England to France - Mad 1st week

Hi there.....It's been 1 week since my hubby and I moved from cold dump England to sunny Cannes, France.
Despite the de-junk I did over the past months(as you can see from my market place), I still had 76 boxes to take from Engalnd. They arrived on Monday safely and we have been sorting them out every day, which is rather boring.
Why why I had so many THINGS? shoes, bags, clothes, plates, I need them but why 76 boxes?

Anyways, things are pretty settled over here. I have got the long term residency permit (Carte de sejour) today. This is the first nightmare as a foreigner. It's probably worse than Home Office in England. Went to prefecture in Nice for application today. Got there before 8am and already people waiting outside the gate. No queue. Then there were some chaotic moment just as the gate was opened. Many people run to the entrance - what's the point of waiting outside... then the entrance was opened at 9am, then people run to the reception desk for application.

Got the residency permit anyhow, then off to a local bank for opening my account and mutual bank with my hubby. The funny thing is that I only got my bank account opened today, because the man who dealt with us, was not used to the new system and got so fed up with the time taking just by opening my account that we had to go back again sometime next week.....

The food is lovely, as you could imagine. Not much foreign food, although oriental foods are quite accepted, like Japanese and chinese. There are quite a few sushi restaurant here in Cannes, which was really nice. Also there are some English food you can buy from a local supermarket - i.e. Helman's mayonaise, my favourite, - got to stock up some more, when next time I am in England.

Still staying at a friend's holiday house at the moment, as the Gas won't be activated until next Tuesday. Can't wait to start living in our own place....