Virtually Home

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...

I tried to go to bed relatively early last night -- and by that I mean around 2 a.m. Instead, I was awake until sometime after 5 a.m., and woke up when my alarm went off at 10 in a haze of dream-confusion and grainy-eyed pessimism. I got online and bought a plane ticket from London to Geneva to meet up with Rachel on Christmas Eve. The next plan was to head over to the SNCF office and get a ticket from Bordeaux to London to visit Tom, since their website has been steadfastedly refusing to show me train schedules for days now. But after a comically cold shower, while on the point of pouring cereal into a bowl, I was surprised by a phone call from our landlady regarding the washing machine problem. Yes, the washing machine problem is ongoing. Yes, this is three months. And of course, since I can't stand letting cereal sit in milk for any length of time longer than strictly necessary, I halted my breakfast preparations. As it turns out, Auchan mailed the estimate to my address in ...

So about an hour ago I was panicking that I hadn't yet received my tickets to the Monsters of Folk show on Tuesday in London. So I called their office, told someone my problem -- he got a superviser to change my tickets to will call (apparently they don't mail things to France, and didn't bother telling me that when I ordered?), sent me a confirmation email -- and the problem was solved in under five minutes. Why, oh WHY can my washing machine problem not disappear in the same way? Tomorrow I will call them...when I have gathered my willpower...and put more money on my phone. Somehow I doubt my 30 seconds of credit is enough to resolve this problem.

Today, I am frustrated beyond belief. Already. Last week I called the company that came to give me an estimate about the washing machine to ask them why the hell they still had not come to fix my washing machine. They told me I had to wait for the formal estimate in the mail and then MAIL IT BACK TO THEM when I made my decision. And so I waited with as much patience as I could muster, for over a week, for a piece of mail they claimed they mailed to me from not even a mile from where I am sitting right now. No luck. I just called back to beg for someone to come fix it, and their response was that they HAVE to have the request in writing and I MUST wait for it in the mail. They agreed to send me a new one. I asked them if we could just forget I ever "asked for" the estimate and start a new work order. She said no. And furthermore, there are parts to order. I asked her (rather hopelessly) if she could order them in advance. She said no, she has to receive a request i...

Well, our washing machine still doesn't work. Also, we lost to Texas. I hate that a lot, but I can't say I didn't see it coming. It got cold in Bordeaux all of a sudden. It's already affecting my life, and it's not even below 50 yet. I just have very little desire to walk around aimlessly (which was one of my chief employments until this week) when it's cold out. All the shops and restaurants are starting to keep their doors closed and move their furniture inside. I hate it when it gets cold. I lose motivation to go anywhere, and when it gets dark earlier I'm much more likely to stay inside than to get anything done. It's not ideal. On the upside, the guy I left my lens with tells me he can fix it for around 30 euros, and to call back sometime next week. Hopefully this is true, because that's not a bad price at all. I was expecting worse. I'm copying the notes I took during the first week of class into some new notebooks. They don't r...

And after a title like that, I have to start off with some more connerie. I called Auchan the other day, and after the lady on the line looked up my work order, was simply told to "be patient" and hung up on. Aside from being offended by that awkward departure from my expectations about customer service, I didn't have any idea what I was being told to be patient for, so I made Maria call again. Maria was told that, when I told the technician to tell me how much it would cost before beginning work, he took that as a request for a formal estimate. Which means that he went back to Auchan, filled out some paperwork, and had them mail me an estimate. By the mail. As in, the kind with a postman. And then, when I receive the estimate, I have to decide whether the cost is acceptable (phone-lady said 107 euros, but refused to take the order over the phone) and then mail it back to them. And then they'll call me to schedule an appointment. Which, judging by the last time I made...

The last few days have been pretty un-noteworthy, which I guess explains the lag in posting. I guess I've mostly been playing guitar, watching Star Trek: TNG and X-Files, and surfing YouTube. For instance, today I finally heard about President Obama's speech for the first day of school. That's one frustrating thing about living abroad -- I keep not being apprised of presidential addresses or  major pop culture events until way after. Most of what I have to show for yesterday involves successfully finding the laundromat, which was about a 3/4 of a mile from my apartment. I know there's one closer. In fact, I remember walking by one a few days ago and remarking aloud to my roommates that we should remember where it was, in case we needed it. As it turned out, we did have need of it -- and I didn't remember where it was. I'm sure it was closer than the one I found, but I didn't want to invest a lot of time and energy into the hunt when I still had to fetch...