Wired

Two weeks.  That is how long it took to get internet hooked up at the new apartment.  Patience is a virtue one must have in France in general and especially in the summer.  I wait for the bus.  I wait for the lights to activate in the ladies room (motion detected). Sometimes I am in there in the dark waving my hands around for a few seconds before it senses my presence.  I stop and wait for automatic doors to open while I stand in front of it.  These "automated" things slow you down. The pace is slower because you can't go any faster.  Ca va aller (it will be fine).

It could be worse.  It is the summer after all.  I was ready for Thomas to get here before the internet.  So two weeks aint so bad.

We decided to go with Free internet which has notoriously bad customer service.  Everyone from my banker to the kids at franglish kept saying that it was the most "interesting".  Since we can get the service without a contract, I thought we would try it out and if it didn't work then we can find another.  I was slightly worried that it wouldn't be a plug and play set up and that i would have to read the instructions or have to call customer service (which would test my French considerable). With a little bit of logic, a little bit of French, and a lot of looking at the pictures, I successfully managed to get the apartment wired. 

A picture is worth a thousand hours on the phone with customer service.

Not sure if it is working 100% but it is working enough to get the laptop on the internet and to get facetime working on the iphone.  And that is good enough for now.

Sometimes looking at the pictures is  not enough to get you by.  Yesterday I bought a bag of frozen calamari thinking they were onion rings (it said calamar on them but I didn't even bother to try to read the french-- my bad).  And I realized just the other day that I have been washing my clothes with fabric softener thinking it was laundry detergent.  All the bottles have pictures of laundry on them. Plus it had the word "lavande" on it -  which to me was close to laver which means wash. Apparently it means lavender. I did five loads before I realized my mistake.  My clothes smelled nice (like lavender), but they were not clean.

On a different note. I also learned today that the 467 bus that should be part of my commute to and from work changed routes for the month of August.  This was the bus issue I posted about a few weeks ago.  The bus is suppose to drop folks off just down the hill from my apartment, but instead, just before heading into town it takes the route of the 360 bus.  I missed my bus stop the other day because it never passes my bus stop. I found this out because as I was looking at the posted route on the bus, a German woman who spoke perfect English explained the posted route is not correct during August (a sign saying that would have been helpful).  As she was explaining this to me, all became clear.  I even remember another women who didn't speak English trying to explain something important to me the first time I took this bus-- now I know what she was trying to say.  With ever learning experience there is always a silver lining. In taking this bus, I met someone in the neighborhood who is somewhat of an outsider (she does not consider herself French even though she grew up here) who speaks perfect English.  Perhaps our paths will cross again.