Home away from home.
(A few recent pictures)
This is the restaurant and beach just below our property
beach are on the right of this photo, just out of view.
A view of the snow capped French Alps,
as seen from our terraces
A cultural chasm
We would not be here if overall we did not feel that the experience was well worth it. This is not the first time I have written about big differences between how things are at home and here in France. The old adage "When in Rome..." surely applies but every once in a while they cross the line and just go too far.
Banks here charge you handily for having a debit or credit card and having an account with them. You pay them to use your money while it sits in their bank. Few banks at home have a fee for having an account. Banks here don't have tellers, per se, rather you make all deposits and withdrawals through the ATM. They even have a limit as to how much cash you can withdraw daily and per week 'to protect you in case your card is stolen' we were told and have since found out differently. It's not usually an issue since you use your debit card for pretty much all purchases and you are good up to the amount in your account.
Earlier this month I wanted to withdraw 5000 Euros in cash so I went to the bank to talk to the manager as I didn't want to take it out in dribs and drabs. "What do you want the money for?" he asked. I busted out laughing at the obvious joke. "I am serious", he said, "what are you going to spend the money on?". "I will spend it on anything I want, since it is my money" I replied and seriously annoyed, indignant at the utter nerve of the man. "You need to provide me with a justification for what the money will be used for", he demanded. Had he bumped his head, I wondered? "What I will do with MY money is nobody's business but mine" I replied, now with fury in my eyes, calling him everything but a child of God. "Who do you think you are, my daddy doling out my allowance?", I asked. I don't recall exactly, but terms like thief and scoundrel may have escaped my lips. He was clueless as to how insulting he was. "So how much money do you have in your wallet and what will you use it for?", I asked. "That's not the way it works", he said.
Turns out that European law requires bankers to track any sum over 1000 Euros ($1150 US, $1450 Canadian) that is withdrawn to ensure against terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering. They want you to use a debit card, checks or money transfers so that the government can track what you are doing with your money. They loathe cash transactions. Here, I will exercise my 5th amendment right against self incrimination in not explaining the work around I exercised to get my money out, in the event I need it as a bargaining chip at my trial. I hate it when people refuse to save time and just see things my way.
"Justification" is part of the culture here. Not just at the bank but for so many things. If you arrive in France for a period of time (like us) you can be asked to show that you have the means to support yourself and will not be a fiscal drain on French society. (Bank statement) Tell them that you have a home here and the retort will be "Oh yea, prove it!" (Current bill at your address). If you take trash to the city dump, you are asked for 'proof' that you reside in the town (utility bill less than 3 months old) and on and on. Funny how I was never asked to justify putting money IN my account.
We are in the process of buying a spa and I had to fill out a 21 page 'declaration' to our township so they could know where on our property it would be, its size, and before and after pictures so that I would be sure to pay the additional yearly tax that will be imposed on us. Oh, and I needed to submit 5 copies of my declaration. The icing on the cake is that it then gives them the legal right to drop a hose of sorts from a fire fighting helicopter into your spa (or pool if you have one) as an emergency water source to fight a nearby fire. Once at the city offices to have them review my declaration, they determined that the projects was 1/2 sq meter (5 sq ft) too small to require a permit after all.
Oh, and to answer your question, yes I have withdrawn everything out of our account short of what we need to cover debit card and automatic payment expenses. Now I only need to justify to Janice what the money will be spent on.
Boys and girls, we are not in Kansas any more.
The fun department
Every year our local town of Frejus (founded by Julius Caesar) hosts the International Festival of the Air. They have wind surfers who compete on the water and kite competitions on land. They display their skills by doing choreographed dances in the sky with as many as 5 kites simultaneously twisting, turning and dancing around each other.
Meanwhile...
