We didn’t get out of the apartment much today, but things got done.
It’s been a generally rainy day, and will continue on into the evening. We did get out in the morning to do a Monoprix run for basic staples. Along the way we stumbled on one of the weekly street markets. We come across so many of them they sadly seem less special. But they are cool.
We know a lot of people are interested in the unrest here. Honestly, to us it’s been a real nothingburger. Totally quiet in our neighborhood. Think about staying in Pasadena and having any concerns about unrest in Santa Monica. If anything is going to go down, it will be well on the other side of the Seine.
There are some effects visible to us and that’s anything worth going to today is closed. All museums, public sites and even the large parks. Lots of rain due today which will keep people off the streets, and for those few that do go out, it should keep the tear gas down. There’s supposed to be a big NFL game tomorrow night in Paris between Philadelphia and New Orleans that’s proceeding. I suspect visitors from those two towns would view any Paris unrest as just another Sunday night for them. So tomorrow should resume some sense of normalcy. Of course next Saturday the Yellow Vests are talking about another protest, so fun may remain. I’m looking for a tee shirt that says, “I went to Paris and all I got was tear gassed”.
The progress has to do with us getting certified by our apartment guarantor. In France, when you rent an apartment, you need a guarantor. It’s an outside firm that guarantees that no matter what you do, the owner will get paid. It’s sort of a bond on behalf of the renter. And it’s not a one time cost. We’ll have to pay 4.5% of our monthly rent to this guarantor firm. As long as we’re renting. Things are different here.
To get our certification, we had to submit all sorts of financial information and personal records. To our surprise, we got an email from the company, today, a Saturday with our certification. Who in France works on a Saturday?? Monday it goes to our relocation service and I suppose they will start moving forward, looking for places that meet the criteria we gave them. The guarantor approved a rather generous monthly rental amount for us, especially for a smaller Paris suburb like Saint-Germain-en-Laye. We should be OK. So today was making it over a major hurdle for us.
This feels really weird, but we have no idea what we’re going to do tomorrow.