It’s another Saturday, and another Saturday alone. So I decided to bide my time by traveling around and doing some shopping (though what I was going to buy was still a mystery to me at the time.) Not sure why I wanted to wear a tie today either…
Today’s flow of events is presented to you by…
MY CRAPPY DRAWINGS!
=\
Okay. So I took the long train ride down to Franklin D. Roosevelt station down along Champs Elysée. Main purpose? To eat mussels. And try out my new ATM card.
Not entirely sure why, but everytime I take the train I get the weirdest looks ever. I’m not even sure if there’s a name for the kinda look they give me. It must be uniquely French, and utterly impossible to place in an English dictionary.
When I arrived, I made my way to the HSBC along Champs Elysée to try out my new ATM card. While collecting my card yesterday, the bank lady didn’t (contrary to what we do in Singapore) give me a pin number and I wasn’t asked to enter one. So I rather silly-ly decided that it must be something done at the ATM machine.
As luck may have it, the ATM machine only spoke French, a language I know nuts about. So after trying to enter a pin code 3 times, it ate my card.
Yeah. Ate.
Then spewed a receipt that said “CARTE CAPTUREE”.
Goddamit. I know you captured my damn card. Don’t sound so happy about it.
I called up HSBC who told me the PIN number was sent to my address. And the address they had was… In Singapore. Fuck. Idiots. I emailed them last week to update my particulars. Of course, they hadn’t bothered to reply or update. So now I’m going to get a replacement card. In 2 weeks. Brilliant. My mom couldn’t stop yelling on the phone what idiots there were working in these companies (DHL… HSBC…)
Having my card confiscated and a little more than 70 euros in my wallet, I went to have mussels! Which was supposed to be the highlight of my lonely day. When I got in however, I was very promptly ignored by the waiter at the door, who seated, served and billed everyone around me while I was trying to get his attention.
When I was finally seated by the manager in some corner, it took me another 7 minutes and 15 seconds to get the attention of one of nearly 5 waiters who whizzed past. Annoying? Yes.
Unlike the last time I came, this time, my drink didn’t have a straw and I wasn’t given a wet towel. After attempting to try to ask for one for another 3 minutes, i gave up and resigned to having my fingers smell like shellfish for the rest of the day. (Maybe they didn’t want to give me one cause they gave me 2 the last time.) I happily got the glass my coke was in totally basted in the lovely sauce though, since i had to keep picking up the glass. Ah well. no matter!
Full of mussels, I took off to Galleries Lafayette! Where… I didn’t buy anything. Nothing caught my eye. It was horribly crowded though and this very large guy tried to squeeze past me while I was walking down the aisle looking at CDs. I stepped aside to let him pass and realigned myself on my original path when his daughter shoved me aside 3 seconds later to get to her father, casting me a really angry look while she did so.
If I weren’t me, I would have punched her nose in.
Garh. Ang more parents should really beat their kids.
Having nothing to see at galleries Lafayette, and thoroughly pissed off by a kid, I made my way to Printemps instead – another huge shopping mall.
I bought myself a new belt from Citadium (an entire building full of young ppl clothes) as well as a checkered suspenders from Vans! Lol. No idea why I bought the suspenders. =\
I was going to pop by FNAC to drool at electrical appliances when I saw a Monoprix next to Citadium. So I went down and to my surprise, it was a supermarket! I happily bought my weekly groceries before realizing I would have to lug all that shit back home.
If the weight of the damn bags weren’t enough, it started to pour when I exited the supermarket, leaving me soaked to the skin when I got onto the train.
It was only when I was arriving at St Mandé station when I noticed the pink from the bags had run in the rain and was now the pink of my nice khaki pants… =( I like my pants…
Thankfully I got it out by scrubbing it with a bar of soap. But now I’m drained, hungry and have no motivation to neither cook nor go out to eat. And I’m still cold form being soaked, despite my shower.
So that was my day out. Tada.
