Bienvenue Chez le Ch'ti(show): September 2015

This is the combined blog of Rachel and Carson. We figured that together, we should be able to keep up consistently (ish).

Oh, and the title of this blog was inspired by the documentary of the (almost) same name: Bienvenue chez les ch'tis. It's basically about French northern culture (I assume, I haven't watched it) and means "Welcome to the land of the Ch'tis." Ch'tis = Northern people... and Carson and I get into hilarious/unfortunate situations semi-regularly... and, yeah... I have grandparents so I don't feel like explaining the title any more explicitly than need be.

Now that we have a few minutes of downtime, I (Rachel currently) figured I should go ahead and update you all before it is lost forever to my jetlagged memory.

DAY 1:

The flight over was quite pleasant as no one was next to us and there was unexpected complementary wine. When we arrived in Brussels, everything was almost too easy. We immediately found our luggage and bought our train tickets for Lille. Having already researched our trajectory, we knew that we had to change trains only once and it was all relatively straightforward. We maneuvered our way over to our platform (I say maneuvered because there’s really no other word for the way in which one moves three giant, awkward pieces of luggage through large crowds of people) and waited for our train that was leaving at exactly 9:41. A train pulled in at about 9:35 and, for whatever reason, we decided that it could not possibly be our train. In hindsight, I actually have no idea why.

At 9:39, we started to feel uneasy. Our train was supposed to leave at 9:41... but where could it be!? Another girl came running down the platform and asked us if it was the train to Brussels’ center. We said “Uh, no that one is coming at 9:41.” Psh, obviously. While writing this I am becoming progressively more and more perplexed by our logic at the time.

At 9:40, Carson all of a sudden has an enlightened moment and starts repeating: “it’s the train, it’s the TRAIN, IT’S THE TRAIN.” Frantically, we start trying to throw our suitcases on the train, which is about two feet higher than the platform. Carson at some point is on the train and I’m handing him up our many pieces of luggage when a whistle starts to blow. We still had a gigantic suitcase about 10 feet away from me that needed to be moved. I started waving insanely and screaming “NO, NO, NO” at one of the train attendants on the platform, who just kind of shrugged. I was convinced the train was going to leave with Carson and half of our luggage, but somehow everything made it on with about a whole 11 seconds to spare. Everyone on the train was laughing at our (mostly my) ridiculous display. As we pulled away, I looked out and saw the girl who we had misinformed. We would like to formally apologize to you here, random Belgian train girl. We are dumb. In fact, the only note I wrote down that day was word for word: “almost missed train out of Brussels. told girl it wasn’t the right train... are idiots.”

Anyway, after that things were slightly easier. We arrived in Lille and took the metro to our Air B&B. We were both cringing as we hit everyone around us with our luggage and prolonged their getting on and off of the metro by a whole 4 seconds. To our great surprise, however, everyone was super nice. It was weird. These French people are... smiling at us? Making eye contact? Asking if we need help finding our way? WHAT IS THIS PLACE?

This has probably been the only culture shock so far: people in the north are nice. This isn’t to say people in the south of France are mean.. they just aren’t openly nice. For the first ten minutes we were in Lille I thought we were getting into a Taken type situation or were about to get robbed because I simply didn’t understand why people were acknowledging our existence. Bottom line is, people here are very welcoming and helpful.

That first day we set up our phones, explored the city, and even had some luck with apartment hunting. We were told we could see a place that I actually found in the states on the main French housing website called leboncoin (basically like craigslist) that was right in the center of the city and had a terrace (which I had arbitrarily decided we needed). This was extremely exciting because most people were having huge issues finding places to live and we felt very competent.

That night we met our Air B&B host, who is the nicest man in the world, and had dinner with him and his friend. We also, of course, picked up a fischer and some Roche Mazet for old times sake.

DAY 2:

On the second day, we were scheduled to visit the apartment at 1:30. We decided to go early to scope out the neighborhood and ended up agreeing it was the most idyllic, picturesque location that we could imagine. There were cobble stone streets, canals, parks (with people actually running in them—more or less unheard of in Montpellier), bakeries, bars, and beautiful architecture. Before even seeing the entire apartment we were sold. We had to live there.

