La Vie Niçoise

Et voila quoi.

Sitting here listening to good ol' Matthew Good. If Blogspot had a mood indicator thingie, I'd be set on "complacent."

It rained today. For the first time it wasn't just a quick ourage lasting an hour, it was the real fat-droplet I-feel-like-at-home cats and dogs kind of rain, filtering in and out the entire day. I'd forgotten rain's grey and dreary depressing effect. But I suppose it's good for the soul (and the plants).

It also cleans the streets of Nice. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's that I have to walk along the sidewalk with my head down, examining the ground, as if I couldn't bear looking people in the eye.

Why must I subject myself to this anti-social, nerdalicious behaviour? Why, because every 100m, a kindly french dog walker had decided that yes, the pavement of the public streets makes the perfect recepticle for Frou-Frou's canine dejections. I won't elaborate as to why I'm particularly bitter, but you can guess. (gah)

On a less angsty note, I’m getting my bank card tomorrow. Finally! One more step in becoming a real person. I can’t believe how much I had to go through just to put money in there though. At one point, I was walking around downtown Nice with 7600 euros ($11,400 CAD) in cash on me. Kind of a cool feeling, a little dangerous and exciting, while empowering. Yeah, okay, stupid too, but what could I do?

My mom was *supposed* to wire the money directly into my bank account, but being very much like me, she took the path of highest-exchange, in this case being Western Union. Alright, sounds good, all I have to do is go to La Poste, the post office here which provides all sorts of other services. “It’ll arrive within 15 minutes of me sending it,” she tells me, “Go as soon as you can!”

Perfect, I have an hour lunch break, I told myself on Friday. I’ll go between classes. So I take the 15 minute walk to the nearest post office to my university. But no, cassé*! Post office closes during lunch, muahaha sucker!

Okay, I’ll take my chances Saturday morning then. La Poste is open, miraculously, so I line up for 10 minutes at the branch closest to my bank. Western Union only dispenses their money transfers in cash, so I’m understandably a little paranoid.

Are they going to just count out my life savings at the counter, in front of everyone?

I get up to the caisse and greet the woman with a friendly “Bonjour” and smile. She’s behind a swath of thick plexiglass, so I slide the transaction slip through the metal slot and wait. Her eyes bulge a bit as she reads 7600 euros, the maximum amount Western Union can send overseas. I guess she wasn’t expecting that from the placid-looking girl in flip-flops and a zip hoodie. Heh.

“Attendez,” she says, as she gets up to talk to her manager. At this point, I start to get this weird feeling in my stomach. It ain’t going to be this easy, is it…

“On ne l’a pas.” They don’t have that much. Et alors?

“Il faut que vous alliez à La Poste à la rue Thiers." (You’ll have to go to the post office on Thiers street.)

On Rue Thiers? Okay, this is not good... I’ve been to that post office before, the one across the street from the train station. The post office sandwiched between creepy buildings with pink neon SEX signs, surrounded by gaggles of gross guys whose eyes auto-lock onto any warm-blooded female passing by.

I suddenly feel really tiny and helpless. I needed my money, but I’d have to walk my cash through the red-light district of downtown Nice. As I walked towards Rue Thiers, I thought of calling up a friend from school to act as pseudo-bodyguard, but there wasn’t time. Besides, me? Getting all damsel-in-distress? As if.

I hate walking through that area though. Instead of looking at the ground to watch out for dog-doo, I keep my head down to avoid the glances of the creeps hassling me with

“Bonjour Mademoiselle, c’est quoi ton prénom?” (Hey babe, what’s your name?) or

“Vous savez, je suis vietnamien aussi.” (You know, I’m from Vietnam too.) Bastards.

Well, at least the post office wasn’t as bad as I thought. After getting the same blinkety-blink, tugging-at-hair reaction, the lady called over a colleague, conferred some more, and said “Vous allez au fond, à la porte là-bas.” (Head down there to the door at the end).

Cool. I felt so James Bond as I passed through not one, not two, but three electronically controlled doors, and arrived in a dimly-lit room with a small bullet-proof glass window. And within 30 seconds, the transaction was made, and a wad of 500’s was tucked safely in my body belt. Shut up, it’s not granny, it’s *functional*.

And there you have it. As the bank was closed that day, I bee-lined it straight home to stow away my treasure…well, with small detours:

“Omg, jeans for 10 euros!”

“Wow, Haribo candy store!”

I wonder how many gummy Schtroumpfs I could buy with this...

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*cassé! - slang term which loosely means “shut down!” or “what a burn!” accompanied usually by an inwards, palm-up karate chop gesture.

# posted by Unknown @ 4:02 PM