It's a Christmas Miracle! or Thank God Someone Finally Fixed My Washing Machine
Today, France decided to let me catch a break.
I was told Auchan might come sometime today. My phone rang at 10 a.m., and I, having been awake until five, struggled to be awake enough to understand French through the phone. For some reason it's a lot harder than in person. The guy on the other end said he'd be at my house somewhere between right that instant and 11, so I scrambled to get dressed and go get cash from the ATM to pay him with.
When he arrived, he started tinkering with the washing machine and asked me if I still had the estimate. Awkward, because we never got the estimate and no, I didn't even have the bill that the first guy left me when he came to make the estimate. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized he might decide not to do the work, lacking that damned signature on the form.
To my surprise, he kept working. He called the company to get the price of the part, installed it, and was in and out in fifteen minutes -- the total cost of the repair was 15 euros for the part and 11 for the fifteen minutes of labor. 26 euros, in contrast to the 107 euros that the estimate that I never received was supposed to tell me it would cost. But that's only if you don't factor in the 55 euros I paid for the first estimate that never came (and ultimately was completely unnecessary for him to perform the work, evidently?!), the three months of doing my laundry bi-weekly at the laundromat for an exorbitant price, all the frustration caused by trying to express my problem to some uncaring person on the other end of the line, plus the wrong-address incident from last week...All in all, I would have paid a lot more than the measly 26 euros to have my washing machine fixed, say, three months ago.
Alas. Buoyed by my success, I went back to sleep.
After my nap I decided, with a heavy heart, to attempt coat-shopping. I left my coat in London on accident and have been walking around in a light jacket and shivering. The irony in needing to buy a coat is that it's too cold to want to go outside without a coat. So shopping is a rather bitter endeavor, even in the best of times, and you might recall that I dislike shopping with a passion that closely resembles zeal.
I went to H&M, which was the biggest clothing shop I was even remotely familiar with in France, and wandered around. I did manage to find a coat I am more or less happy with. I say that I am happy because I have any coat at all, and can now stop worrying about freezing to death in Geneva or Berlin, and because it fits, but its faux pockets remind me why I hate clothes designed for girls. Why is it that girls are assumed not to need or want pockets? This perplexes me, and is probably why girls take to carrying stupidly large bags, like anchors made to make sure their hands are never free. Or, that's the way it seems to me.
The score for the day is, so far, Jessie 2 - France 0.
Last night I went to a pub near Place St. Pierre with Mathieu, where they had a bunch of old LPs glued to the ceiling by way of decoration. I was sort of fascinated and appalled by this. I was trying to read the labels but I couldn't see far enough with enough resolution to see whose music they'd used. It seemed really sad.
Tonight, I'm going to see Avatar. I'm wondering whether it'll be dubbed or subtitled. I'm not sure which I'd prefer. The dub is better for my French, but less good for movie-watching experiences.
I was told Auchan might come sometime today. My phone rang at 10 a.m., and I, having been awake until five, struggled to be awake enough to understand French through the phone. For some reason it's a lot harder than in person. The guy on the other end said he'd be at my house somewhere between right that instant and 11, so I scrambled to get dressed and go get cash from the ATM to pay him with.
When he arrived, he started tinkering with the washing machine and asked me if I still had the estimate. Awkward, because we never got the estimate and no, I didn't even have the bill that the first guy left me when he came to make the estimate. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized he might decide not to do the work, lacking that damned signature on the form.
To my surprise, he kept working. He called the company to get the price of the part, installed it, and was in and out in fifteen minutes -- the total cost of the repair was 15 euros for the part and 11 for the fifteen minutes of labor. 26 euros, in contrast to the 107 euros that the estimate that I never received was supposed to tell me it would cost. But that's only if you don't factor in the 55 euros I paid for the first estimate that never came (and ultimately was completely unnecessary for him to perform the work, evidently?!), the three months of doing my laundry bi-weekly at the laundromat for an exorbitant price, all the frustration caused by trying to express my problem to some uncaring person on the other end of the line, plus the wrong-address incident from last week...All in all, I would have paid a lot more than the measly 26 euros to have my washing machine fixed, say, three months ago.
Alas. Buoyed by my success, I went back to sleep.
After my nap I decided, with a heavy heart, to attempt coat-shopping. I left my coat in London on accident and have been walking around in a light jacket and shivering. The irony in needing to buy a coat is that it's too cold to want to go outside without a coat. So shopping is a rather bitter endeavor, even in the best of times, and you might recall that I dislike shopping with a passion that closely resembles zeal.
I went to H&M, which was the biggest clothing shop I was even remotely familiar with in France, and wandered around. I did manage to find a coat I am more or less happy with. I say that I am happy because I have any coat at all, and can now stop worrying about freezing to death in Geneva or Berlin, and because it fits, but its faux pockets remind me why I hate clothes designed for girls. Why is it that girls are assumed not to need or want pockets? This perplexes me, and is probably why girls take to carrying stupidly large bags, like anchors made to make sure their hands are never free. Or, that's the way it seems to me.
The score for the day is, so far, Jessie 2 - France 0.
Last night I went to a pub near Place St. Pierre with Mathieu, where they had a bunch of old LPs glued to the ceiling by way of decoration. I was sort of fascinated and appalled by this. I was trying to read the labels but I couldn't see far enough with enough resolution to see whose music they'd used. It seemed really sad.
Tonight, I'm going to see Avatar. I'm wondering whether it'll be dubbed or subtitled. I'm not sure which I'd prefer. The dub is better for my French, but less good for movie-watching experiences.
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