Sometimes the French need a good cursing out…

Every month or so I buy “credits” to add to my pre-paid cell phone. You go to any Tabac (the equivalent of a bodega—they sell cigarettes, lotto tickets, calling cards, candy, etc) and buy coupons in any denomination (from 5€-120€) that have a 9-digit code on it which you type into your phone to recharge your minutes. Last week I bought a 95€ coupon from a new place near my apartment. When I got home, I tried to enter in the code but kept getting a message saying the code was invalid. After trying it a few times, the system locked me out. Annoying but I didn’t think much of it.

I went to the SFR store (my carrier) the next day on my lunch break and they unlocked my phone and attempted to enter the coupon code for me. It didn’t work for him either so he called and found out that the coupon that I purchased on DECEMBER 5th had already been used on NOVEMBER 30th! SFR told me there was nothing they could do and I would have to go back to the Tabac to get this straightened out. I asked him to write me a note explaining the situation in French and include his name and store phone number so I wouldn’t have any problems when I got to the Tabac.

So I get to the Tabac, handed the store owner the note and explained the situation. She immediately says, “That’s impossible”. She calls SFR and although I didn’t understand everything, I caught a few phrases like, ‘American… she doesn’t understand’, ‘her phone is broken, that’s the real problem’. She hangs up and tells me that SFR said there was a fraud situation for all 95€ coupons sold, someone had hacked in online and stolen the codes. She said there was nothing she could do but SFR said if I went back to their store they would just charge my cell over the phone without a coupon. There was an SFR store a few blocks away and she wrote a note for me to take with me to the store explaining the situation.

So I get to SFR and the guy who helped me was the biggest DICK. He looked at the note and simply said, “This is a lie. There’s no fraud situation going on with recharge coupons” and dismissed me. I tried to explain and ask what I should do nexy but he literally ignored me. I got so frustrated I called out, “This is ridiculous! Does anyone speak English here?!” A nice American man came over and said, “What’s going on?” I explained the situation, which he relayed to the guy who said, “I know what she’s saying but it’s not true. She got ripped off at the Tabac—they just printed duplicate coupons, it happens all the time. Next time she needs to buy a coupon from an SFR boutique only”. Oh, hell no!

So I walk back to the Tabac—by this time it’s nearly 6pm and I’ve been dealing with this ridiculous situation for 5 hours. Needless to say, I’m PISSED. I get there and waited calmly enough till it was my turn at the counter. When I got to the register, the woman asked, “So what happened? Did they charge your phone?”

Me: “No, they said you sold me a bad coupon”
Lady: “It’s not a bad coupon! You saw it come out of the machine. SFR is lying to you”
Me: “No. YOU’RE lying to me. You sold me a bad coupon. Now you have two options: #1, you give me a new recharge coupon. Or #2, you give me my 95€ back”
Lady: “SFR is crazy, they lie all the time. I told you there’s nothing I can do, you have to take it up with them. I’m sorry. Excuse me”. She tries to take the next customer behind me but I’m like, ‘Fu*k that, I’m not going anywhere!’
Me (raising my voice): “NO! You listen to me. I bought this coupon at your store. You cheated me and sold me a fake coupon. Now you better give me a real coupon or give me my money. It's very simple: money or new coupon. That’s it. Or we can call the police because I’m not leaving!”

By this time, the after work crowd had arrived and the line is literally out the door. Everyone is silent and staring at us. Now, I didn’t want to get loud and ghetto, but the dumb bit*h thought she was dealing with some stupid American hick from Podunk, Iowa (no offence to Iowans)… I’m a New Yorker! We do not play that sh*t. I don’t care if I don’t speak your damn language… the word “police” is the same in French, you get my point.

So I’m yelling at her in my broken French in front of her customers, announcing to the entire store that she’s a thief and she ripped me off. She looks a bit taken aback and frantically starts jabbing at her register and says, “Look! I can’t do anything. SFR froze my access to the coupons because of the fraud!” And as she’s trying to prove her fake point, a new recharge coupon prints out of the machine. She looks at me and says, “Oh… uh… well. That’s so bizarre. They told me on the phone that I can’t sell these coupons anymore…” Bizarre my ass! I literally snatched the coupon out of her hand (didn’t move out of line either, the customers can wait) and tested the coupon. It worked. I gave her the meanest look I could muster, turned and started to walk out of the store. And you know what that bit*h had the nerve to say to me?! “Wait, what about my 95€ for the coupon? Now I lost that money”. I turned back to her, threw the coupon on the counter and said, “I just lost an entire day of work dealing with this. I don’t care about your money. Call SFR and ask them to give you your money back” and I walked out. And as I was squeezing my way out the door, a man in line said to me, “I love your cute accent”. FU*K YOU! Do I look like someone you want to speak to right now?!

That day was so unreal. It pissed me off that this woman seriously thought she could take advantage of me and I wouldn’t do anything about it! WTF?! But I'm very proud of myself for solving this problem all by myself! I'd thought about returning to the Tabac with a French friend the next day, but I was just angry, I was not waiting any longer! I may speak French like a 5-year-old, but don’t try to screw me over… I’m not stupid. Go me! :o)

AHHH!!!!

