You'd think a bank has money...

Oh, the little things. You know when you've been somewhere for a while, there are just things that you know and you assume everyone else knows. Like a door knob, when someone new comes to your house you don't think to show them how your door knob works, because you assume they have something similar and know how to use it.

These little things seem to be intensified when you're in a new country. Sure, I've been through my "living in France" assimilation, but that just gets you familiar with the country in general. All these little "door knob" things come up later.

Here's a few I've come across since we've been here:
If you're in a house, it probably has a boiler (heater) and those run off of gas. And you have to have those refilled by a company who will deliver it to you. Which means you have to watch the level of gas in your boiler. This would be a REALLY good thing to know especially if you move into your house in, say, November when the temp outside is 50 during the day and 30 at night.
(And a special thanks here to the management company who let us move into the house with only 1 week worth of boiler gas)

Everything is closed from 12-3. Everything. Don't even try to get anything done during that time. Siesta, they call it in the Spanish countries. Sounds so cool, until you really need to get to the store...

Everything is closed Sunday. Everything. Don't even try to get anything done during that day.

Don't assume that because stores have their "siesta" period that they will be open later. They still close at 6.

While I'm on a roll, don't assume that the person at the counter under the "customer service" sign gives a damn to do anything other than talk (about you) to her coworker.

Bathrooms - oooohhh, that will take a blog all to itself.

Driving - yeah, again, that's another blog all to itself someday.

In the US you can walk into any branch of your bank and get whatever you need really. Not here. If you have a question on your account, or need to do a wire transfer (which are incredibly common here) you have to go to your assigned branch and speak to your account manager. Just because they're all the same bank doesn't mean they have access to your account.

Not all banks have money. If you can figure out the secret code to get into the bank doors (seriously not as easy as it sounds), you have to make sure it's a bank branch that will actually have what you need - say money for instance. I walked into my "assigned" bank branch wanting to change dollars into Euros. No, can't do that here. Ok, no problem, then can you take my 100Euro bill and give me smaller bills? No, we don't carry cash in this bank. Of course not, what was I thinking. Go to the post office I'm told. Sure, why didn't I think of that.

Somehow I'm sure there will be more...