Avenue Auber

All roads in Nice lead to avenue Auber. Well, at least for me! That is the address of my new apartment here in my newly adopted city. I am so excited. But it was certainly a bit of a roller coaster to cross this particular item off my list.

Finding an apartment was at the top of my list when I arrived here in Nice last week. My friend Christiane had generously offered to let me stay with her (as I had last April) as long as I needed to (well, at least through the end of September), but even after a few days in her lovely apartment high atop the hill overlooking Nice, I was itching to be in my own place. I wanted to feel like I was living here, not visiting!

So, in my typical Type A way (is that redundant?), I was making phone calls to realtors on my third day here, and was visiting apartments that afternoon. The criteria for my search online at www.seloger.com: two or three rooms (one or two bedrooms), in Nice center, a furnished apartment with a balcony, under 1,000 Euros. The first apartment I visited was a very clean and compact one bedroom directly downtown, with enormously high ceilings, but a very limited view – actually no view, as it was on the first floor. The realtor was a young woman whose English was pretty decent; she was the first to inquire about my working status, and about the probable need to have someone “guarantee” my rental contract. More about that later. I left her, very non-committal. A few hours later I visited a much older building on the north side of the train tracks (but still in a good neighborhood downtown), with a young man as my guide. He showed me the second floor, two bedroom apartment. It was enormous, with a sitting room with floor to ceiling windows opening onto a small balcony that wrapped around the curved room. But this furnished apartment was quite old, and really felt like too much room for me. Helpfully, I was starting to get a sense of the difference between 30 square meters and 60 square meters, and a sense of the variety of furnishings I would be offered in my search. I asked the realtor if there was anything smaller he could show me (this was all in French), and he wrote down an address for me to visit the following afternoon. At the end of the day, I was feeling good about the beginning of my search.

The next morning, I made another call to a realtor, setting up a visit to a two bedroom apartment in the city, which would make two visits that afternoon. I was already feeling accomplished. I left Christiane’s apartment around noon, spending some time at an internet café, and along the beach, before heading toward my 2 p.m. appointment. But after hanging out on av. Jean Jaure for nearly an hour, with no realtor in sight, I started to feel a bit deflated. I called the number I had been given the day before, left a message on the voice mail, but understood that this visit was not going to happen. I had an hour and a half before the next appointment, so I wandered around downtown, before finding a small park near the apartment address to hang out in until 4 p.m.

A few minutes before 4, I walked over to the address on rue Joffre. A man was standing on the sidewalk near the address, and I asked him if he was showing the apartment – or something like that in French. Turns out he was going to look at the apartment too. So the two of us stood there for several more minutes until a young man (this is a business for the young, apparently!), strode quickly across the street with apologies (“je suis desolee”) for his lateness. We took the ancient ascenseur (elevator), complete with an iron grate opening and manual doors, to the fifth floor. This was a one bedroom apartment, with quite a bit of space. The kitchen and eating area was on the north side, and opened onto a balcony that spanned the width of the apartment. The balcony was not deep, but could accommodate the plastic table that was in the kitchen area. The view, while not of the sea, was of the mountains behind the city, and it was pretty magnificent, over the tops of the buildings around it. But this again, was an old building, and showing its age. The furnishings in this place were also not of the best quality, but hey, what do you want?

My companion apartment searcher, a Frenchman, was full of questions for our realtor guy. I attempted to ask a few questions of the young man too, but wasn’t sure I was getting the answers I wanted. Vous viens d’ou?, he asked as we went down the elevator. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was asking, so he asked again in English. Where are you from? We continued the conversation in English briefly, as the two of us followed Laurent (as I learned his name a bit later) back to his office, around the corner.

We had both asked to see alternative apartments, and Laurent quickly showed the other guy a more expensive and attractive apartment on his computer in the office. I indicated that I would like to see something else too, but Laurent indicated that he had business to do with a young man sitting there waiting for him, and said could I wait fifteen minutes? I said I would, with the sense that this fifteen minutes would probably be longer.

