Recently in France Category

I’ve had my happiest day at INSEAD so far. Saturday morning began with a church rehearsal followed by lunch with WY and a visit to Picard. Pretty normal so far. The weather wasn’t that nice, but at least the people were.

Then I discovered some new stores at Avon which had pretty good deals and noted down the prices. I went home, bumped into my landlord and learnt that he has boosted the wireless internet signal strength. So far it’s holding up well!

With my newly-empowered surfing abilities, I went on Facebook and was invited by my Algerian-French classmate AB to join her for drinks. I told her I’d meet her after dinner.

I went for dinner at the home of two INSEAD professors (the same couple I mentioned earlier) and got to meet more P3s who are going for the Brazil trip. I was invited again to play the piano and this time was accompanied by French classmate BC who also played the piano. He sang with such passion that we are now forming a Cabaret team! My housemate had arrived by that time and we also got her to sing, heheh.

After dinner I headed to another part of Fonty and found AB and her housemate PR there. We headed over to their place where I discovered that AB and PR are fellow jazz lovers. I told PR about my jazz piano lessons and listened to lots of artistes, particularly French jazz which is what I was looking for in France. Then I played some of my own compositions and they liked it a lot. They asked me what I was doing, getting an MBA! PR has requested I play the piano at the INSEAD bar.

After that episode of self-rediscovery, I went home. Then I got a call to fetch my housemate home so I drove out again. All in rainy, cold weather. I am overall happy and strangely not tired. The only downside is that I will not get much sleep before church rehearsal in the morning followed by the actual performance. I know it’s not going to be perfect but I certainly hope the worship will be smooth and that I will play a constructive part in it.

Now, to sleep!

So, here I am on a fine sunny day in Samoreau, surfing the web on a canoe.

To be precise, the canoe is upside down, and I am resting my laptop on the base of the canoe. Before you make a call for 911, rest assured I am not sitting in the river near our cottage on a capsized canoe, but quite safely on our landlord’s garden lawn.

The reason for my unusual position is that the wireless internet connection is strongest around this point, because my landlord indicated where his wireless transmitter was located in his home, and so I am now standing outside his locked-up house (he is only around on weekends) trying to pick up the good vibes. At least he was kind enough to let us use his existing connection. I was told by many people that things here are so slow, by the time I set up my own independent Internet account, it would be time to go home to Singapore.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m loving my stay in France. The food and wine are great, we are soaking in the culture and the sunshine, and being in P5 we are truly enjoying ourselves. However, in France it does take a while for things to get fixed. The Internet issue is a minor problem, in fact…

A more serious example: A pebble flew into the windscreen of my housemate’s car. She made an appointment to get it fixed at the nearby Peugeot workshop. Then a couple days later, she had a flat tire. The car was towed to a second workshop as the first one was closed. So now she has to fix the tire (where she was quoted a whopping 360 euros, not including towing charges) at one workshop, then fix the cracked windscreen at another workshop. After some waiting she was told she actually had to fill up a form to authorise that work be done. She was not told this earlier on, or else she would have obviously done this immediately. Fortunately in the end, after some effective negotiations, the cost of the tire replacement was covered. But why would it be so expensive, and why would it take so long?

I am also writing a note to our landlord regarding the newly-renovated cottage which has some defects, like a door that can’t close properly, a leaking sink, a tap handle that flies off because of a missing screw, among other minor things. I heard that French workmen don’t come back just to fix one or two simple things they omitted to do properly the first time. I hope our list is long enough to warrant a second visit.

In the meantime, I will continue enjoying the fine weather while surfing atop this canoe.