I, of course, had some more frustration today as it was the last day I could set up my electricity. The man originally told me that I had to do it by phone, and I just got my phone to have minutes yesterday.
More about that later.
I thought I had this afternoon off, so I was just going to go to the electricity office, since I realized it's in Gambetta and that is super easy to get to. But after I got to class I was informed that we were going to go to a castle and that we may not get back to the campus until 5h30 and then it would have taken me 30 more minutes to get up to Gambetta and I wouldn't have been able to go into the office.
So I was like, wow this castle time sounds good though I'm not really dressed for walking around (as I was wearing jeans and fake vans from Target). And I decided that I was going to call during lunch and then everything would be taken care of. But because it takes so long to get to the castle, they cut our lunch an hour short, and all 100 of us had to stay in the same town to eat lunch.
I followed a bunch of Germans to a pizza place, then I fell down and ripped a hole in my jeans, hand, and knee. I thought pizza was going to take too long (and I obviously hated the restaurant for making me fall down) so I walked very quickly to a sandwich shop and bought the very last pre-assembled sandwich. I put the sandwich in my bag to eat on the bus and sat down to call EDF (that's the electricity company).
I got a robot person who spoke too fast and gave me options. I picked one, mostly randomly because I have no idea what robot woman was saying. Then she gave me more options. I stayed on the line because I couldn't decide what option I wanted and so eventually she said something that I think was "I'm searching for someone to answer your question." I was on hold with this woman for half an hour, and in the meantime walked back to the building. I wasn't going to be able to do my electricity over the phone on a bus, and I needed to get it done today, so I told my professor that I couldn't go to the castle because I had to go do my electricity. She agreed that that is an important thing.
I'm still sad I didn't get to go to the castle. But it'll be ok obviously.
At this point I'm very frustrated, and I made the executive decision for a new word "Frenchstrated" in which you are frustrated by something that the French people do, or something that just seems very French and irritating. Why isn't anything easy here?
Well it turns out going to the EDF office made the electricity very easy. I brought every single document I had and watched the woman as she filled out a form online for me.
Then I went to the Monoprix and bought plums and dish soap.
Afterwards, I returned to my room at like 3pm and ate lunch. And some plums. It made everything worth it because even if I fell down and missed the castle I have plums and I wouldn't have had any otherwise.
I went with Kashif at 8h00ish to his friend's Indian restaurant and they gave us so much food and I had to keep eating it because they kept bringing different kinds for me to try. It was ridiculous.
Now I'm going to go to sleep and hope that everyone tells me the castle was horrible and I didn't miss anything today when I go into class tomorrow. I did all my homework so I'm super ready to go.
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