My iPod was stolen today... I was on the metro sitting next to this normal looking Indian man, maybe around 35 years old, heading to the office from school and I quickly pulled my iPod out of my pocket to change songs. On the Parisian metro, there's a loud beep that lets you know the door is going to shut in 2 seconds. Well, as soon as the door beeped, the guy jumped up, snatched my iPod out of my hands and ran off the metro. I didn't even have time to react.

The other Parisians on the train barely bothered to look up. Meanwhile, there were two American tourists in the car and they were just as stunned as I was... they were like, "Oh my God, that guy just stole her iPod!" lol, that part was actually funny... or maybe its sad that Parisians are so used to this happening.

I'm trying to look on the bright side: I should be grateful that all he took was my iPod... he very easily could have snatched my purse instead, my life is in there. But I can't help it! I'm PISSED! Its not the iPod itself, its just all that music I had uploaded, gone... I don't have my computer with me so I can't replace it until I go home in February. Now I just have to listen to my stupid Shuffle with like 30 songs on it... I just don't get it!! Can't a person hold something without having to worry about it getting snatched out of their hands?!

I honestly hate Paris right now... thankfully I'm leaving to visit Shelby in Florence in a couple hours and I can get away from this thieving, crime-ridden freakin city.

A neighborhood raid

The ridiculousness of my ghetto is never ending… last night I came home from work around 8:30pm and when I turned the corner onto my block, the entire street was blocked off by four police cars, headlights on, lights flashing. About 10 police officers with three K-9 dogs were surrounding a group of 5 or 6 thug-looking guys at the end of the block. The dogs were barking—but like that vicious, scary, I’m going to rip your throat out kinda bark—the police officers were yelling and the guys were just standing there trying not to look guilty. It was just like a scene from Cops… I quickly crossed over the other side of the street and hurried to my building. But I did make sure to hold my front door open for a few seconds and peek inside before going in—just in case a suspect had slipped away and was hiding out in the courtyard or something. That would happen in the ghetto, plus there’s no lock on the front door (go figure).

I wanted to take a bit of video or a picture but knowing the French police I probably would have gotten carted off to jail for doing so, so I decided against it. Nothing in the papers about it either, just another routine night in the ghetto!

A lovely neighborhood I live in…

STRIKE!!!

The Paris transit system (RATP) decided to go on strike yesterday. Apparently this is a normal occurrence and simply part of French culture—like eating or having a total disregard for the concept of time—every so often, public sectors like to protest something by going on strike. And more often than not, it’s the RATP that volunteers to do the job. Why the postal service or some other government organization doesn’t strike instead is beyond me. About 10 years ago, RATP went on strike for 4 weeks! Who allows that to happen?? The MTA could never get away with that… welcome to France :o)

This time, the protest is against the new reforms Sarkozy is implementing for all gov’t employees. For years, they’ve been entitled to get a very generous pension and the expense has been crippling the French economy. Sarkozy decided to reduce the amount of money retirees receive in order to help alleviate the national debt and the unions are pissed (caveat: I got this information from my boss, who strikes me as a Sarkozy supporter, so I have a feeling I’m hearing the very conservative side of the argument. Anyway, that’s the gist).

So Wednesday night, I was having dinner at B’s house. I got a call from a friend saying that RATP decided to begin the strike at 8pm, which meant I couldn’t get home that night (yes, I spent the night. No, nothing happened… let’s stay focused, shall we?). So the next morning we walked to work together. Thankfully, B’s apartment is not out in the boondocks like mine is, so it took us about an hour to get to work (we stopped in a park to have coffee and croissants, otherwise it would have been a 30 minute walk). Traffic was insane, the few buses/trains that were running were packed, everyone was walking, rollerblading, biking, doing anything they could to get to their destinations. It was madness.

B told me if I could wait until he finished work at 6:30pm he would walk me home, but I wanted to leave at 3pm and had it in my head that I was a smart, independent city girl who could find my own way. I didn’t take into account that night was setting in, nor the fact that the streets in Paris make no sense—street signs may be completely missing or roads veer off in random directions with no warning… but I set out anyway, getting lost about 15 times. And I swear, if one more person said to me, "Porte de la Chapelle?! No! That's too far!", I was going to scream. An hour and a half later I was still about 45 minutes from home, it was pitch black out and the neighborhood I was entering started to get very sketchy… I was ready to cry and give up when I spotted a cab across the street—thank sweet Jesus! We sat in traffic for about 20 minutes, but half an hour later, I was home.

So this morning, after seeing 2 buses jammed with people pass by, I decided to try to walk the 2 hours to work. Fortunately, after about 5 minutes I found a cab (and nearly got run over by a scooter as I darted out in front of oncoming traffic to get it). Halfway to the office, my cabbie decides to try to squeeze around a large van. He can’t get through so he beeps his horn to make the driver move forward a bit. Instead, the driver accidentally reverses and crashes into the side of the cab. The cabbie jumps out of the car, screaming and cursing and banging on the driver’s window. An undercover cop comes over and tells the cabbie that it’s his fault for trying to squeeze through and that they both need to move their cars to the side of the road because they’re blocking traffic, then casually walks off (?). Meanwhile, the van guy is in the cabbie’s face, smiling and saying that it wasn’t his fault and tries to get back in his van and drive off. The cabbie is LIVID. He throws open the driver’s door and starts punching the guy in the face!! Lord knows where he got the balls, he seemed like such a nice old man. A couple of pedestrians come over to break it up and they call the police to settle the dispute and stood in front of the van so he couldn’t drive off.

