Virus Abound…and I Kind of Hate it Here

6 August 22 

Apparently I am so contagious I can even get my computer sick.  Yes, I know that's not how these things work (and I've already tested negative).  But come the heck on with my luck in these things, people! 

Somewhere between Croatia and France (and a dozen or so public networks), I managed to pick up a virus for my computer.  Because, really, I needed the comradery of an electronic device with the flu for solidarity. 

The very helpful staff at the hostel directed me to a major electronics store, gave me directions to the train, the name of which stop to get off of the train, helped me type it in my phone, told how many stops it would take to get me there, and really did everything except hold my hand to get me where I needed to go.  With the kind assistance of the helpful people at the train station, I bought my two-way ticket, verified the stop I was to get off, boarded my train, and promptly forgot how many stops they both said to get off.  (Five, for the record.  Five.  I forgot how to count to five, friends.) 

At the fourth stop, I frantically showed my seatmate the Note in my phone denoting the name of the stop I was to look for, to which she nodded and gestured.  In hindsight, I realize, she was gesturing down the tracks, indicating that the next stop was the one I was looking for.  I misunderstood and dashed off the train before the doors could close on the fourth and, consequently, the wrong stop. 

But even a very dumb non-French-speaking American can be right once a day, or something like that, and I realized my mistake in time to board the next train to make it up the tracks that one more stop. 

To the very overwhelming five-story partially underground and partially above-ground mall.  Managed to find the electronics store I had been directed to, only to be faced by a very dark wing of the mall, throngs of people standing outside said dark store, and a wall of four - nope, here comes a fifth - security guards ensuring no entry.  I tried in vain to ask questions in English or even just gesture questions, which were met with stoic security guard arms crossed over chests and firm head shakes.  No entry.  No idea why, other than the obvious lights out, of course, but no idea what is happening right now other than the answer is a very unyielding no entry. 

So I wandered the entire mall a couple of times, circled back to the still dark wing, now roped off with actual ropes, security guards still in place.  Defeated, found a sandwich place, communicated well enough to get something and something else and pesto on some kind of bread and a latte so hot to burn my tongue enough that nothing I put in my face for the next week will matter anyway. 

Deflated, found the bottom level of the mall where the trains run, spent an embarrassing amount of time ensuring I found the train actually heading in the right direction to retrace my path.  Counted to five on the map about twelve times to make sure I knew(ish) where I was going, and trepidatiously boarded a train, where I studiously counted to five like an obedient but broken kindergartener (no, not like The Count - that would insinuate way too much confidence by this point in my journey). 

I spent the next day in bed.  Yes, really, I did.  And my bed sucks.  My room sucks.  This hostel is fantastic.  Wonderful, helpful staff, a lovely restaurant and garden work and play space downstairs, beautiful rooftop veranda and shared-space kitchen upstairs.  Everything is fine.  This is fine.  I am fine. 

Except for the pine closet we are calling my room.  I am in what they are calling a private room, which is basically a converted multi-bed dorm where they've constructed pine boxes around each bed.  Yes, really.  So my bed feels like...you guessed it... 

 And even better, I have a top bunkmate.  Except she's not really my bunkmate because she has a separate entrance to her portion of the pine box.  But she sleeps above me, nonetheless, and calls her mother nightly to cry about how sick she is, and proceeds to cough and hack her way through the night.  So help me, if I manage to catch COVID for a second time in two months...  I can't finish that sentence.  I don't know.  Guess the answer is I'll be sick and miserable in a fourth country. 

And just a brief honorable mention here to the bizarre electronic cicada-sounding noise emanating from the ceiling that goes off, much like its brethren in nature, at random, with varying durations. all. day. and. all. night.  And the eerie green-lit halls with dizzying patterns on the floors or the crazy cartoon caricatures of old folks in swimsuits and other partial states of undress all over the walls of the bathrooms.  There is nothing like staring down the salt-n-pepper short-and-curlies peeking out the crotch of a banana hammock sported by a cartoon elderly gentleman every time you sit down to pee.  At eye level.  In every single stall.  Or grandma with French fries stuffed into her ears and nostrils when you go to wash your hands in the communal sinks between the bathrooms. I never was, but I am definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto. 