And indeed, I sat there for about 40 minutes while Laurent completed a rental application with the young English speaking student (not sure what his nationality was) and his French guarantee – at least that is what I took from what I heard of the conversation; the woman was translating into English for the student and facilitating the transaction.

Finally, he was free, but not for me yet – he had several phone calls to return first! Ach, but he was cute, and French, and I had nowhere else to be. He motioned to me and started to look through his computer for additional apartments, but since I was not interested in the one he had shown me earlier, he seemed at a loss. Finally he asked one of his colleagues about an apartment, and then wrote down some particulars for me, saying this apartment would be available on the 15th of September, and to call him then to see it. It was a bit of a disappointment to be treated like this – he seemed unable or unwilling to be helpful, but gosh, he was cute.

So I went into the weekend feeling cautiously positive about my options.

My agenda on Monday was to look again at the internet site seloger.com and come up with more listings and make calls on Tuesday. Christiane generously let me spend an hour on her dial up internet connection that night to conduct my search. I was much more circumspect this time around in my search, and decided to focus on a one bedroom rental, as the two bedrooms seemed like too much room, and I didn’t really need to spend that much money. I came up with a fairly lengthy list this time, and prepared to make calls the next morning.

The next day I got up, did my run along the Promenade, heading toward the port that morning, knowing that Priscilla was in that neighborhood for her teaching stint that week. I returned to Christiane’s, took a shower, made some coffee, and by 10 a.m. was sitting at the dining room table ready to make calls to realtors, with Christiane nearby in case I needed some language assistance.

My first two calls were completely depressing. The first receptionist (or realtor?) asked me if I was working in France. I said no. She said then that it was not possible to rent an apartment. Je suis desolee. She hung up. Ouch! I turned to Christiane with this news, deflated. She was sympathetic and suggested I keep calling. Of course. The next phone call was better, but similar. The woman on the other end of the phone asked the same question, was I working? I said no. She said, Did I know anyone in France that could guarantee my rental contract? I said yes. She seemed skeptical for some reason. She then did a calculation of the income that my guarantee – who must work in France – must have to be an acceptable guarantor. Forty six hundred Euros was the monthly income one must have to guarantee my contract for a 700 Euro apartment! Priscilla told me later that this was a prohibitive income requirement, as any regular salaried worker in France made far less. The woman on the line indicated that I must come in to the office with this guarantee before any apartment could be shown. My confidence factor was sliding downhill pretty quickly.

But hey, Don’t give up, I could hear my Dad say. Try, try, again. Maybe that was my grandfather saying that too. So I picked up my portable again and made a few more calls. I left my phone number at two locations, and then reached a woman who was willing to show me an apartment – not the one I had seen listed, but another one that was available. I would meet her at 5 that afternoon at her office.

I arrived at the Century 21 office on time, after sitting in a nearby park, waiting for the appointed hour. I had to laugh; shortly before 5, as I was sitting on a park bench, I felt something wet on my back – a pigeon had just deposited some droppings on the back of my white shirt! Feeling a little McGiver-ish, I went over to the small fountain in the middle of the park, took off my shirt (I was wearing a top underneath), and with my hands washed the green droppings quite successfully with the fountain water. It was a hot day, and I was sure that the shirt would dry quickly. But I wasn’t sure whether this was a good omen or not.
Martine was in the office as promised (as was, perhaps not surprisingly, the young man that had shown me the older building that first day), but when I was introduced she looked at me quizzically for a moment before saying “J’ai oublie”, she had forgotten our appointment. But in a few minutes we were walking over to the garage to get her car (it took several minutes for her to negotiate her small car out of a very small garage) to drive a short distance to see the apartment. Amazingly she found a parking spot nearby, and we walked over to the apartment building.

