Subject: Re: Hoping for the longest possible answer from Jim
I was not aware that Americans can't have a local bank account in Europe.

They legally can, but they practically can't, as banks outside the US usually don't want US citizen as customers as they are a huge hassle for those banks. That is because of the US government's special filing requirements for those banks, with the purpose to avoid that their citizens "forget" their US tax duties when living overseas. Strange. It's as if the US government doesn't trust it's citizens 😉