Relocating - being the expats in Toulouse France - Part 2

We took KLM airline to Toulouse France as we wanted to 'break up' this long haul flight to stay a night in Amsterdam and to recover from jet lag (for the sake of our young children). We never regret it. The place is nice, friendly people and they speak English!

The next day, we arrived at a service apartment in the downtown of Toulouse to meet my in-laws. They flew in a separate flight. Yes, they came with us to help us with these difficult time for 6 weeks. I really appreciate them!

Staying downtown helps, as you get to see so many things, so many people and learn how to use the public transports. The only bad thing is that it can get really noisy , especially when you want to sleep at night. We didn't move straight into the rented house that we choose as the house has not finished its renovation. So we ended up staying in the service apartment for 2.5 weeks. The saddest and anxious days of my life! My in-laws we're be flying off in another 3 weeks time, our shipment have not arrived and we are running out of money!!!

Well, you may wonder, didn't the company give us any settlement allowance before hand? Yes, they do but really not enough when you actually convert base on the exchange rate.

Tips - before you relocate, ask for these from your company (if you can. Certainly the requests are not greedy):

1. If you have to put up in a service apartment for a while, make sure your company pays for it first. We got a nasty experience, we thought the company will handle the service apartment fees but we got a shock when the hotel staff asked us for money and said if we do not pay up now, we have to leave by tomorrow. Two weeks of stay for 2000 euro!! It's not a fantastic apartment mind you. We cleaned the apartment ourself (cleaner comes once a week). 
2. If your house is not furnished, make sure your company give you the cash first to buy the necessities. Do a calculation on the average cost of the furniture and household appliances in that country. If you pay first using your money that you brought with you ( which you are not going to bring so much hard cash) and then claim from your company, it can take weeks to pay you back. 
3. Open up a bank account in France once you are here. It's easier than trying to do it from your county. This also helps to speed up your company to pay you back the money for claiming purposes. French people prefer to pay using a debit card, so having a bank account set up, will definitely be more convenient. 
4. You need a car, France is big and calling a taxi is very very expensive. You can cry by just staring at the meter. If you have children, it's good to have 2 cars. One for the husband to drive to work. And the other for wife to send the kids to school and for emergency purposes. Please note that certain places are not safe even if there are public transport available. If the company could pay for the cost of a car will be good or have them to pay you the car allowance first. All these paying, can really eat up all your savings. 
5. If no car, the public transports are good too. You need to purchase their bus or train tickets. The funny thing is that you need coins to buy a ticket from the ticket machine, they don't accept cash notes. We like to buy the 10 trips tickets for 12.90 euro (so you need 12.90 euros in coins) Or if you have a France bank account, you may use your debit card to purchase the ticket for a trip or you can also buy an annual ticket. But when you just arrive in France, you might not have set up any bank account yet.

I will add in further notes if there are other important things that I think of. Of cos don't ask for the sky and want to live like a king. Be reasonable and what is needed for your family. This is more important.