Job confirmation…check!

I knew the only way I would want to go to Paris is if I had a good paying job. Our plans never included Paris. Not that we don’t like the city but it’s more expensive than others. Apartments are harder to nail down.

Even so, I accepted a contract for 3 months which bring us to the end of November. I’m excited for this opportunity even if it’s short term. It’s an office job which I’m accustomed to and enjoy. I finally got an email from HR yesterday for the offer which I confirmed I was accepting and paperwork from them to fill out.

I’m excited to see what the work environment is like in France. A whole new perspective I’m sure. It’s 35 hours a week, as is most contracts in France unless you’re management.

Now that most things are settled, we’re going to take care of things in Nantes (clean the apartment and pack) and take the train first thing Saturday morning and get the keys to the apartment.

I’m looking forward to having a couple days to explore our neighbourhood and maybe see a couple sights before I start work.

I start work! I never realized how much I like working since I’ve been working since age 13 (minus when I was studying at university but that’s a job in itself).

Apartment…check!

I’ve been a little silent that past few weeks here but I’ve been quite busy trying to nail down an apartment in Paris for the beginning of September.

I have a job that’s supposed to start September 4th and I say supposed to start because mostly everyone is on vacation in August and I still haven’t received a job offer!

Even so, we decided to go ahead and look for an apartment in Paris. Which is by no means easy to nail down.

If you’re in Paris long term (one year or more), you may be able to find an apartment like every other french person; with a complete dossier that includes a French guarantor, a job offer that’s preferably CDI (contrat à durée indéterminée) and they usually ask that your salary is at least three times your rent (ha!).

Since we’re in Paris short term, I looked on different websites like leboncoin and pap.fr for subleases without success. I then moved on to agencies that cater to English speaking people. I also looked on fusac and craigslist. Craigslist ended up being a lot of agencies advertising the apartments but it gave me an idea of what was around.

I looked into Paris Attitude but the agency fees were very expensive and more then what we wanted to pay.

I also found Morningcroissant.fr which has a couple good options. The only down side; for any questions you have to message the owner and they’re not very responsive.

The ones that I got in touch with at the beginning were Find a place in Paris (formerly Parisexpat.com) and Paris be a part of it (also under lokim.com). As a North American, and let’s face it being who I am, I expect people to respond to my email in a timely matter to at least let me know that they’re working on it or that they’ve received it. I know a lot of it is contingent on the owner responding to the agency but some of them didn’t even respond to my enquiry to give me options for different apartments. Many of the owners are looking to rent long term so I wasn’t high on the agency’s priority list.

The Paris real estate market it hot, I get it. But if I’m having my first contact with you, you should at least have the decency to email me back.

At this point, I had been researching apartments for two weeks and I was feeling defeated and disappointed. I had found a cute apartment and emailed them only to have an email three days later that someone was looking at it for a one year rental (obviously they waited to respond to me once they had that booked). I looked on Airbnb but many of them are too expensive or too small. I found one that suited us and I messaged the owner. I waited two days until he got back to me (same thing; someone was looking to rent it from September to April).

In the mean time, my husband found Lodgis.com. I had looked at their website before but was unable to see the pictures so I let it go at that time. He found a way to see them so it worked out 🙂

We searched into the wee hours on Wednesday, August 15th and sent off a request for the apartment that we liked. Unfortunately it was already booked but the next day, she sent us a list of other apartments that could be of interest. Three of them worked so she got in touch with the first one’s owner who in the end said it was available but never answered if she would except us as tenants. Late Monday afternoon, she emailed the second apartment owner who accepted right away and we were able to sign the lease and make the deposit on Wednesday 🙂

I know, as a rule, there’s a lot of bureaucracy in France and people aren’t in a rush as we are in North America (and I’m the one who has to adapt), but can I just tell you how relieved I am that we have a place stay! 9 days away and we just got an apartment…that’s nuts! I knew going in that it wasn’t going to be easy but I thought that an agency would help matters. Only renting for three months didn’t help our situation.

