Family in Sète, Hérault, Languedoc-Roussilon

Hello, Bonjour!

We are a family living in Sete since August 08. We will be here until June 09 and we would like to meet other canadians in the area.

Hi I will be in paris on Dec 1st. Look forward to meet you folks then. How has your experience been so far?

Paris is not close to our town. If you travel south, in our area, we would be glad to meet with you. In the meantime, here's a few notes on our experience so far :

France is a beautiful country, there is something for everyone - nature, art, History, Sport, Food, etc. The people (in the south anyways) are warm and welcoming and so very polite. We have a few friends in France whom we had met in Canada. They live in other towns in the south. We didn't make new friends so far in our town of Sète, partly because we didn't really make an effort to. Some people told us that although people were nice, they wouldn't try to become close friends. The climate is also very nice (we are from Winnipeg, not hard to beat!)

There are many negatives annoyances also. For one thing, it is much more expensive than Winnipeg where we are from. Maybe not much more than Vancouver, I wouldn't know. There is dog shit on every sidewalks. French people are notorious to not bend to the rules, they bend the rules instead. Bureaucracy is a nightmare and also very expensive. It is understandable that french people have a reputation to be fraudulent with all the taxes they have to pay - Have you heard of the tenant tax? the garbage pick up tax? the audiovisual tax? And like many adminstrations around the world, there is lots of incompetency - all french people we met admit it, even the ones working in administrations. The visa office in Toronto didn't tell us what we were about to face to obtain our «carte de séjour». Our birth certificates were not proper - nobody had told us before we came here. We are asked to provide a recent X-ray of our lungs. Anyways, lots of fun things.

We are still very happy to be here. We sometimes miss our country though, that's why we register in this forum.

Awsome. are there similar forums? Would be great to meet more ppl.

Hi, Heard about French classes to learn French. Did you enroll into one of those?

I am french canadian and my wife is fluent enough in french. didn't participate to any classes.

as for similar forums, I don't know what's available. If you find something, let me know!

Hi....we are a family from Toronto in Meze for the year (arrived Sept 2008)...we have 3 sons (10, 13 and 15 y) and we both are english canadian, although learning french as we go...I am on sabbatical and my husband is taking a year's leave to help with the transition...Kids have been in french immersion so easy for them (relatively)...This is our second time in Montpellier area so we are better prepared for the 'new culture'....Let us know if you want to connect...we are off this next week (school holidays)...Sandy