FranceBlog in English

I am a TWITTER now…Does that make sense ? Who knows… http://twitter.com/bigmek

I am lazy on this BLOG so far. Most of my updates are happening on http://france.bigmek.de and https://fblog.bigmek.de But on one day, when our france trip is over I will switch to this BLOG. So stay tuned and be hppy. I am as you can see on the Picture 🙂

A bientot BIGMEK

My good old friend and former colleague (retired) Christian invited us, Anu and Antti to a sailing trip. Christian has a 6.4m long sailboat in the harbour of Carnon. Small but safe. Usually he sails with bigger boats Regattas (pretty successfull) and he sails ships to other locations. Very exciting life. Exciting places all around the world.

         
Now he wanted to takes us to a ride. My last time was in 2000 with him. That was already great.  
The kids were already happy about this trip.
The weather was not as warm and sunny was the day before was, but still mild with temperatures between 14-16C and a little windy. We need wind 🙂 We picked up Anu and Antti (from Finland) with our Jumpy and drove to Carnon. There we met Christian, his girlfriend Lo-Ann and another friend of her.
Since only six persons can be on the boat we split into two groups. Our little family was first. The kids got a lifevest and a big smile. Christian also showed them how to handle the rudder and off we sailed. Nobody turned green or yellow, nobody was sea sick. We had some nice waves, but it was not that bad. Fabi was so excited that he now planned he wanted to get a sailing license one day.
Since I was the heaviest on the boat I had to change sites on the boat.
After one hour we came back and the others went on a little cruise. Meanwhile we walked a bit and had some coffee, hot chocolate and Crepes.
There was also a Ice Skating ring, pretty crazy since here are usually no temperatures below 0C in the day. But lots of people enjoyed it.
After one hour the others came back and we had some more coffee, chocolate…
We will not forget this beautiful day.
You can enjoy some pictures here: http://fotoalbum.web.de/gast/bigmek/Carnon_Sailing_2009

The 4 2/3 Engelkahles

With some friends and my family we celebrated my second last birthday with a 3 in front. It was 22C and I had my shorts on (my first birthday where I did that, and I was not drunk).Dagmar cooked a delicious asian dinner and the kids helped BBQing. Anu, Antti, Christian, Lo-Ann and my family made it a funny evening. Party on….

I will keep the english version a little bit shorter since my german version is more specific to germany/france. But in general it is about the hurdles that are present if you want to register your new used car at the Department for Motorvehicles or whatever it is called in the US or outside germany/france. Anyway. After you found a deal with someone you have to fill out some papers. Also the seller has to fill out some stuff before.
I have some downloadable Links from the Prefecture in Montpellier Department Herault (34) :

Certificat d’immatriculation (PDF)
To Register the new Car

Certificat de Cession d’un vehicule (PDF)
Contract for the selling of the used/new Car

Certificat de non-gage (PDF) 
Certificat that tells that there is no such pledge on that cartitle.

You also need the Document of the Controle Technique (Technical review of the car) a ID / Passport and/or a proof of your current living situation (contract, electricity bill…). If you are married like Dagmar and I but everybody kept the familyname then you need also a proof of marriage. It is not very common in france to have different familynames. Even the Program at our Bank has no such mask available when you open a account. The program assumes that Mr. Kahle and Mrs. Kahle are there and not Mr. Kahle and Mrs. Engelbrecht.
So that is one little issue.
Everything else is pretty easy. To avoid long waiting lines and stress at the Prefecture you can also go to the Majorsoffice. The ladies there are very friendly and helpful. At least in our little town Baillargues.
They help with all the additional paperwork and you finally get a Récépissé de demande de Certificat d’immatriculation which is valid until you receive the new Carte Grise (vehicle registration certificate, takes about 4 weeks).

There is not a common yearly tax on cars in france like there is germany, but when you get a new Carte Grise you must pay a one time tax. This tax is calculated with the CV = cheval Vapeur = Horse power, but not like the HP of the engines itself. It is more like a tax.
Our Jumpy for example has 7 CV. Each Department has a different value for each CV. In our Department Herault 34 it is also 34 Euro. 4 Euro extra tax are added and that comes to 242 Euro for a new Carte Grise. Other Departments are cheaper. Our Clio is about 85 Euro. It has 5 CV but is also older than 10 years, that makes it cheaper (50 percent).

