Driving (Conduite)
Of course, there are many things which work differently in France than in Scotland/the UK. For example (par exemple), owning and using a car has some subtle differences.
Firstly, when you buy a car second-hand, you come across one of those confusing examples where English uses the same word as French, but for a completely different meaning. Something which is second-hand is “d’occasion”, so looking for that sign at a garage will help you find “Voitures d'occasion”
When you buy a car, as you’d expect, you receive a registration document, proving you own it. Here it is called a ‘carte grise’, because it is literally a grey card document (Note, it is not ‘gris’ because it is une/la carte, so female which adds an ‘e’ to the adjective, this French stuff is tricky). You must keep the carte grise in your car in case you get stopped by the police and are asked to show it.
Similarly you need insurance, but when you get the document for this, it comes with a small passport photo sized section you cut out and display in a holder on your windscreen which acts as proof of insurance.
After six months before your car is 4 years old, it has to go for its first ‘contrôle technique’, which is much the same as a UK MOT test. The difference is that once you get it done, it only needs done once ever two years thereafter. There are also many places that only do CTs and do not do any work you might need done after a failed CT, so you have to go see a garage that does repairs, or fix the issue yourself. Similar to the insurance document, the CT comes with a small proof of valid CT and the date of the next CT which you also affix to the inside of your windscreen (Pare-brise).
NOTE - A dental check-up or a visit to the doctor for no specific reason is also ‘pour contrôle’, for a check.
One thing which seems very odd to UK eyes around cars is that when folks go to get an automated car wash, the kind with the giant brushes, they put the car in the car wash, get out of the car and then start the wash, standing and waiting when it is being done. Presumably some unfortunate person(s) had a bad accident at some point which prompted this requirement.
Buying a New Pair of Specs
(acheter une nouvelle paire de lunettes)
This week I did something I’ve put off here, because it is horrendously expensive in the UK for me now with my many and varied lens requirements, and we were told it is was even more so in France: Going and getting a new pair of specs.
In the UK of course, this is a one stop shop experience. You go to the optician shop, get tested and choose some specs, get fitted, pay a deposit and come back later for a final fitting and payment and done.
Here, things are a little different and it’s a two speciality process.
Firstly you go to see an ophthalmologist (ophtalmologiste, that was easy eh?) and get a prescription (une ordonnance).
http://ophtalmologiste-perigueux.fr/
Then you go to an optician (un opticien), choose your frames (montures), what type of lenses (verres) you want etc, pay the deposit and come back and collect the result.
https://naturovueopticienaudition-villeboislavalette.monopticien.com/
In terms of paying, it is a little more compliqué aussi. Like all healthcare (Excepting for chronic illness like my Crohn’s/Kidney disease or Diabetes etc, where you never pay or need claim insurance), you may pay some amount up front and be re-imbursed by your mutuelle (Health insurance), or perhaps pay nothing as it is instantly arranged to be re-imbursed directly to the provider from the insurance company at the point you hand over your Carte Vitale to the provider. This seems odd when you’re used to never paying anything or being aware of any money involved as in the NHS.
In the case of my specs, I pay for a fairly high level of insurance (About 60 Euros a month, so £625 a year at this time - There is no concept of National Insurance here though, just income tax), so a lot of the cost of the specs seemed to be covered - I will only really believe this when I collect the specs next week as it seemed very cheap for one pair with all the lens bells and whistles I usually get (Thinning of the lenses, photo-chromatic, anti-reflective coating and varifocals), plus a second pair of distance only sunglasses. Will report back.
As I probably wrote before, the insurance, although it instantly brings up thoughts of US style health insurance to UK minds, is not like that at all. There are no questions at all about your health conditions, weight or anything. It may be calculated based on your age perhaps, but otherwise it’s just priced depending on what you want covered - mostly it’s useful because hospital stays are costly, so it covers that instance unless you got for a very, very basic cover level. Being new to this we went for the maximum coverage and so far it’s proven very good value and most of the use of the health care system so far has been impressive - will write on this more later.