The situation is sort of weird because the owners live in the south of France and they arranged it so that their relative would show us around. However, at around 1:20 I got a text from the wife of the owner saying something like: “we can’t find the key so I’m not sure if you’ll be able to visit.” I am unconvinced by this message and pretty sure it has little to do with the key and more to do with the fact that they realized we are teaching assistants as opposed to real adults with high paying jobs. I start to panic slightly and decided to call the woman. Our Air B&B host suggested offering to pay several months in advance if our landlords were skeptical, and so I did. She said something like: "Oh, so.. you seriously want the apartment?" Magically, the key was found and we were told we could tour the apartment at 2. So... that was close.

To say the apartment was perfect would be an understatement. For the price, location, amenities, and overall charm it is to apartments what unicorns are to horses. There was no other option: this needed to be ours.

That evening I got a call from the owner saying we could have the apartment and that he would send over what we needed to do before moving in. We were so ecstatic, until I received the email explaining all that we had to send before Monday.

List of things they wanted: ID, diploma, US financial guarantors, passports/pay slips/proof of residence from guarantors, last tax statement, work contracts, RIB (French bank account information), and telephone number.

This was an overwhelming amount of information at the time, especially considering how tired we were, and I quickly descended into freak out mode. We didn’t have many of those things and I had about a million questions. Which I sent them. Immediately. In the form of 3 emails. In English.

Our Air B&B guy came over and saw what I was doing and told me to stop. He explained: “They aren’t going to read that. That is too many questions. Just send them over what you have, even if it’s only part of it, and then if they want more they can ask. But they will not.”

I forgot briefly we were in France and that they don’t actually care about legitimate paper work or legality or.. anything.. and that they hate questions. I followed his sage advice, but then also mentioned that I would like to pay them via paypal. Our host explained that using paypal to pay for rent was a strange and uncommon thing to do. I was too tired to care. We went to bed.

DAY 3:

The next morning I pulled up leboncoin (the housing website) so that I could look at all of the inferior, less perfect apartments.

And there it was: our apartment, the first ad, reposted that morning at 8:36 am.

How could this be?! What could have gone wrong?! Was it the three insanely frantic emails I sent within a span of 20 minutes? Was it my weird offer to pay them via paypal?? The answer is all of these.

Why, WHY, in my desperate attempt to look like a legitimate adult with money did I ask to pay rent through paypal? I did not and still do not know. It seemed that although they had not yet mentioned it to me, they were putting their apartment back on the market.

I called the owner and there was no response. I was despondent at this point, but realized that I really had nothing to lose at this stage other than my dignity. I sent them a text (I was too ashamed to send another email) pretending I had no idea about the ad and explaining that I would use a wire transfer, that we would do anything for the apartment, that we loved it so much, that we would be homeless otherwise, etc.

After sending my desperate plea, everything still seemed pretty hopeless. Carson attempted to cheer me up, but we both knew that we had just lost something wonderful.

Twenty minutes later, a message popped up on my screen. It was the owner and he said that my documents would suffice and he would start preparing the lease. I went over to Carson and hugged him for about 5 minutes. He had no idea if something horrible had happened or something great because I was just exhaling “aahhhhHHGHGHGGGG” over and over.

Anyway, that’s where we are now. I’m not 100% sure what changed their mind, but I’m going to assume it was the use of the term wire transfer. Unless something goes horribly horribly wrong, we move into the apartment of our dreams on Friday and everything is wonderful. Aside from these stresses, our days have been filled with bière pêche, beautiful scenery, and overall extreme happiness/excitement to be back in France.

DAY 4:

Sunday was gorgeous (everyday has been actually, which is apparently very rare and weird for the north of France) so we decided to have a picnic in the park near our soon-to-be apartment. We got some mini bottles of wine, a sandwich for me and a kebab for Carson (can't even express how excited he was about his first kebab--it was adorable), and sat next to a beautiful lake in Jardin Vauban. It was one of those magical days that I can't adequately put into words. Luckily, we have pictures.

After picnicking like champions for about 2.5 hours, we headed back to the Air B&B to make dinner and watch Pulp Fiction. A bit later we succeeded in completing yet another critical and necessary inaugural activity by ordering our first pizza. Our Air B&B host looked on in disgust as we walked back into the apartment only an hour after eating dinner with a pizza box. We did not care. It was delicious.

(Also, our jobs don’t start until Thursday which is why they are not yet mentioned.)

Finally, here are some pictures of Lille and the described events: