Carolyn and I arrived in Montpellier about four days before our scheduled closing. Carolyn had booked us a hotel at the edge of the old city, l’Ecusson. We were supposed to check out the same day as the closing which led me to panic about where luggage could be stored safely (you may recall we had LOTS of luggage). The hotel had a room, but it wasn’t exactly Fort Knox—it was just the corner of the employee break room. The hotel was safe enough, but it was next to the Gare St. Roch, the city train station, and literally right outside the door was a major hub for the city tram lines; there were some not-so-trustworthy looking people milling about (think face tattoos, guys with open containers of Monster Energy Drink, and people paying for stuff with change!)
Our closing was scheduled for Thursday at 2:00 pm and we had to check out of our hotel at noon. Even if we stored our things there, we’d be transporting our large amounts of heavy luggage across the city after 5:00pm. It smelled of pain-in-the-ass-ery. I wanted our first night in the new place to feel celebratory, not a tension filled wind down from a stressful shuttling of suitcases.
We were supposed to have our pre-closing walk-through of the apartment at 11:00 am, so we begged the Seller to allow us to bring over our luggage then. We didn’t think he’d agree. In America a Seller would worry about the closing not happening and the buyer claiming squatter’s rights or some other nonsense. But luckily our Seller was gracious enough to say yes. It was the first in a series of kindnesses from him. We ordered a large taxi and the whole move took less than 20 minutes including loading and unloading.
We conducted our walk through. Work that was supposed to be done had been done. The Seller had worked with us to ensure that the alarm system, electricity, and internet accounts all remained active and were transferred to our name. What a mensch. Everything seemed fine, so it was time to close.
Readers may recall that a notaire is the government official who handles the closing of a real estate sale. The buyer and seller each have their own notaire, and we were surprised when, at closing time, the seller headed to the office of his notaire and we were taken by our agent, Agnès, to the office of ours.
When we arrived, we discovered that the seller and his agent would be joining us by video conference, but probably this is just a post Covid option? The translator we hired was there and told us straight away that we’d be doing an expedited review rather than reading every word of every page. Thank God. The document was 148 pages!
(In David Leibovitz’s book “l’Appart: the Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home” he describes having to sit through a word-by-word reading of every document in the closing packet; we had been dreading this part and were relieved that there was an abbreviated option.)
There were questions to answer: You understand there’s a two year window to sue if the apartment area is more than 5% different than stated?; You agree you can’t back out of the purchase if a war or earthquake happens this afternoon?; Does the Seller swear he hasn’t done any work without a permit?; Does the Seller swear he hasn’t hidden any defects?; Remember there’s asbestos on that one pipe.; Do the Buyers swear they aren’t international drug kingpins?; Have the Buyers ever had a face tattoo, consumed a Monster Drink, or purchased anything with change?
We agreed to everything, disavowed everything else, and then signed, and the apartment was now ours!
All done, right? Let’s move in, right?
No, this was too easy. We need to make things much, much harder.
Let’s go to IKEA!
Every couple knows a trip to Ikea is more dangerous to a relationship than a river trip in a tandem kayak (the “divorce boat”). We kept swearing to each other that we were not going to go to Ikea. We had bought enough furnishings from the Seller that we should be able to get everything else from smaller shops.
Before we spent our first night in the apartment, we had purchased one sheet, a tiny blanket, and a few towels from a local department store so we could survive a day or two, but we needed all of the small stuff: plates, silverware, cooking equipment, trash cans—all the flotsam of daily living.
Despite our swearing off of Ikea, we’d both been mentally working on a shopping list of small stuff, and when we compared them we knew where we were headed—to the big blue and yellow graveyard of marital harmony. We were going to Ikea. Merde.
Neither of us was looking forward to this. Roberto had been traumatized by the early days of NYC’s Ikea bus trips to Elizabeth, NJ. Carolyn’s trauma was more the run of the mill first and fifth rings of hell (limbo and anger) that everyone experiences at the Swedish retailer. We could only imagine what the experience might be like once you added in the fact that everything would be in French.
We made a deal to survive and set a few ground rules:
In and out in 60 minutes, like a slow-moving bank heist.
We divided up the shopping list; we’d shop independently and meet at the doors at the appointed time. If we bumped into each other, act like strangers and move on.
No deviating from the list.
The shopping list was culled using Roberto’s golden rule of Ikea: if it has a moving part, don’t buy it from Ikea. Napkins, fine. Forks, spoons, and plates, fine. Folding laundry rack—leave it there, it’s junk and it won’t last.
I was in charge of the cooking equipment since I do all of our cooking. I wasn’t interested in Ikea’s pans or knives, so I was finished pretty quickly. Carolyn was in charge of dishware and linens. She got waylaid looking for sheets. She found a fitted sheet, no problem, but she searched and searched and couldn’t find the corresponding derflogden or whatever they called a top sheet. She finally asked a salesperson for help using broken French and miming. The salesperson took her to the duvets. Finally the problem clicked in Carolyn’s head. The French don’t use top sheets. French beds have a fitted sheet and a big fluffy duvet and that’s it. C’est tout. Which gives you the temperature options of fire or ice while you sleep. She would have to find a derflogden elsewhere.
I waited outside while Carolyn finished up and paid for her part of the list. She texted and asked me to come back inside. My quick answer: No.
I had had enough of Ikea.
We called an Uber and pushed our cart loaded down with goods up to the street. But we breached the Ikea perimeter, and the cart wheels froze, and we became those people. We had to take out the bags and reach the street on our own. Using a rideshare service at Ikea must be rare, because the Uber had to pick us up in what was essentially the middle of the busy roadway.
We had escaped Ikea relatively unscathed and thought we were home free. But of course we were being arrogant and naive. About three blocks from our apartment our driver informed us he wouldn’t be able to drop us off at our front door.
Our apartment is in l’Ecusson, the old part of Montpellier where many of the roads are closed to traffic. L’Ecusson also has a magical spatial property: every place is uphill from every other place in every direction. That famous Escher drawing isn’t an illusion—it’s a field sketch of Montpellier’s old city.
Our driver didn’t have the necessary permit to enter the old city and had to drop us off a few blocks from the house, which was of course an uphill walk. We had four heavy bags of stuff which included, among other things, plates, bowls, two sets of glasses, silverware, and two wood cutting boards.
Carolyn offered to wait at the bottom of the hill with the stuff so I could I make small trips back and forth. No way. I can do this in one trip! Unfortunately we didn’t document the event with a picture, but it looked a lot like this.
Don’t worry. Carolyn did her part. She carried a pillow.
All in all, it was the best Ikea experience either of us had ever had. We were still speaking to one another, and so we called it a win. And now we have plates to eat off of and glasses to drink from!
I am concerned, however, because there has been whispering about a necessary second trip to the Swedish netherworld. Do we dare push our luck? Carolyn thinks the only solution is to push our strategy one step further and make separate trips on our own. What do you think?
Jusqu’à la prochaine fois (until next time),
Carolyn & Roberto
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