Following another woman and her tiny dog into the building, we joined the two in the small ascenseur and headed up to the third floor. Martine seemed confused by the name on the door, and so we went back down, and then back up again to the third floor. The key opened the door, and we went in. It was a clean and compact one bedroom, with floor to ceiling windows and iron railings on the tres petit balcon outside the windows. Not really a balcony, but a small buildout, big enough for the two pots of plants sitting there. I took a few pictures, noting the fully loaded kitchen (even a dishwasher), and large bathroom with a sizeable bath/shower and bidet. And lots of storage space in a fairly large closet. This looked promising.

On our way over to the apartment in the car, I had shared with Martine that I was in France on an extended vacation, having taken time off from being a lawyer. Actually, I had tried to explain that I had worked for Fannie Mae, but she didn’t get that in my French, so I told her I was an avocat, a lawyer, which is true. This apparently impressed her. I was a quality candidate.

After we had walked through the apartment (45 square meters), I asked Martine if there would be a problem that I was not working. She asked whether I had checks – and I said, oh, yes, I had a bank account here in Nice. Oh, well, she said, then we can work things out. Ah, yes, this is what I wanted to hear!

We went back down to her car, so she could give me her card, and I got in the car too – decided
it would not be a bad idea to spend a few more minutes with her as she drove back to the office. And indeed, we did some more repartee on the brief drive; I told her I was divorced, and looking for some time to enjoy life for a while. She seemed to get this. I felt good about things as I left her that afternoon.

As I headed back to Christiane’s apartment, I got a phone call on my portable. Surprise, it was one of the realtors, calling me back. She had a fifth floor walkup apartment to show me; I said that would be fine, and we set up an appointment for the next morning at 10 a.m. I figured I need to look at one more place for comparison.

Four years ago, when I was looking for a condo after leaving my husband, I spent a weekend looking at places. The condo I eventually purchased (a mere 18 days later) was perhaps the first I saw that weekend, and I liked it, but insisted on looking at a number of others before reaching my decision. As many of my friends know, I like to have a good feel for my options.

That evening I showed the pictures I had taken of the apartment to Christiane, and talked to Priscilla about it. Christiane asked me why I hadn’t told Martine that I wanted it that evening. But I had told her I would let her know the next day. I spent the evening (and some waking hours of the early morning) considering whether or not to make that call – deciding finally that yes, that was the place.

Regardless, I got up the next morning and headed out to the 10 a.m. appointment I had made for the fifth floor walkup. In a few words, it was an easy climb for me, but it would not be for any of my guests! I walked quickly back to Christiane’s to call Martine; Christiane had said that she would join me on the call (via speakerphone) in case there were any questions that I would need help with. The call to Martine was quick; I told her I would like to rent the apartment, and she said, can you come in this afternoon? And we made an appointment to see her at 2:30 p.m. Christiane said she would accompany me, happily.

Life should be so easy. And one should be always prepared! The meeting with Martine (which started a little closer to 3 than 2:30 – as expected, Christiane told me), went smoothly. She had me fill out an application, at least two sections of which I left blank – I wrote only that I was a lawyer in the space where one was to put one’s work address, and I put nothing in the section for listing one’s income. But with a quick call to M. Orsini at HSBC France (her bank too, serendipitously) and a copy of my transcript showing my J.D. from GWU, the contract was filled out and signed. Just like that!

The frustrations of the previous day, the alternatives I was weighing in my mind regarding how to find an apartment without having a job and friends who could provide credible guarantees (Christiane is not presently working and Priscilla is a sole proprietor making a good living, but not a rich one). But there is much to be said for personal contact, and setting up the right connections (a banker that knows you), to make things work for you. That’s been my life so far, and so it continues.

So, on Friday I will bring my deposit and rent money, receive my keys, do a walkthrough of the apartment, and move in. Avenue Auber, here I come!

Oh, yes, and I saw Laurent entering the Century 21 office as we were leaving. He said, Ca va? Oui, ca va, j’ai dit. Oh, la, la. Such a cutie.