Banking in France

We have hired my friend’s American babysitter to spend some time with the kiddos so we can get out. It is really hard to get the kids out, since they prefer playing “at home” to schlepping around outside.  With our time alone yesterday what so you think we did? Most folks visiting Paris would go to the Louvre or the Notre Dame or take a boat ride on the Seine.

We went to the bank.

We still have our French bank account, since Clay often works for French publishers. You can't get an apartment in France without a bank account and usually you can't get a bank account without a residential address in France.

One of those choice French conundrums.

So even though we pay an annual fee, we don't want to close our account.  However, changing the address on our account is a major deal that requires lots of paperwork and documents and meetings. Our ATM cards expired six months ago, and for the past ten years we have been required to pick the cards up at the bank.  So, we've been waiting for this trip to Paris to trek to our old bank and retrieve our ATM cards.

After waiting in line, the teller (who is very nice an that's another reason I want to stay with this particular branch) informs us they were sent to our old address.  The one we moved out of two years ago.  With the cards MIA, we need to give a new French address.  Which of course we don't have.  We could easily give a friends’ address, but we have to show proof of residency there.

Clay asks if our former bank contact is here Monsieur D.  Yes, he happens to be in his office right now.  So, we pop up (very unFrench - the French don't do pop ins.  This actually was a relief to me when we lived here because in Italy they are a matter of course and I feel I am constantly risking offending friends by not "popping in" every time we drive by. Also, when the kids were babies I dreaded the pop-in.   There was inevitably a knock on the door just as I was nursing a baby or had gotten one to sleep or had just secured myself a few Minutes of quiet.

Monsieur D. greeted us graciously and after an hour, we worked out the challenge of inputting our new contact info into the computer (and yes one should be able to easily do this remotely by login on but of course we have been unable to log on since our French mobile is no longer active. So basically it is impossible to edit our account without showing up in person - in Paris - and meeting with Monsieur D.

After many security codes and questions, birthdays, marriage dates and mothers maiden names our accounts were edited.  Monsieur explained that the USA has enforced a new law prohibiting French banks from advising American clients in any way. Some distortion of the privacy act I assume, but basically means that he wouldn't be able to help us with our account if we hadn’t stopped in for a chat.

Good lord!

Our account sorted, the conversation turned as it always does in Italy or France (or maybe just with Clay) to food.  Knowing that Madame D. is Vietnamese and adores cooking, Clay asked where Madame D. shops for her ingredients since he plans on filling the car before we head back to Italy.  This prompted an extensive three-way discussion with Madame D. on speakerphone with Monsieur D. and Clay, debating the spelling of Bahn Cun and the differences between Chinese and Vietnamese noodles.

I was getting worried about wrapping things up in time to take the metro back across town because I knew the sitter would have to leave for her real job (guiding tourists up the Eiffel Tower.)

Ingredient list in one hand and Monsieur D’s personal mobile number in the other, (only to be used for personal/ food related discussions not bank issues) we strolled out an hour and a half later.  We had thirty minutes to complete the rest of our errands: roast chicken and éclairs for the girls and baguette and fromage for Clay before hopping the metro home and racing back up our stinky stairwell (the sewage problem has not been rectified).

That's the difference between being a tourist and living somewhere.

 The metro without tantrums! What a difference!

 Ballet at the Palais Royale

 Clay's FAVORITE Udon restaurant. Papa/Petite date.  Petite actually ate the broth even though there were greens in it!

Ma petite Parisienne avec sa parapluie. 

 The famous store. Repetto, right next to our apt.  Bambina spent the week trying to talk me into buying her toe shoes.

 Scootering along the Seine.

 Canoeing at the Jardin D'Acclimation - one of the best parks ever.

 Bambina doing interpretative dance of the "New pjs and rain boots"

 Places des Vosges

 Walking along the Seine

Scootering - this purchase has SAVED me because now no one is complaining that they need to be carried!

Credit Cards in France

CREDIT CARDS IN FRANCE I’ve driven from Paris to Italy so many times; this shouldn’t be a problem. Only thing is Mary’s house is in a teeny tiny town outside of another teeny town off the autoroute, somewhere in Burgundy. Thank god for GPS. Hubbie left me his Citibank debit card. I take 100 euros cash out before we leave, just in case. I’m so used to being able to use a debit card for everytihng in the USA, I forget that France doesn’t’ work the same way. Unless the card is from a French bank (mine was stolen), there’s a fifty percent chance the credit card won’t work. I’m reminded of this when I reach our first pay tolls (I had gotten used to the free auto routes in Austria) and my credit card is rejected. I pay the 24.50 euros in cash. Next pay toll we reach I insist on using my card. I know it works and I’m not willing to use up all my cash at the damn toll booths. I insert my card and it is refused. I ring the “help” button and explain, in French, that my card is refused but I know that it works. The barely audible voice on the other end asks me to pay cash. Using one of the French’s favorite phrases I insist that is not possible. Traffic building behind me, I wait. A few minutes later two young attendants stroll over. They are in no hurry. Why should they be? They get paid either way. They ring the help button and begin the absurd discussion of why my card won’t work. They try to insert it like an ATM card (as French bank cards work this way, not by “swiping”), I explain that the card has to be swiped. The three of them mull this over , examining the card, turning it over. It never ceases to amaze me how perplexed the French are over foreign credit cards. It’s a Citibank Mastercard for goodness sake. They finally swipe the card and we are on our way. #credit cards #France #travel with children #autoroute #29vsl

FRENCH APPLIANCES

FRENCH APPLIANCES – they never work *I have spent years struggling with French appliances: ovens, washers, tea pots, electric stoves, fuses that blows. You’d think that my ONE day on vacation, the washing machine could just FUNCTION. He takes the kids to search for food and I shlep round the corner to the Laundromat. After filling the machines and putting in my five euros in coins I can’t get the washer to turn on. It’s hot, I’m sweating and no matter what I do, the machine wont start. Of course there is no attendant. Theres a mobile number scratched on the wall but I don’t have a cell phone and I don’t have much faith in a Laundromat attendant rushing to my aid. I decide to take the clothes out of the machine and try another Laundromat. I add the lost five euros to the 68 euros the hotel won’t refund. So far, Paris has cost me 73 euros for a hotel room I am not staying in a washing machine that won’t work. I finally get the machines open, pile the laundry into my bags and shlep it down the street to another Laundromat. 12 euros later and I’ve got two loads running. I head to the shopping street I know Hubbie is wandering with the girls, collecting picnic items. Miss Pudding is virtually starving. She practically reaches into the rotisserie at the boucherie to pull out a roasted chicken. So Hubbie stops at a bench across from the metro station. It is still sweltering. He pulls out the chicken and starts feeding it to the girls, like feeding little babies. They devour it. Meanwhile I realize I have to wait for the laundry, to toss it into the dryer, if we want it done before the Laundromat closes tonight. Or risk Hubbie heading to Bordeaux with no clothes. I head back to the hot Laundromat and wait for the washing to end so that I can pop it into the dryer. I’ve told Hubbie to go ahead and take the girls – he promised to take Petite to visit her old French school, requiring a metro trip (I would have avoided that and hung around our neighborhood). I told him to go ahead and visit the school (view it from the outside) and I’ll meet them in the park nearby that Petite used to play in daily. #France #Paris #appliances #travel #motherhood