If you understand french you can look at the following Webpage about Carte Grise and the costs: http://www.carte-grise.org/

We will have even more paperwork when we go back to germany and take the Citroen Jumpy with us, but that will be another story.

To get an insurance it is also a little different from germany. In germany for example I have my Ford Cougar and my Trabant 601 insured under my name. Not a big deal. Many Insurances in France have a different view, as long as you are not a business they assume that you are only able to drive one car at a time. So they won’t easily allow you to insure a second car under the same name. In this case, when you are married, your partner must insure the car. So we had to get a document from the german insurance Company about the Rate Group for third party liability / Collision. Othewise you will be insured like a new driver and that will be expensive.
When this is all done you just need to put the new insurance card to the inside of the windshield and voila, you can drive around.

It is not a huge task, but it takes a while. Have fun and enjoy.

A bientot – The 4 2/3 Engelkahles

We are a growing little family, soon to be 5 Engelkahles (May/June). Our actual family cars Renault Clio and Mercedes Class A are not big enough for 3 kids in childseats and the luggage. So we were looking around already. But luckily a colleague was currently selling his 2003 Citroen Jumpy 2.0 HDI. That is a mini Van with 8 seats and a economic Diesel Engine (110HP). The car is very roomy and still compact. So just the height of 1.94m / 6feet4 is sometimes a problem for parking.
So we will travel around now with our new Family car through the sunny south of france (16C), germany…

Here is a little slideshow of the car: http://fotoalbum.web.de/gast/bigmek/Jumpy20HDI

A bientot – The 4 1/2 Engelkahles

A few weeks ago we had snow in Montpellier. That is very rare. Ok, now the weather is crazy everywhere and there is now snow in Paris and London. Since it is pretty mild here in Montpellier (11-15C) we of course have no more snow, but rain. Lots of rain. Since Saturday it is raining. Sometimes so hard you can’t see a few meters. That of course floods the roads, creeks and so on. Roads are closed and since the ground is soaked with water, it can’t sink anymore.

When we moved here, the people said, it usually only rains very hard in fall, especially in October., Right it looks like this has changed a bit. Of course we had lots of sunny and dry weeks, but it is really tough with the rain.

Yesterday on monday was the first time ever, that I heard of a School is out due to rain. I had school out for high temperatures or ica and snow, but never before rain.

There is always a new experience 🙂

A bientot

The 4 1/2 Engelkahles

If you believe it or not, we have snow in Baillargues / Montpellier. It snowed about 1 inch / 2 cm today. Around 0C / 32F are the temperatures. Crazy to see that here. At christmas we had 15C and sun and now we have snow. In Marseille they had over 20cm of snow last night. Thats crazy as well, because I picked up friends from Marseille Airport yesterday and today the Airport and the Highway from Nimes to Marseille was closed due to the snow. The kids love it of course.

They are building a snowman and enjoy the little white snow on the gras…

A bientot

Happy New Year all together. Now we have 2009 and a new challenging year has begun. One challenge was to party New Years Day here in France. Our First Time here. I (Marc) had a very bad cold/sinus with fever since a few days and I was not fit anyway. How do they party here in France ? Hmm, tough question, it is more the savoir vivre with lots of food (Champagne and so on) but definitely not with party on the streets and fireworks. In Germany it is very common to go on the streets at midnight and light tons of crackers and fireworks. When you see the pictures from the big cities like Berlin where 1 Million people were at the Brandenburger Gate or Sydney and huge fireworks give you Ahhh and Ohhhhhs it is very strange to come outside at midnight here in france. It is very quiet. You hear a few rockets or crackers here and there, but that is nothing.

Even in the supermarkets you see just a tiny little spot , maybe two squaremeters, with small rockets, crackers, fountains. Redicolous compared to what I know from germany. Not that I spend a lot of money for firework, but this was a little unsatisfying. Nevertheless, I found some rockets here and it was ok. Around 22:00 our german neighbours Ute, Holger, Nils and Yann came to our apartment to make firework for the kids. Holger found a nice 1 1/2 minute firework with nice light effects. Of course this little „show“ made the few people here curious and they came out of their apartments and watched the little show. They also applaused 🙂 I took some of my little fireworks and the kids were happy.

At midnight Fabi and Jona were still awake and also curious to celebrate the new year. With some alcohol free sparkling wine and mineral water we all together toasted and finally went outside. It was quiet but we had our fan. The kids loved it and we had at least a little fun. So we hope everybody had a nice party and C U

A bientot

The 4 1/3 Engelkahles