J'habite en France - but only part of the year
So, the deed is done. On 13 July 2017, Mrs GoS and I signed the achat de vente on our apartment in Aix en Provence. We are only 900 m from the center of town with access to the daily market and the joys of this town.
If you don't know Aix, you ought to, as its most renowned son was Paul Cézanne, who loved the town and the surrounding countryside. His favorite subject was Mont St Victoire, the rocky out crop to the east of the city, which eventually was the cause of his death from pneumonia.
We're in the process of furnishing, fixing, and decorating a 90 sq meter, two bedroom, ground floor apartment. Built in the 1970's it has an 'interesting' electrical system. We were told by an electrician who came to give us an estimate on upgrading that there was no grounding in the entire apartment. Not a 'knob and tube' system, but only two wires with the conduit as the earth/ground. He quoted an insane amount to bring it up to code, though he did say that there were cheaper work arounds.
It took us 5 days to get our electricity fully turned on and we still haven't got our own internet or phone (borrowing bandwidth from a very kind neighbor). Though a technician is coming tomorrow to get that sorted out. And then there are the rolling shutters and the tale of the refrigerator and the recalcitrant bank manager in Paris. With the dollar weakening daily against the euro, we feel like we're bleeding money, but hey, this is a dream realized.
We've been extremely fortunate to have a network of friends who live here, who have made our move much easier.
It's fun and frustrating at the same time. This is the south of France, after all, with all that that entails. If you have read 'A Year In Provence', you will get the idea of how long it takes to get things done. And as July and August are the vacation months in France, shops are shut, contractors turn off their mobile phones, and the roads are crowded.
That being said, the rosé is available in 5 litre boxes, bread is amazing, and people are friendly, unless you're driving, when everyone is a schmuck.
We're going to be trying to rent on AirBnB or VRBO to make the place revenue neutral which should be easy. Aix has a several schools, a big hospital, and a huge cultural life, so we have a target audience for renters.
I'm going to try to keep adding to this post over the next couple of weeks as a progress report, and posting pictures of Aix and the apartment.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I hope you'll check in and let us know how things are going. 
