Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

We seem to be getting more and more popular with the Spanish looking for a short break outside Spain.

As we’re within two hours drive of Barcelona, it’s an easy trip for them yet it’s a very different area than they’re used to. For one thing Barcelona is a very active city whereas we’re in a very quiet area. However, people tend to like to get away somewhere “different” for their breaks and although we’re right beside Spain the local culture is very different.

But then it’s always been like that. So we’ve no idea why we’ve started picking up Spanish guests in increasing numbers. They all love it though!

Yesterday was the typical September day over here right up until the late afternoon when it became a little cloudy to the west but now it’s the miserable weather that you’d more typically associate with the west of Ireland rather than the south of France.

It’s become quite cool at night too.

Both aspects are unusual for here as ordinarily we’re running around in t-shirts from March to January.

If this is a sign of colder weather coming along this Winter maybe we’ll need to get some more snow chains. No rush yet though as the snow doesn’t arrive at the ski resorts ’til November.

We were a little bit optimistic about how long it would take to do everything this morning but managed to be driving away from the dealership around 3pm which was pretty good going on the whole.

As you might expect, Credit Agricole was the worst. It took almost an entire hour from when we went in the door until we walked out with the bank cheque. That was with only two people in front of us too!

We dropped off the hire car next before heading over to organise the insurance at MAAF. Funnily enough, it turned out to be somewhat easier to do than it was doing the whole lot in English had been for the Alto. We’ve to get a statement from the old insurance company but otherwise that’s it. Well, we have to attempt to get a statement from the old insurance company I should say as they’ve pretty much completely ignored us over the last four months so it might not be quite so simple.

By then it was after 1200 so we had lunch before going on to the car dealership. Since we didn’t have any proof of address with us they seemed to be able to carry on without it which has us wondering why they asked for it in the first place, though we often wonder that in France. Having a leaf through what’s included in the price we’ve paid it looks like the overall price is lower than it was on the Internet as they’ve included a few substantial things that weren’t in the online price and, of course, we’d not to pay for hotels, petrol and tolls between here and Paris either.

Anyway, our little car is doing quite nicely. Between the low price of diesel and the 50+mpg that it gets we’ll likely not even have to top it up ’til well into next week.

Although France has been moving online rapidly in recent years, many existing laws and customs don’t fit in well with the online world.

You can certainly buy books and such online no problem. The purchase “contract” is very clear and, even in France, it doesn’t require a signature to buy a book. Having said that, the way that Amazon constantly runs “sales” is probably illegal in France as sales are limited to specific periods of the year here so perhaps someday a French bookshop will get them banned.

You can’t buy commercial goods so easily though as you generally need to prove to them that you’re a business. So, whilst you can sometimes place an order, you sometimes find that they want documentary proof that you are a registered business. Elsewhere in the world, just because you’re a “wholesale” sales outfit doesn’t mean that you aren’t legally allowed to sell to the public, but here it tend to.

Even buying car insurance online doesn’t seem a runner. We could only find one place that would even provide an estimate online and even with them we still have to go in to the office to provide the documentation and pay for it.

So, yes you can buy online in France but there are significant limitations in what they’re allowed to sell you online which don’t apply elsewhere.

From around June to August we expect to not be able to do anything that isn’t directly concerned with looking after guests. Non-essential administration just piles up, not to be looked at ’til September.

With the lower level of reservations in September, you’d expect that we’d be able to get stuck into that backlog of administration but that usually doesn’t happen ’til October as September represents the final month before the exam for my course so I end up needing to spend more time working on the Spanish which certainly makes up for any lower number of guests.

Also, some of that non-essential administration generally gets to move into the category of “essential” or at least “needing done” when it’s left undone for a few months which takes up the level of work required.

In fact, it’s not ’til well into October that we start to feel that we’re beginning to get on top of things again.