On Thursday, Manon again accompanied me to the hospital for the followup that had not happened the week before. It's lovely having a fluent translator at your side, even though the doctor spoke English, had trained at the Mayo clinic and then pronounced me a very healthy specimen. So, we headed to the hospital café for our breakfast of fruit, croissant and coffee. And it was then I got the whole story on the Barcelona trip. Apparently all was well until they caught the metro to the train station to return. As Manon entered the metro, a young man was blocking her way. Three times she said "perdon" and finally he moved. But of course, by then, his accomplice had put her hand into Manon's bag and taken her tiny purse, which had the remainder of the 300€ we had given her (perhaps 150€?) and her driver's licence. Paul was holding a seat, looking at her and actually saw it happen, but our brains do not compute that kind of activity fast enough to stop it. These pickpockets are SO slick. So now, Manon has been pickpocketed twice, lost her Visa card, bank card, driver's licence and about 250€ cash. She had already started a process with Visa to obtain emergency money. For those interested, it turns out that the maximum amount is $500USD.
So, we returned to the apartment and Manon started the telephone calls to Visa. She quoted file numbers etc. etc. and was promised a call back in 30 minutes. When I got on the phone to confirm the telephone number of the apartment, I was told 30-60 minutes. So we waited well over and hour and then thought.......let's go to Palavas for moules frites. How warm was it??? t-shirt weather!!!
Paul's moules, and below is Manon's chevre salad, one of my favourites.
We had a lovely time and then returned to the apartment to continue the calls to Visa. All lines were busy, but finally, using skype, we got through. Manon was greeted by a lovely young man who gave her the questions and answers that she would be asked and then told her that the money was at a Western Union office 1.5km from here. Normally we would walk but it was 4:40pm and the office closed at 5pm and we wanted to make sure we got there on time, so I rushed down to get the car out, Manon came into the garage and away we went. Rue Paul Rimbaud is having major construction and nobody puts numbers on the buildings. Finally, at the 3 minute red light, Manon got out of the car to walk backwards and I went around the block, which was no easy task with tram cars aiming at me and people honking if I didn't take the light fast enough. I finally, through all the construction, saw a yellow postal van and knew I'd found the place. Oo-la-la, there was a parking lot with a space available! And alors! the place was closed. I turned and there was Manon walking across the parking lot. She's already investigated several shops and we went to several more to confirm that this was the right place. None of the businesses seem to have any idea of what their street number is. Very strange. So back into the car and we returned down Lodève and alors! the pneu place was open, so I drove right in. The guy, recognizing us (we'd been there four times), basically told Manon that "shit happens" and he had lost the tire, so had replaced it with a better one. In fact, it does look new, but still. As we were there, another guy came in with a tire and so the guy wrote his name on the tire. Manon, said that doesn't work and perhaps he should write Mary on it. I said, yeah, why don't you write Mary on this one and this one and this on?
Would you be able to find a tire in here?
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