Meanwhile, all I’m thinking is, “Shit, does this mean I have to get out and walk now?” Everyone knows the French police take forever to show up because they really don’t give a damn. Frankly, I think the cabbie should have just chalked it up as a loss and kept it moving. But he decided to wait for the police and told me to pay and get out. By this time, the meter had gone up from 10€ to 15€, which he tried to make me pay. I was like, “No, you’re getting 10€, and give me a receipt”. He all but snatched the money and threw the receipt at me. Luckily, we had stopped right in front of one of the only subway lines that’s still working and it was one that stopped 10 minutes from my office.

The strike is supposed to be over at 4pm today, but that’s up in the air, depending on whether or not the union and the French gov’t can reach an agreement.

It’s been just 24 hours and nothing but insanity in the streets of Paris… at the very least, I guess this means I’ll get more exercise!

The Arrest

I met this guy, we'll call him Rocker (not to be confused with The Rockstar, my fling from earlier this year) b/c he looks like your typical American rocker—super cute, long messy hair, scruffy beard, cool clothes (as Nicole Ritchie put it, "the kind of guy who looks like he smells but he doesn't"), through Cancun (the boy I met at the house party). Rocker and I were introduced at a pub during the Rugby World Cup match, France v. Ireland, and he looked like an asshole and was slightly rude so of course I immediately took a liking to him. You know those guys that look like trouble, like they will break your heart... exactly the kind of boy I always fall for. Anyway, he called me up on Saturday night (at 11:30pm... who asks a girl out that late anyway? Assholes...) and invited me to this house party in the 19th arr. I was already out with another friend so I told him I would try to stop by a bit later.

I ended up showing up at the party around 2:30am. He introduced me to a couple people as ma copine (my girlfriend) then proceeded to ignore me so I went off in search of people to talk to. I ended up spending the night talking to a group of French people who had just got back from studying in Australia and were really in awe of the fact that I was from New York.

Then around 4am, Rocker finally comes to find me, drapes an arm around my shoulders all possessive-like and says “I’m taking her home, lets go”. So we leave the party with his best friend and get into his car. He casually says, “I hope the police don’t stop us, I’m really drunk”. My drunk self didn't think, "hmm, maybe he shouldn't be driving then"… I’m just like "ok whatever”.

And of course, the police stop us at a random checkpoint. They give him a breathalyzer test which he fails so he’s sent off to jail for at least 24 hours!! Meanwhile, his car is sitting in the middle of the street and the police want ME to move it—problem is, it's a manual which I don’t know how to drive. But the other girl with us didn't have a license so she couldn't drive it. The police give me a breathalyzer to see if I am ok to drive (I was just under the legal limit), takes my passport and asks me a million questions, then sends us on our way.

The girl and I spend the next hour trying to drive the car home, unsuccessfully… finally we give up and she calls her ex-boyfriend to come and rescue us since we're stuck in the middle of the street in one of the dodgiest parts of Paris with drivers cursing at us in French to get the hell out of the way… the ex shows up about an hour later, too drunk to drive (plus he had his license taken away the week before for drunk driving)… so he parks the car in an alleyway and we all get on the train and go home… I stumbled in around 6:30am.

So that was my first experience with the French police—the entire time, the girl and her ex were blaming the situation on Sarkozy (France’s new conservative president whom the young student population have a fierce dislike for), saying he’s the one who’s implemented all these tough sanctions and France isn’t want it used to be, blah blah blah… all I’m wondering is what the police plan to do with all my information…

My Cell Phone was Stolen!

I was sitting outside at a doner kebab restaurant in Les Halles today, a touristy shopping area in Paris (like Soho), waiting for a friend to meet me. We were on our way to a music/political festival in the suburbs north of Paris so I put my phone out on the table, to the right of my plate, so I wouldn’t miss her call. I’m minding my business, eating my meal and a guy comes over, taps me on my left shoulder and asks in French “can I talk with you?” I just said “I don’t speak French” and turned away. It lasted less than 3 seconds, but his accomplice had already stolen my phone and run off! I didn’t even know it had happened until I looked down a couple minutes later and realized my cell was gone! lol, thankfully it was a cheap pre-paid phone with about 2 minutes left on it.

The thing is, Paris isn’t a violent city (you’re very unlikely to get shot here), but it has some of the most ridiculous incidents of theft anywhere. I’ve heard stories about people walking down the street talking on their cell and having their phone snatched from their hands. Or women having their purses stolen while sitting at a traffic light… literally their purse is on the passenger seat and a person on a scooter will drive up, break the window, snatch the purse and speed off. Its insane! I don’t think thieves are that bold in New York.

Oh well… welcome to Paris!!