FranceBlog in English

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 

If you think there was snow in Montpellier. No way. With 10C it is too mild. But we made a trip to the Cevennes Mountains, direction Mont Aigoual ( >1200m). Scenic drive, but weather was not so sweet. I also programmed the navigation system wrong and we drove the shortest distance, which means, we used also some unusual roads. But it was fun. Narrow roads, wide enough for one car, climbing up the hills, nice turns and scenic views. Unfortunately the rest of the road was blocked and we can’t go further. So we stopped at a parking where just some leftover snow was left and temperature was 0C. Of course too cold for the kids 🙂 They were complaining that they want snow and ice before. When they heard there was snow and ice in germany, they wanted to see it here was well. But when we told them that there are -10C in germany they were ok with what they saw…

On the way back we filled up the car. The first time ever that I paid less then 1 Euro for Super 95, 99.8Cent and Diesel was 89,8 Cent (EURO). Amazing. It was that low in 2004 the last time.

Now we are going through some sickness (cold, sinus) and we are waiting for New Years Day.

A bientot

The 4 1/3 Engelkahles 

There is no snow here in Montpellier/Baillargues. So we went to the beach today on Christmas Eve with some friends. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the beach:

A breathtaking year 2008 is coming to an end. Several months in the USA, family has followed to Baillargues, france, new school, new languages, new adventures and experiences. The kids found some new friends at the international school. The language barriers are going down more and more for both of us, kids and parents. We just had a christmas party for the kids at work. Friends visited us and we have the very good news, that Dagmar is pregnant again. In 2009 a new Engelkahle will join us if the rest of the pregnancy is going on as good as it was so far.

We’d like to thank all our families, friends, colleagues.. The 4 1/3 Engelkahles

Two weeks before Christmas it is again Fabians Birthday. He turned 10 now. He is a teenager, wow how time flies by. It was his first birthday in france. So we invited some schoolfriends and had a little party. On wednesday the school is off, so that is a perfect timing. Only the timing with snow was bad. Fabi wanted snow on his 10th Birthday, well he got it in germany this year, but we were many miles away. But some presents from LEGO, books etc. helped him 🙂 Some nice cakes from mom and that was it.

A bientot