Getting used to life in km/hr

Tim and I arrived in France almost 2 weeks ago, and it has been a whirlwind ride....although I'm not sure how fast we were actually going b/c they measure everything here in km/hr. When we first got here we were "living" in a 1 star hotel ironically called the Hotel Stars. We checked in, saw our dingy room with no air conditioning and enough space for all our bags minus us and the dogs, and decided we should probably take our housing search pretty seriously.
The search ended up being incredibly slow and painstaking. The problem was that, although the systems in France are very much like those in the US, there are these tiny little differences in the way things are done that get in the way. Even buying lunch meat in the grocery proved difficult - the lady asked me how many slices I wanted, which baffled me since I am used to ordering 1/2 lb. How many slices are in 1/2 lb? How should I know? So if lunch meat is difficult, getting an apartment, setting up a bank account, getting cell phones, and finding a car had us running around for about a week, hemorrhaging money, before we even accomplished anything.
We first tried to get a cell phone, at which point the Orange people told us we needed an address to sign up for a plan. Then we got incredibly lost driving out to look at a car in Switzerland, took 2 hours to get there, found a car we wanted, and then found out that we needed an address in Switz to get a Swiss license to get insurance to buy the car. Back to square one. Then we started looking for apartments.com type websites that would ease our housing search so that we could get a car and a phone. No such luck. There is nothing around here that offers a consolidated listing of housing for rent - instead you have to go from real estate agency to real estate agency, asking them what they have. Tim and I joked that it was a little like going trick or treating - you go from door to door, and you never know what you're going to get, a giant candy bar or a toothbrush. We ran into our fair share of toothbrushes.
It didn't help that the French conception of work and customer service seems a little different that what we are used to in the US. Not only are all the businesses only open from 9-5, Monday through Fri (ok, that's fine), but they also all close down from noon to 2 (for lunch I suppose), and half of the people we wanted to talk to were on vacation (August in Europe) or had just returned from vacation and had a lot of catching up to do (again August in Europe) and there was no one to cover for them (just plain Europe I suppose?), so we had to wait. Beyond the fact that no one really seems to work much here, the wait for everything seemed longer than in the States. You want to set up a bank account? Why don't you come back for an appointment in 3 days. You want car insurance? Great. First we will need your insurance history from your previous insurance companies for the entire time that you have been driving.
Eventually everything seems to have worked itself out. We have a temporary apartment, meaning we are not confined to a prison cell-like space with the dogs while we wait for something permanent. We have slick new cell phones, and a cool new car - a 2004 blue Alfa Romeo 147 - and a bank account and car insurance and a brand new, gorgeous apartment waiting for us. Once there, we will be able to see Mont Blanc from our bedroom and terrace on clear days. We move in on the 3rd, although the power cannot be turned on until the 5th. Who would expect people to be able to do something on only a week's notice?
In the meantime, while everything is closed on the weekends, Tim and I have taken some trips. We went to the Swiss Alps last Saturday and hiked with the dogs to the top of a pass. The views of the valley below were nothing short of spectacular, and we passed by mountain streams and surreal-blue glaciers on our way up. Then last Sun we hiked to the top of some peaks in our new neighborhood, at the end of which we found a fantastic view of Geneva, the lake, and the surrounding French and Swiss countryside.
This weekend we drove down to a small village on the Mediterranean called Saintes Maries de la Mer. I have to admit I was a little disappointed with this place at first. It didn't have the dramatic cliffs and sparkling blue water of the other parts of the Riviera that I had seem, but it did have the crowds. It reminded me a little of a nudist version of the Jersey shore with lots of rv trailers lining the long, flat, trash-strewn beaches....and old, fat people in the buff. Once I got over my disappointment though we did have a nice time. We played with the dogs in the ocean and ate at a nice outdoor cafe for a dinner of crepes and moules and frites. We also explored Avignon on the way back home, which is a beautiful city - missed the pont though.
So that's where we are right now. Hope all is well with all our friends and family who are reading this.