Wimping

So I wimped out this weekend and did not actually do anything fun.  I really just stayed in my room and read, colored, cleaned, and filled out some paperwork to prepare for my meetings tomorrow.

On Saturday, my VivoFit would inform you that I walked like 600 steps.  This isn't entirely true, because I always take the watch off when I'm in my room.  All this tells you is how far it was for me to walk from my room to the trashroom and back, and then to the laundry room and back.

My main struggle on Saturday was attempting to do my laundry.  As I have now washed my hair three times in France, it means I have been here about three weeks.  (I cut down on hair washing because it's so hard and zero people have touched my hair, so it doesn't matter if I ever wash it).  I only brought a supply of clothes for three weeks, and since I bought laundry tokens on Friday, it seemed logical to do my laundry on Saturday.

I went down to the laundry room where there was a set of instructions on the wall.  These washing machines are rather different than the ones at home, but I was confident that even if I can't get registered to the University, I can figure out how a washing machine works.  The instructions wanted me to make sure that there was a light on on the machine.  There were no lights on on any machine.  I thought, immediately, that this meant that I needed to put my token in and push the button on the token machine to make my machine ready and have the light turn on.

My token did nothing.

I thought, maybe I just need to have everything selected and then my token will work.  This was foolish thinking.  I put my clothes in and I shut the door on the machine.  At this point, the light lit up and I was very very excited that my token had not been eaten entirely by the machine and I might get my 3.50euros out of it.

I followed all the rest of the instuctions, putting in the soap, turning the dials, etc.  At this point, the instructions wanted me to push the green button that should be lit up.  It was not lit up.

I read on closer to the next instruction--which was apparently to put my token in.  So since I put my token in before the first light was lit, my token did nothing at all.

You think to yourself:  Sara, that's irritating, but just go get another one, like if the machine at Wartburg eats your quarters!

Well, the joke is on you readers, because you have to purchase these tokens specifically from, guess who, THE AWFUL PEOPLE AT THE FRONT DESK.  And when are they there?  WHENEVER THEY WANT BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO SIGN THAT SAYS THEIR HOURS AND WILL GET UPSET WITH YOU WHEN YOU SHOW UP IF THEY'RE "CLOSED".

[I will note that when I went to buy the laundry tokens the first time, the woman behind the desk said they were closed for the next two hours, even though her window was open.  And then when I came back later that day, she was real irritated that I didn't understand that she was closed. I said "do you have a sign?" and she said "no, but I don't have any blinds."  I'm hoping there was some kind of misunderstanding because that is not an acceptable answer to me.  If you are going to be irritated by me asking you a question when you're closed, you'd better have a sign telling me that you are closed.]

Yes, so now I have to wait until Monday to buy another token from them because they did not explain how the laundry works to a pretty obvious international student.  I'm hoping they will let me buy just a washing token.  I'm betting they won't.