly needed to apply for a long-stay visa before leaving the US; as an EU citizen Chris did not need to do this. So, we busily put together all of the documentation (originals + 1 copy, in a specific order) required for Holly to bring to her appointment at the Consulate. A few minutes into the appointment we were pleasantly surprised to find out that as a spouse of an EU citizen, Americans do not need the visa. One less hassle & a savings of 99 euros. All we have to do is register at the préfecture when we arrive in France, and start the process of getting the carte/titre de séjour. So far, so good. we know this will all be more difficult in France; our knowledge of the French language does not necessarily include "bureaucratic" French.
Now we are in the logistics phase.....We've already lined up the mover to load our container here in California, the shipping company who will transport the container with our household belongings from California to the port in Marseille. We are still trying to find a mover in France to move it from the port to a self-storage facility in Béziers, & we will need to use the movers again to bring our furniture, etc. to wherever we live after the 5 month rental.
We have collected so much "stuff" over the years and are busy trying to whittle it down to essentials, which has generated some -- ahem -- interesting discussions. We can only take what fits in the container, and the rooms in our new home will likely be smaller than what we have had. With one month to go, the packing has begun & we fear that we will get buried in boxes before departure date.
Once we move out of our home in California, we will start the first phase of our journey, spending 6 weeks driving across the US, for a bit of sightseeing while visiting friends & family along the way. We will definitely blog during those 6 weeks. Our next-to-last stop is the port in New Jersey where we will ship our Saab to France. Our last week in the US will be New York, which in many ways still feels like home. Upon arrival in Paris we will pick up a rental car and take a few days to drive south to Pézenas where we will coordinate the transfer of our goods from the container to the storage facility. It all seemed so easy when we came up with this idea, and now it's starting to seem overwhelming.
In the months and years to come we will share some of our adventures...both the wonderful & fun ones as well as the frustrating and exasperating ones. We know we'll have plenty of both!
We would love to hear from readers...whether you want to share your own experiences or would like to comment on what we write.
A bientot!
