Easter Break Part 1 :P
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Hehehe.... Okok, updatesss. Sorry ya peeps! Hehe...Just had my Easter break during the last 2 weeks. Easter this year was quite lonely. I hate the feeling whenever I go to church and see everyone has someone to hug and kiss. Makes me homesick. Hehehe.... Oh wells, I'll soon meet my family again anyway :D Oh btw, in France they have Easter Monday holiday. First time I heard about it. That Monday I had some trouble with my clothes, they were stuck in the washing machine, but since it was a holiday, the office was closed and I had to wait til the next day to get it out. But!!! On Tuesday there was (mati lampu englishnya apa sih?) no electricity (:P) from morning til 12 pm. But I went to the office anyway to explain. The damn office guy accused me of breaking down the washing machine!!! I tried to explain that something was already wrong when I got there, but he wouldn't believe me. I was so angry!!! He scolded me in sarcasm for so long. He even said something like, "the students here think they are smart, but they can't even operate such a simple machine. Apparently their intelligence is not enough to operate such a simple machine" My blood was boiling man. If he understands English, I definitely would say something. I tried my best to remain calm coz I didn't want to make a scene also. I just gave him a super irritated look. The only good thing out of this incident is I made 2 new friends coz of that. They happened to be there also when the guy scolded me.
As if it was not enough for one day, the damn electricity only came back at 4 plus. 4 hours late!!! Haizz.... What's new? It's France, anyway. Couldn't even have my lunch coz couldn't cook. Couldn't buy also unless I travel all the way to town. It's a good thing I have biscuits. They had another electricity cut-off on Wed but only til 11 am.
Then that Wed evening I went over to my friend's place in Paris. I had to stay over at her place because our train to the south of France on the next day is very early in the morning. Yup, I went to the south of France: Marseilles, Nice, Monte Carlo, Cannes for 1 whole week during the Easter break. Went there with Dingying and Yeejia, but JiangHao and his fren, Zhengtong joined us for Marseilles and Nice.
Marseilles is the third biggest city in France I think. When we were there for 2 days, the weather wasn't nice, it was raining. So it's a bit hard to move around. Found an Arab street where they sell super cheap kebab. We ate there pretty often since it's cheap and not bad. We explored Marseilles on the first day. On the second day JiangHao and Zhengtong joined us, we went to an island nearby and played there for a few hours. I wanted to visit the island called chateau d'If which is featured in the story 'The Count of Monte Cristo' Nice movie. But because of the bad weather, they cancelled all trips going there. From the island we went and visit the first French HDB concept. It was not that special for me but it would be for an architecture person. From there we went for dinner, we decided to try the famous local dish "Bouillabaisse" It's a fish soup, quite nice but not that special actually and really expensive.
When we wanted to pay for the dinner, however, Dingying discovered that her wallet was gone. We all guessed the gypsies stole it from her coz earlier in the day, when we wanted to pay for the boat ticket to the island, 2 gypsies made a scene asking for money from her. One of them grabbed her arm so hard. Still, it's just a guess coz we didn't really see them taking it, though we can't think of any other reasons. Poor thing, she was so sad. We went to the police office to report it but nothing much can be done. But when we were there, there were a group of 5 Chinese who had just been robbed. The whole thing! They were in their rented car and were at a junction since the traffic light was red when 3 masked and armed men forced them out of the car and took the whole thing.
Apparently, Marseilles is really a very dangerous place. Actually a few people have warned us, but we just kind of think that it won't happen to us. It gives me a shiver to think that the previous nite, 3 of us gals only (coz the guys weren't in Marseilles yet) went to the Arab street to eat kebab for dinner. We didn't know the street is one of the dangerous places in Marseilles, but we did feel strange with the way the people there were looking at us when 3 of us entered the street. It's the uncomfortable stares and attention we were receiving. Even the person selling the kebab where we ate told us to be careful on the way back and to keep our belongings close to us all the time. Then at the place where we ate, we met quite a few weird people. One is an old senile guy, he kept talking to us. First, he tried French. Seeing we didn't respond (we actually understood him but we didn't want to talk), he tried English. But his English was very limited, then he switched to German. We finally gave up and talked to him, said we can't speak German. So he starts speaking French again but after a while he'll speak German again. Basically that happens throughout the whole meal. Haizzz...
Then another Arab young guy started talking to us also. He talks a lot man. First he told us that he's a famous boxer. We laffed. LOL. Seeing we didn't believe him, he showed off his T-shirt bearing his name. Then he took out some papers, some are newspaper articles about his victory. We all looked at it, discussed whether it's really him. Well u noe how it is with foreigners, many people look the same. Hahaha... So til now we can't b sure if it's really him. Anyway, we didn't give a damn, and just to shut him up we just nodded. Then since we didn't respond to him any longer, he started asking what type of music we like, then asked if we like Michael Jackson. LOL. He said he does, and that he believes he's innocent. Then it's another round of long talk of his theory about Jacko's innocence. Haizzz.... We just looked at each other in disbelief. But it's really quite funny actually. LOL
After that came a Vietnamese guy. The other guys there ask him to talk to us. He said he's Vietnamese, not Chinese so he can't speak to us. They still insisted, said it's the same. LOL. Oh I haven't told u all right. Here in France, having a Chinese face means either we're from China or from Japan. People on the streets who like to tease always say "Ni hao" If we ignore them they'll say "Konichiwa" If we still ignore, they'll say "chao" Then laff laff laff. I hate these kind of people. They think it's so funny, but actually they're the funny ones, but in an irritating way. Then another old man started talking to us also, telling us stories about China history and war and his old times when he used to fight.
Anyway, after waiting for almost an hour in that place for the rain to stop, we decided to just go home though it still rained heavily, coz we couldn't stand those people already. Luckily nothing bad happened to us that night. We walked very fast though coz we didn't feel safe, it was raining and it's already late.
To be continued... LOL (I'm sorryyyy, super sleepy now and the story is still long. I'll continue tmr, k?! :p)
