Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Good, The Bad, and The Weird

(Full Disclosure: I haven't seen that movie.)

The Good

Today Faith and I had an awesome study party next to the Chateau de Vincennes. Even though we studied (ugh) some schoolwork type stuff (gross), it was really awesome because it was beautiful and warm out, I ate a ham sandwich with tons of butter, and there was a moat!

Serious thinkers.
We also took some quality portraits.

The Bad

The other day, when I got onto the RER, the turnstile machine thing wasn't working, so my ticket didn't get stamped. When leaving the RER, since I didn't have a stamped ticket, I figured I would just walk out behind my friend who had a Navigo pass and everything would be cool. FALSE! Everything was not cool. I got in trouble with the POLICE.

Sad times.
Apparently what I should have done in that situation was use a fresh metro ticket to get out. Didn't even know you could do that. Dumb American here. Anyway, they thought I was just scamming the system, so they gave me a ticket. But I was nice and tried really hard to explain everything and was clearly very apologetic, so they gave me a smaller fine (25€ instead of 50€) and by the end of it we were all good friends. The guy who pulled me aside actually held up my tickets and very deliberately explained which one I was supposed to use and which one I was supposed to throw away. And we all parted ways with love and mutual respect warming our hearts.

But I still cried a lot.

Anyway, on the plus side I can now make jokes about that one time I got in trouble with the po-po.

And on the other, completely unrelated side, they don't even know who I am. They were just like, "Pay us!" and then gave me a receipt and let me go. I find that surprising. But I don't know that much about the fuzz, so maybe that's how these things always work.

Or maybe France is just weird.

The Weird

I saw a guy emptying his catheter bag on the street yesterday.

So yeah.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 23, 2011 at 1:33 PM

    Ha! One time in Peru, I saw a woman in a very fluffy indigenous skirt squat on the street, pee, and then stand up and walk off. Another chapter in Pissing Habits of the World.

    Chili

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  2. DianeRNOctober 25, 2011 at 10:48 PM

    SERIOUS thinkers. Plus, interesting window into micturative cultures. . .

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  3. DianeRNOctober 26, 2011 at 9:47 PM

    P.S. What does "Your ivory is totally last season" refer to?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Violet ZapettaOctober 27, 2011 at 11:57 AM

    OH MY GOD it's the best joke ever I'm glad you asked. Because "Heart of Snarkness" is a play on "Heart of Darkness," and in Heart of Darkness he was in Africa to buy ivory or something (I don't know, I didn't read it because it was terrible), so "your ivory is totally last season" combines something a snarky fashionista would say with a literary reference.

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