Moving to a new place is always stressful. How about moving to a country where you don’t yet speak the language, know the simplest of customs, and need help with the most basic tasks, like opening a bank account? Overwhelming, yes, but we’re managing it OK, so far. However, we knew there were going to be some bumps in the road, probably more like potholes, ahead.

Case in point: several days ago we went to the Orange store in Loches, the nearest big town. Orange is the largest provider of internet, TV, and cellular service in this part of France. We needed everything: new cell phone numbers and data plans, TV programming packages, and the virtual oxygen for my life, wifi. Simple, right? Nope.

We had previously learned that the golden ticket to getting anything set up in France is your electric bill, which, back in California, was PG&E. (We even had to show two California PG&E bills to open our French bank accounts.) Here in France, the electric company is called EDF. With the help of our trusty local friend, before we arrived, we had already established an EDF account in our names for our rental house. So we trotted into Orange and produced our EDF statement showing we had an account established. No, no, no, we were told (non, non, non in French), that wasn’t enough. We have to show them an actual bill for electricity, which, of course, we won’t receive until we’ve lived here for a month. (At this point I’m trying not to hyperventilate.)

Fortunately for us, the nice young woman at Orange spoke excellent English so we were able to plead our pitiful case without the shame of translation. But even a common language didn’t help. We got nowhere as far as getting cell service, until she came up with the option of a temporary SIM card on a pay-as-you-go data plan. Once we have that elusive EDF bill sometime next month, we will come back and get permanent French cell numbers. OK, not ideal, but workable.

Next we started the process to get a connection for wifi, home phones and TV, and were told we would have to wait several days — actually they said it could take up to 2 weeks — to get our account established. But, voila, this morning we suddenly have a wifi signal. Yay! Bob spent an hour connecting this to that, and now we’re now fully functional with all our computers, TV, and devices. The only thing left is to get a UK satellite receiver (even though they can be found here in France, we’re told the best UK receivers are actually from the UK so a friend of a friend is bringing one over for us.) We know we’ll be craving some English language TV shows before long, and who doesn’t love anything from BBC? We can also get some Netflix stuff on our new smart TV, but none of our favorite shows from the US. (Happily, however, we did just watch last week’s Survivor on an iPad.)

French village life:

• We have to go see the village doctor for health certificates that allow us to join the local randonée (hiking) group — they are quite serious about that.
• We will stop by the office of the Maire (Mayor) in Abilly, the next town over, to pay the small fee (about $150 for the year) to be able to use the town gym. In these small towns, the Maire’s office is where many things are handled, so maybe we’ll become familiar faces in ours. And here’s another interesting tidbit: our Maire is actually a roofer, and he will be installing our new roof when the time comes.
• We need to apply online for a card that gets us access to the “decheterie” in our village. This is where we take our excess cardboard, batteries, etc. You need a card for access to your town’s decheterie, which allows you to visit 20 times per year, and to get that card you need, guess what, an EDF bill. So one more thing we can’t do until we have received an electric bill.