as a warning, most of you will be getting a phone call from a very strange, long number that you might think is a salesman from india. please answer it! it’s me, calling from france and don’t worry, it will not charge you.

having a working cell phone in france has been one of the bigger obstacles I’ve had to overcome. can you call getting a cell phone an obstacle? that seems a bit dramatic, but kind of deserving. my first cell phone plan had very limited calling and free texts only after 9 pm, so I would go days without checking it and more often than not I’d only grab it as I was running out the door on friday nights for the city-- sara, annie and clara kind’ve hated me for this. I sort of loved it because I felt like I had no attachments and enjoyed not being able to communicate with people all the time. however, it was not ideal, and I found myself embarrassed when I was bragging about how cheap my plan was and realized there is an amazing plan that gets you a data plan, unlimited calls, texts and calls to america for only 20 euros a month.

I spent over a month waiting for my bank card to come in, my password to be sent to me and for my card to finally be activated so I could purchase this ah-mah-zing sim card. the dad, chris, gave me his phone to use while I was here but it was locked through a cell phone service, which I thought might take at most two days to unlock. false. I waited 3 weeks, going into the store multiple times and still never got the right code. in the meantime I had asked to borrow an old cheap phone of annie’s, which I disappointingly found out also had an unlock code that I didn’t have. at this point, I felt like I was getting punked, but decided I’d just take the original phone to a store and pay for it to get unlocked.  they lent me a little nokia for the weekend and when I went back monday it was supposed to be finished, but wasn’t and they didn’t have a charger for the nokia because they had lent me someone else’s phone they were fixing, haha. and I couldn’t wait any longer or I’d miss my train for holiday. I didn’t really want to go on holiday without anything (there wasn't much internet there), so I ended up buying an unlock code off of ebay for annie’s phone, figuring if it didn’t work it was only $1 loss. and it worked!! and annie thankfully picked up my original phone for me and so this past weekend I walked around with three cell phones, instead of my normal two.

I was warned that customer service in france is terrible and while the bank is still on my hit list, the people in the cell phone stores have become my new best friends. since I’ve spent ample time in them lately, I’ve managed to make some new friends, though I just realized I don’t even know their names. the first works at the orange store in the mall and moved here from jamaica a few years ago. he spent over an hour on the phone trying to get the code for me because he knew I couldn’t speak french and wouldn’t be able to go through the process. each time I went back, he was overly patient and kind and we chatted like we were the best friends. I now make a point to stop by the store and say hello anytime I’m in the shopping center. the second is the man who is unlocking my phone. on one of the coldest days in paris I stumbled into this man’s shop. mind you, it was the second time I stopped by because he took at 3 hour mid-day siesta. he told me I could come back in about 20 minutes, but I decided to just stay in there and wait for him. he made me a coffee and we chatted about america, him telling me about his trip to las vegas and pulling out his ipad where we looked through hundreds of pictures of his grand canyon helicopter trip. he was playing the best jazz music and I legitimately wondered at one point if he might ask me to dance haha.

so even though it’s been the biggest pain, it’s worked out fine and it’s the smaller of my problems. I have missed both my doctor’s appointments for my visa so now I’m hoping I don’t get kicked out of the country!