Relocating - being the expats in Toulouse France - Part 3

Before I left Singapore to go to France, a good friend advised me to do some 'networking' and sourced for other Singaporeans or English speaking  people in Toulouse France. That's what I did. I went to some expat blogs and starting searching... And yes! I was really fortunate that I found one and she started introducing me to other Singaporean friends here. I  am really grateful for that. It definitely make me feel better and not so home sick.

I also started to go to some indoor plays or parks to find English speaking mothers like me and hopefully we can do play date with their children. Imagine eavesdropping on people's conversation to see if they are English speaker. Haha. Well, I just got to be thick-skinned - if not I have no friends here and I'll go insane.

I heard about a website call mom & tots. They are groups of English speaking mothers who meet often,  together with their children. One day, I'll go join them... Once I could drive well in Toulouse. Oops!

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. 

Relocating - being the expats in Toulouse France - Part 1

I keep telling myself that I must put up this post for people who are relocating , especially to France. I am not an expert but I just write what I went through or want I know.

When Ken got offered a position in Toulouse France, we only have about 4 months to prepare and go! I got to quit my beloved job, transferred our maid ( which truly upset her), packed up and told friends we are leaving, learn french language(crash course), etc etc.

The thing that come to my mind was to buy things that maybe France won't have. I mean, you will definitely be homesick, you need to have something from your hometown to keep you sane, right? I went crazy with shopping, online shopping too. I bought chinese herbal soup in packets form, winter clothes(Singapore is hot, you don't need them), chili sauce, noodles, 3in1 coffee if you like to drink coffee(very important!!), chrysanthemum tea, red tea, similac milk powder (we could not get the same brand in France so I bought 6 big cans for Stacy, merries diapers (I swear merries diapers is the best) etc etc. mostly food and household items. I did not buy any household appliances except to bring what I already have, as France uses 2pins plug, we uses 3pins plug.

The challenge came when we have to pack what we need for the luggages. The rest of the items (which we think we might not use that much), we shipped it. Shipment took 6weeks to reach France. So do not ship over important documents which you will need when you arrive in that county. Unless your shipment comes almost the same time, you reach France. We got not much time so we only managed to ship our items 1week before we were scheduled to fly.

 We have 5 luggages and 2 hand carry for 2 adults and 2 children. We arrived during the colder months in Autumn.
In our luggages,
- mostly long sleeves clothes
- winter clothes (shawls, gloves, beanies, winter shoes, etc)
- jeans /long pants
- children toys (we have to bring quite a few as 6weeks they will have no other toys until the shipment arrive)
- English books (children books, your favorite books, very important!)
- phone chargers
-universal plugs
- baby and toddler's food and snacks (we brought quite abit as France did not have those from USA but their own brands)
- diapers
- milk powder
- toiletries
- medications (for children and babies especially. France have their own brand but if you prefer your own
- documents ( children's birth cert, our marriage cert, and you need them to be translated to French, etc.)
- I will add the list if I remember anything important

In part 2, I'll blog about when we arrived in France and things we need or do.