Anecdotes

An effort to share some of my more amusing experiences of this journey...

I have been told a few times - by a number of only fairly biased individuals - that I am quite funny, especially in regard to how I've told a number of stories recently. In light of that, I decided to share a few of these anecdotes with more people. However, I have a feeling they are not as funny in writing. You can let me know.

First, let me tell you about the woman who cleaned our room in the Hague. We started out our stay there with 2 bars of soap in the bathroom. We opened one for the strange purpose of washing hands. The next day, it was gone. At first we thought that it was a very wasteful aspect of cleaning the room...but she did not replace the soap with another one. But we still had one, so we used that one. The next day, it was gone also! She kept stealing our soap. Why does she want our soap? My roommate went down to the reception to ask for more. Their response was: isn't it next to your sink? No. Okay, we'll send up more soap. They did so. And it was gone the next day. After that, I kept one bar of soap in our safe.

Second, let me complain briefly. I have had a...shortage...of male attention recently. That is, perhaps, related to the fact that I have been rather busy - but I would still appreciate a change in that area. However, I have more recently realized that it might also be partially related to my fairly high standards. At the moment, my ability to attract men is limited to those who speak no English. Yesterday, I managed to do laundry. This, in its self, is a wonderful accomplishment. Although I have been in very like company, it is not pleasant to be able to smell your clothes as soon as you open your bag. And you really can do only so well in a bathtub. So, one of the early necessities after arriving in Strasbourg was finding a laundromat. Well, I found one and shortly after putting my clothes in the washing machine, I met two male individuals. The first one was waiting outside for his clothes as well. He was a nice enough looking black man who looked to be about my age. He came up and started talking to me - in French - which, given my current location was reasonable. However, he knew only about as many words in English as I know in French. Not helpful. Spanish was slightly more successful, but really not much. And after a few minutes of realizing that we really weren't going to be able to communicate, the interaction should have ended. However, he didn't make that easy. So I attempted a few things - I had a map and tried to ask him what places he liked in Strasbourg; that resulted in both of us pointing aimlessly at the map for no apparent reason for about 5 minutes. Then I tried to ask him if he had any siblings. That question resulted in a discussion about his birthday - I have a small notebook that I carry around, in which I now have his birth date, name, age and phone number. I still have no idea if he has siblings. I eventually resorted to asking how to say random things in French. Honestly, though, when am I going to need to know the words for "green" or "shoes"? There aren't many interesting things to name in the laundromat parking lot. It was partially to get out of this fascinating conversation that I decided 10 minutes of drying was quite sufficient.

When I was taking my clothes out of the dryer, I met the second male individual. He was fabulously cute and babbled at me something I did not understand. I told him so, saying that I don't speak French. His father told me that I wouldn't understand him even if I did; he had turned 3 the day before and seemed to want to crawl into my dryer, but was too shy to tell me his name. His dad helped out with both: his name is Ramon and he didn't make it into the dryer.

I think that's it for the moment. More amusement to come. And I'll post some pictures of Strasbourg - hopefully later today.