The last few days have been filled with discovery, frustration, results and experiments ... and in that order!
So!... ASH ESS BAY SAY (HSBC), doesn't deal with bank accounts from Britain. I should have known!
I had an extra £100, sitting in my account, just waiting. It hurt because I was broke and just on the other side of the Channel.
I decided to send the money to my mother's account (online banking, a BRILLIANT invention!) and go to the closest Western Union branch (which wasn't close at all!) and erm... wait, till mum was able to send it back again. All that before I went back to the embassy to apply for my visa (which closes at 1:30pm for some reason). I left the house at 9am, and only managed to get the money by 12:00pm. Left in a hurry, thanking God that the tube here takes only a minute between each stations. I was at the station "Porte de Montreuil" and had to find a way to get to St Sulpice (actually getting off at St Placide would have made life easier, but trial and error was the order of the day). The french underground system (try to find the afore mentioned stations on the map) is the same as the London one, you just have to know where you're going and use your brain to make the connections.
But I DID get lost trying to find the Benin embassy!
Walked for a few hours, asked for directions, got blanked a few times (LITERALLY). Finally got there... at 2:45pm. !§%$£!
I got the vaccin done, (at the famous "Institut Pasteur") at least. Cost me 36 euros to get immunised against Yellow Fever, I couldn't afford the others (rabbies, hepatitis A+B).
I had to wait roughly 4 hours, first, in a room full of screaming babies, running children, grumpy old men, sweaty middle aged hairy women and spotty/chatty teenagers, armed with nothing but an iPod and a charming poem( sent in the morning by a lovely "friend") to defend myself against "l'ennui".
Not bad ey?
So... Monday it is for that darned visa then. The man ASSURED me they only take 48 hours.
Oh and I almost forgot to add, I did it! Yes, after years and years of putting it off, years of keeping myself pure and free from any erm "culinary" absurdity, after being tempted on more than one occasion, I FINALLY gave in: I have tried "escargots".
u ate what????????? did they crawl all the way down??
ReplyDeleteno silly, you don't eat them alive, like oyesters :)
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