Haircut, party, police station, letter, lemonade

This is a chronological post, that is neither the best-written nor the most interesting. But it is probably the most unusual turn of events during a 2-day period that has happened to me all year.

Friday I spent the morning at school, practicing "I'm a Little Teapot" and "The Pinoccio Song" with my CE2's in preparation for Saturday's performance, talking to the CM1's about their upcoming trip to Corse and looking at one of the teacher's pictures from a recent trip to Oxford, England.

Esther and I got kebabs and ate lunch in the park, and then I took the bus to Brives for my haircut. My usual coiffeuse is on maternity leave, so there was a different lady who decided to chop my hair all the same length (shorter than I wanted) and I wasn't delighted.

When I went to pay for it, she told me they didn't accept credit cards so I went next door to use the cash machine. Wouldn't you know, I could only take out 20 euros, which wasn't even enough to pay for it. So now I'm totally frustrated, with a bad haircut, and weird and serious money problem.

I didn't have time to go home and check my account online because I had to take the bus back into town. In light of the dangerous line I was walking between total melt-down and keeping my cool, I decided to do the ONLY thing I could to make my situation a little bit better; I bought a polka-dotted headband.

And then I went to the kermesse. I was in charge of the ring toss, and the super complicated task of taking their ticket, ripping off half and giving them the other half back when they "won" the game so they could go trade it in for a toy. It was a blast -- I saw a ton of my students and their ridiculously good-looking families and got a decent workout from bending over to pick up the rings 18 billion times. And since I knew there were better games (the fishing game in the sand pit, the football game and the one with the tin cans all stacked up in a pyramid that the kids had to try and knock down) it made me happy when the kids came back a few times to mine.

It started to rain and I huddled under my flimsy umbrella in my soaking-wet sweatshirt for as long as I could stand it, watching as the other adults running the games fled for shelter one by one. I talked with the other teachers, had a glass of Sangria with them and a piece of tarte aux pommes and then the host family came and picked me up.

As soon as I got home Friday night, I checked my online statement for my bank account and saw several hundred Euro worth of impending charges that I did not make and a depressingly empty balance as a result. One charge went through successfully for some wack website that I don't know what it is and have never visited in my life -- sooo I'm guessing some hackers got my credit card info from some other internet transaction I did, and then started sending money to themselves, or doing some shopping. Christmas in July, if you will. I wrote an e-mail to my bank lady telling her I had a problem with my account and asking her to call me, and then tried for the second time that day not to cry.

Saturday morning, I called the bank as soon as they opened and explained my whole situation. The guy told me he was going to stop my account, send me a new card, and that I should go to the commissariat or the gendarmerie to file a report, and then come back to the bank on Tuesday (since they aren't open on Mondays, UGH) with the police report.

I asked the Host Family where I should go, explaining the whole thing again, and the Host Mom, in a totally superwoman-like way, said, "I will take you when I get back from my meeting!" So at 1:30 yesterday we went to Le Puy and waited in a seafoam green waiting room at the hôtel de la police. A man with thick hands and thick glasses called us into his office, heard the whole story, and told me flippantly that this happens alot and that since I have my credit card on me, there is no way to prove that I didn't make the purchases. Thank you for stating the obvious. He took the opportunity to tell me a story about a lady who bought a 60 euro squirrel that ended up costing her 800 euros and her marriage, and then lectured me on how to know if a site is secure, and then finally got around to typing up the report. It was full of grammatical errors but got the point across.

Once this was finally taken care of, it was time to go to my next kermesse, and I was in a totally bad mood and just wanted to go to sleep.

But this one ended up being even more fun than the one on Friday, so I'm really glad I went. My CE2's did a great job with their songs and dances, and I was TOTALLY proud of them for doing that! The CM1 class wrote me a REALLY nice letter, and read it on stage after doing their song. I was completely surprised, and I finally almost cried when they said, "We are sad you are leaving and you can always come home when you want."

After the show, there was the apéro and I spent a long time talking to Adeline, the young teacher who works with Autistic kids, drinking this Auvergne speciality drink that was a little like super-spiked lemonade (delicious). The other teachers kept coming back and refilling our glasses like a conspiracy, but it was freezing cold and the alcohol helped us stay warm. We finally ate dinner at 9pm and then I got a ride home from another teacher and her husband. The red wine from dinner made me chatty, so I talked alot but her husband has a really strong accent that was hard to understand and I honestly have no idea if I actually was answering what he was asking me or not. Haha welcome to life as a foreigner.

End.