Bonsoir tout le monde,
je suis finalement de retour en australie des ce matin 10h30
J'ai le decalage horaire, meme si j'ai eu un peu de repose en Vietnam pour une journee et demi......j'ai juste voulu dire que je suis bien arrive chez moi (mais pas sans probleme......)
Ca m'est arrive le lundi passe le 19 juin sur mon retour a Paris.
On m'as vole mon portefeuille avec mon carte visa, des euros et carte telephonique dans le Metro - donc, ensuite visite au police pour nous (heureusement il y avait un station de police la ou nous etions, dans le gare du Lyon) et puis appels de telephone vers l'australie pour notre assurance et tout ca etc etc.)
I couldn't believe that after 29 days of being so careful, always carrying my bag close to me, keeping my hand over it on escalators, keeping my bag on the opposite side to traffic when walking (so many things to think about) that I could be robbed in the metro like that and not feel anything.....just the lighter weight of my bag about 5 seconds after I stepped off the train, but didn't believe it could really have happened....until in the next few minutes it became rather evident.
After that, all seemed to go wrong for the next couple of hours as we raced around the station.
I had my notebook with me with my emergency numbers for my bank en australie et le numero pour notre asssurance, but of course the carte telephonique was in my stolen wallet, so I had to run around gare de Lyon trying every tabac until I finally found one which sold cartes telephonique internationales.....lucky Paul still had a few Euros left in his wallet, though nothing else.
We called the number of my bank, but it was 2 am in Australia and this wasn't the correct 24 hour emergency number but a daytime number they had given me.... and then the 7E phone card that should have lasted 40 mins ou meme une heure comme la dernier carte, a fini soudainement apres environ 3 minutes....and we had no euros left to buy another one. So I ran back to the shop and tried to get a replacement card, but the guy said I had to call France Telecom (so I tried that, put they just put me on hold for a long time so I gave up).
I kept running in the station, looking for an information desk where maybe I could get the international codes to call an operator direct from France and reverse the charges to Australia, so we could call our insurance and visa card provider and have our credit card stopped.
I found an office marked SOS travellers, and ran towards it.... note on the door, fermeture 1800 and it was 1815......
Set off running again, leaving Paul with all the luggage which we had taken out of storage from the station to get more assistance numbers out of my bag.
I found another 'acceuil' desk and the woman was quite sympathetic, but didn't know the number to call reverse charges.
She sent me to another bigger information desk up voie M (huge station, for us, who hardly have much train travel here...... one of my biggest fears was getting lost and not finding my way back to Paul either, doomed to run around the station, lost....)
I tried to keep calm and not panic.....
At voie M they didn't know the phone number for the operator either, and told me the best thing to do was go direct to the police station down the other end of the platform, and maybe I could call from there.
So I collected Paul and that's where we ran next. This platform seemed like 500 mts long, but finally we found the police station and went inside.
I didn't expect them to be very helpful, or even sympathetic (they later told me they get about 100 stolen wallet reports per day) but they were both! There were 3 police behind the desk, fairly relaxed, et le trois tres gentil. Somehow I found all the words in French and they listened to my story and found the number of the operator for me.
Finally I was able to call visa in Australia and have my card cancelled, though with all the questions and formalities, this took quite a long time (maybe 20 mins). All my clothes were stuck to me from running so much and the 27 degrees temperatures outside.
I felt like I was in a dream: doing these formalities but it wasn't really real, couldn't be happening to me, but at least this helped me avoid going to pieces (that was for the following morning when I woke up to find it wasn't just a bad dream.....)
After that first long phone call, I also had to call my insurance, which took a while too. And the police were just patient and stood and let me use the phone at their front comptoir as though it were mine, and all for free.
And while I was standing there making my call, a young deaf guy came into the station and the same thing had just happened to him - wallet stolen on the metro, and the police were going to find an interpreter or sign language person to help him - so this guy was in a worse position than me. At least I could communicate and say what had happened.
C'etait deja prevu to meet our friend from this website, Stephane, at about 6.30 pm, who was kindly letting us stay at his place and was coming to meet us at the station to take us back there, so Paul had gone off to meet him, and returned with him - shocked to hear I was at the police station in the gare.
It was so good to see a familiar and friendly face. I was still working on automatic pilot. With my calls finished, it was time for the police interview in one of the offices, to do paperwork to give to my insurance company, etc. Stephane kindly came with me to help me (as I didn't understand absolutely everything - was good to have a bit of help with translation). 40 minutes later, we had finished with the interview and had about 5 or 6 pages of police report to take home with me, but not much assurance that I would ever see my portefeuille, carte visa, et carte permis de conduire Australien again, but I hadn't expected that - I knew that if something was stolen on the metro, likely it would stay missing permanently.
We collected Paul back out in the waiting hall, and walked to Stephane's apartment from there, where I can't really remember what we did next, as I must have still been in shock, but I remember we all went out for dinner after a while, and the food was nice and company great and indeed I felt pretty relaxed after a couple of Kirs and 2 white wines (much more than I normally drink, and my head was feeling funnier than it ever had before but I figured I probably needed this, to forget for a while and it seemed to work. I was a bit fuzzy but happy enough)
So, un grand merci a Stephane for coming along to help out, et pour tout ce que il a fait pour nous..... like a guardian angel of the masculine kind :-)
Seeing him sure cheered us up, that's for sure, and took our minds off our troubles and worries.
It's great and amazing how our friends from the site web etait toujours la pour nous - such kind Frenchies.
Mercredi
Et de puis, 2 jours plus tard pendant notre depart dans le metro lorsque nous etions en train de nous transporter et nos baggages au aeroport, quelqu'un a essaye un nouveau fois dans le metro, cette fois avec mon sac a dos while it was on my back in the crowd, mais on juste fait ouvert un compartment et rien etait dedans ce compartment la, donc rien a ete vole cette fois, heureusement.
