rinnywee

Today I worked out that I don't "do" vacation well at all. I can't just sit and do nothing without going stir-crazy. I also don't like the following: crowds, tourists, people who talk loudly in museums, people who see museums as a "tourist" attraction, Dan Brown's legacy to Paris and any other Starbucks store than Velizy handling the delicate beverage that is my first coffee of the day.

I am, in essence, one of those miserable old codgers who never stops working and complains about everything.  Is this what being "in my 30s" is all about or am I doing something wrong?

Also, how in the fuck can I relax without someone knocking me out or feeding me a roofie?

Sur le site de Coliposte: "08/07/06 Destinataire absent lors de la première livraison, seconde présentation prévue."

N'importe quoi.

Mon email pour la Poste:

"Puisque j'etais chez moi toute la matinee, j'aimerais bien savoir exactement QUAND le facteur est passe chez moi et pourquoi il a, apparament, pas les forces d'appuyer sur la sonnette, ni de frappe un peu plus fort a la porte puisque je n'ai rien entendu.

J'en ai completement marre de commander des choses, de demander la livraison en 48h, et d'aller au bureau de Poste 4 jours apres car le facteur n'est pas passe par ma porte.

Merci, La Poste. J'espere que vous etes content d'avoir un peu plus d'argent pour une livraison 48h quand vous ne faites rien pour me livrer mon colis EN 48h."

Money grabbing assholes.

Good thing I check my bank account online, I just noticed I've been charged twice for a withdrawal made on the 24th. They've charged me 2 lots of 100 euros. 100 euros pays my groceries for 3 weeks, so it's a pretty big sum for me. Sent an email off to the bank asking them to fix it toute suite. I'll kick up a stink if I don't get a response soon.

Chilling evening tonight. The red tide is here, so there's some pain happening. To make myself feel better, I'm watching other people in pain (season 1 of Lost) and drinking much tea. I'm also bothering random people via SMS.

( The cat is keeping me company... )

You know a public transport system sucks balls when it takes the same amount of time to go from one side of Paris to the other by train as it does to go from Iceland to France by plane.

You know, there's a reason bureaucracy is a French word. Only the French could have invented it. Only the French could continuously piss people off by doing NOTHING AT ALL.

I live in Versailles, which is a beautiful town. Tourist town, yet beautiful. With the number of tourists and so on, most of the parking is meter paid. There's one or two streets in every quartier which are free (such as my street), but finding a car park in them is like finding Britney Spears without two Venti Starbucks cream-topped drinks. It just ain't possible, dahling. But, the lovely Mairie of Versailles has thought of its citizens, and has a resident parking scheme - whereby people who live in Versailles pay a monthly fee, and get a wee little tag to put in their car, so that when the parking inspectors come by, they don't get a fine.

Fantastic plan guys! I'm going to get one!

Oh wait, no, I'm not. Not because I don't want to have to pay for parking when I already pay taxes. Not because I think it's outrageously expensive. No. Because the centre where I have to get this parking pass is never bloody open when I'm home from work. Its opening hours are 8.30 - 12.00 and 14.00 - 18.00 (except Fridays where it closes at 17.00). It's not open Saturday, Sunday or Public Holidays, but by God you will see parking inspectors filing out of there on a Saturday morning to go fine people in the area.

I work from 8am - god knows. Sometimes until 8 or 9pm. Now, unless I either leave work early (and I mean really early in order to sit in traffic for an hour and get here on time), get to work late (thereby causing myself to stay at work later in order to finish everything) or take a half day vacation in order to get this sorted, I guess I'll just have to content myself with the odd parking fine.

Vive la France!