The apartment itself it’s big or fancy but it had everything we need. The rent is a little high but beggars can’t be choosers! We’re looking forward to our time in the city of lights 🙂

The dogs days of summer

I haven’t updated you on the last week, mostly because we haven’t been doing a whole lot. It was super hot for these two Canadians (think 33 degrees + humidity, and no AC to be found anywhere) and I’ve also been trying to get things organized and set up for September once we leave Nantes.

We did, however, take our lunch a few times to the botanical garden in Nantes to have a picnic and enjoy people watching and the green space.

We also took time to visit the Chateau des ducs de Bretagne. We briefly visited it when we arrived but thought we should walk in the courtyard and around the ramparts since it’s free.

We’re excited for our next adventure in a couple weeks! We’ve had a nice summer in Nantes and look forward to what awaits us next.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

10 free things to do in Nantes

Nantes is a beautiful and pedestrian friendly city with many things to do. A lot of these things are free which is great when you’re on a budget. Here are a few of my favourites.

Jardin des Plantes

The botanical garden is across from the train station so once we got into the city the first time, we walked through the gardens to get to our Airbnb. We visited a second time to walk thoroughly through the gardens and enjoy the greenery in the middle of the city. Worth a trip and bring a picnic; there are many benches and tables for people to enjoy their surroundings.

L’île de Nantes

The island is host to a boom. From the edge of the Loire, we counted over 10 cranes. With this revitalization, new businesses are creeping up as well as new apartment/condo buildings. We walked from le Pont Général Audibert onto Rue la Tour d’Auvergne that led us to the machines. On our way back, we strolled along the Loire river which was quite nice as well.

We really liked this building that we came upon;

Les machines

You don’t need to pay to see the elephant up close (although the other machines you’ll have to pay). The elephant is also a ride and will walk across the old shipyard. It’s quite impressive to see. Beware, you may get sprayed by the elephant’s snout!

Le château des ducs de Bretagne

You can discover the chateau’s court yard, the moat gardens and the rampart walk for free! There are exhibits and a museum that you have to pay an entrance fee but it isn’t necessary.

La cathédrale Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul

The cathedral is quite impressive, especially when you come upon it. The inside isn’t the original because it was bombarded by ally forces in WWII and the roof caught fire in the 70s if I remember correctly. The duc of Brittany is buried there with his wife, Anne de Bretagne.

Passage Pommeraye

This passage is mostly filled with over priced boutiques but it’s nice to walk through. Its architecture is quite beautiful and worth a few minutes detour 🙂

Edre river

We walked along the Edre river and also hung out one evening with the people we’re renting the apartment from. It’s a lovely walk and also nice to just sit and have a drink and listen to music.

Japanese gardens

If you walk far enough along the Edre river, you’ll come upon the Japanese gardens. The four acre gardens sits on a man-made island and is a nice walk in a green space.

Miroir d’eau

This water fountain isn’t far from the chateau and when we walked by mostly children and some adults were playing in the water so we didn’t really see the mirror part of it. A nice spot to bring your family to cool down on a hot summer night.

Place Royal

The first time we were in Nantes, we stayed close to la Place Royal. We really enjoyed it because we were in the middle of the historic sector of the city and it is very vibrant.

If you find yourself in Nantes, make sure to check out the events going on. The city often offers free activities for families, children and adults alike.

Les Machines de l’île de Nantes

Last week, we decided to walk on the island of Nantes and make our way to the old shipyard where they’re using old buildings to build huge machines. Their first and which seems most popular is the elephant. People are able to take a 45 minute ride on it.

They’ve also created a spider and a dragon, some of which travel around the world. Both the spider and the dragon were in Ottawa last summer for Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations. There’s also a carrousel that you can ride, the rides are sea creatures and pretty cool to see.

We walked around for a while enjoying the beautiful day.

On our way back, we stopped by and had a drink by the river.