A bit of a traumatic experience, particulierement la prochaine matin lorsque la realite really sunk in........ and I've really mixed feelings about Paris at the moment....couldn't bring myself to buy a single Paris postcard on leaving, and postcards of the Tour Eiffel a me semble romantic non plus........mais j'espere que cette sentiment va passer vite car je ne l'aime pas ca! Je suis encore une francophile, bien sur, mais je commence de penser que c'est peut etre plus facile a distance, d'ici, ou d'un autre pays francophone (peut etre Quebec la prochaine fois a l'etranger pour moi? ou un petit visite en nouvelle caledonie?) que de dedans la France.
Necessaire peut etre pour plus des rdv's regulierement pour moi dans la futur chez la cafe des gauffres a Melbourne, LOL.
So, I was a bit mixed up au fin de voyage and didn't have a phone card any more (car la carte telephonique de remplacement n'avait marche pas, merci France Telecom :-( donc pas possible d'appeller mes amis pour dire au revoir avant de partir en avion, when I really wanted to do that.
Un peu decu cette fois avec la france
Apres quelques semaines, j'ai devenu un peu decu avec quelques - certains - choses en France, meme avant que la fin....somehow la France a semple plus sympa generalement la derniere fois, il y a 6 ans, et cette fois juste 1 seule personne/etranger en 5 semaines a nous demande en route "d'ou venez vous?" and nobody else seemed to care, ou apprecie mes meilleurs efforts de communiquer seulement en francais tout les jours - sauf pour mes amis et mes contacts du sites web, who more than made up for any lack in friendliness from the general French people - je remercie mille fois tout de mes amis pour votre friendship, to those who came to see us for a day or a few hours or lunch or dinner rdvs, the bbqs, picnics & more, those who bought us home to their place and looked after us, fed us, showed us around, showed us a great time - je ne l'oublierai jamais, this time we had together, how smoothly chaque rdv a passe, how much simple fun it was (and I'd only met very few of them avant le commencement de voyage but often it was like we'd really known each other for a long time, not just a few weeks or months, or 2 years in the case of 1 correspondant)
Je suis maintenant plus content d'etre chez nous a la maison dans mon village tranquille que j'aurais du imaginer, mais je souhaite quand meme que des choses serait un peu different a la fin, mais c'est la vie.
J'ai encore des tels bons souvenirs en coeur, en memoire, et ca durera pour toujours. Je crois que la chose que je vais manquer la plus, c'est de ne pas pouvoir parler la belle langue francais chaque jour, et de ne l'entendre autour de moi, not being able to walk into a shop and hear a favorite French pop song playing from 10 years ago (ca m'as arrive si beaucoup des fois, hearing music I knew from ages ago, a bit like coming home).
Les paysages des regions differents de la france me manque deja aussi, comme le sud, Alsace (j'adorais tout les fleurs) et Annecy, ah, le vue de lac de notre chambre d'hotel, comme un beau reve et meme Paul, mon mari, a adorait Annecy........just to name a few of the many many great places we were lucky to visit. Je vais manquer aussi tout les Kirs au cassis, du cidre breton, pain au raisins, les crepes et galettes francais, le vrai fromage qui pue, le pain francais...........etc
Il y a un nouveau fois 1/2 le monde qui me separe de beaucoup des mes amis, anciens et nouvelles, et c'est difficile aussi, (oops je pleure un peu maintenant, c'est une longue journee aujourd'hui avec juste 1/2 h de sommeil pendant le voyage de 10h de Vietnam) mais heureusement l'internet reduit la distance et ils peuvent rester proche a moi.
Paul, the reluctant France traveller, est aussi tres content d'etre de retour chez nous a Creswick et juste quelques heures plus tard apres le retour, il est deja parti pour un de ces gigs de rock de musique, a 1 h d'ici.
His endless scribbling of Sudoku puzzles all around France lorsque il aurait du regarder les belles paysages francais du train a m'agace finalement trop - comme I threatened on numerous occasions, maintenant son livre du Sudoku est sur la table dans la cuisine, shredded into 1000 pieces, avec un petit drapeau francais embedded in the top LOL. Gee that was fun. :-) J'ai fait plaisir avec ca. (photo later)
Mon mari a presque toujours critique la France pendant la voyage, et c'etait dur pour moi, meme si j'ai du admettre que quelques de ces problemes avec la france on merit.
Voyager avec lui et de parler tout les temps pour nous deux & and arranging pour nous deux - c'etait certainement challenging, to say the least, as were the endless explanations I had to make in restaurants for his unusual menu choices, variations, wants and needs & vegetarianism, etc.
De parler l'anglais tout le temps maintenant me semble un peu trop facile....meme un peu ennuyeuse.
Ce matin, j'etais heureuse au aeroport de voir des visages australiens souriantes, particulierement les gens au boulot
I missed seeing that as well in France - happy workers. I looked hard for them - I just didn't see many. C'est un peu triste, ca.
Well, will leave you readers here now or I'll be rambling in my sleep (woke after my nap a few hours ago and thought I was in an interesting but totally unfamiliar hotel room!!!! hehehe LOL)
2 semaines plus tard.....
L'enquete a propos de mon carte de credit est fini et j'ai ete rembourse pour le presque $3000 que le voleur m'as vole (800E de bijoux, quelques cent euros de produits en cuir, et il a fini par 30E sur mon carte dans un McDonalds!!!)
Maintenant je suis tres soulage et je peux oublier plus facilement mes problemes en France.
Créez un carnet
mauvais fin des vacances a Paris mais c'est la vie