So after spending the entire next day in my very dark, uncomfortable coffin, I rallied, doubled down on my resolve to get this blasted train/directionally challenged/computer issue solved once and for all, and set off to the train station again.  Successfully counted to five this time.  Went directly to the electronics store, and, saints be praised, the lights were on this time! 

Very helpful computer tech informed me that the only way to solve my problem was to factory reset, for a fee, of course.  Thanks to the advent of the cloud, pretty positive everything I have is backed up six ways from Sunday anyway, so, yes, please, kind sir, charge me money to factory reset my machine, and I will figure the rest out from there.  He was even kind enough to walk me out into the mall trying to find somewhere I could get my nails done while I waited.  To no avail, as they were too busy to help me, but still, he tried. 

So I went, gasp, above ground and actually walked around town for a while.  Found a different place to get my nails done.  And at the prescribed time, returned to the electronics store, where the tech happily presented to me my factory-reset machine and charged me 49 euros.  All good.  Feeling confident, returned to the train station, got on the train going the right direction with minimal hesitation, counted to five like a big girl, and returned to my hostel with zero muss or fuss. 

And went to bed at 8 p.m. like the senior I am starting to feel like and slept in my coffin until about noon. 

So either I'm still feeling the effects of the first round of COVID; I have it again; I'm a jet-lagged, emotional mess; or I really am such a baby that I need a dark, still place to recover from the big, scary world at large.  Probably a combo of all of the above.  Regardless, my insomniatic self is deliriously happy with sleep.  Do you have any idea how amazing sleep is?  If you've never had the misfortune to suffer through days and weeks without it, A, I don't recommend it, it sucks; and, B, it is something you tend to overdose on when it does finally come. 

Anyway, that brings me to midafternoon today, when I finally break out the laptop to go about setting up my like-new factory-reset machine. 

In French. 

Yup.  Didn't see that one coming.  Face-palm.  Never once occurred to me to even check with the helpful tech to make sure he'd reset it to a language I could read and understand.  Because why would I assume that something in France might be set to, I don't know, French? 

But I am a big girl now.  I re-learned how to count to five and everything.  So I can do this.  I can.   

Except USA, United States of America, English, none of these are options on that very first screen asking for my region.   

That's okay.  I have Google Translate, and I figure out, all by myself, that United States of America, in French, is Les Etats-Unis d'Amerique.  Which is still not an option on my list, but Etats-Unis droitier and Etats-Unis gaucher are, and Google Translate tells me "droiter" is right-handed and "gaucher" is left-handed.  Huaw-huaw, French computer.  You cannot best me. (Please read with all the snarky stereotypical French accent you can muster, since I cannot efficiently write the snark from my brain on the page.) 

Next step is....still in French.  Hmm.  That's okay.  I've still got this.  It's only asking for my e-mail address to log me in.  This, I can do.   

Except I can't.  Because none of the letters on my keyboard actually correlate to, well, the letters on my keyboard.  C is X and D is Q and what holy maddening fuckery is this?  And I cannot fix it because there's no way to get it to go back to that very first screen and now my options are to throw the blasted machine off the rooftop, maybe follow it down myself, or learn French.  (Yes, I can be a little melodramatic when I'm overtired and over-frustrated.) 

 So in the interest of avoiding a costly overreaction, I pack myself down from the terrace on the seventh floor to the helpful front desk staff and plead for help.  When I show him the problem, he grabs his head and rattles of rapid-fire French to his colleague, both of whom find the situation, understandably, completely hilarious.  But he busies himself trying to help me fix this mess that I have already complicated beyond measure.  Using his own keyboard as a guide, we go back and forth to decode how to enter my e-mail address at the prompt.   

 Except my e-mail address is not recognized.  Because it's Microsoft.  Which I avoid at all costs.  Which means it's an ancient e-mail address and an ancient password that, oh, lord, I hope I remember within the first dozen tries.   

But success!  Somehow, we manage to get onto the desktop. Where everything is still in French. 

Helpful staff member helps me navigate a few more prompts, and we have finally changed the language, which now tells me, in French, that once I restart, the language will be English.  Restart, and...success!  Fist bumps all around.  We are in, and in English.  And now I can finally come write about the ridiculousness that abounds. 

 My computer still thinks it is French with a secondary in English, which means all search results are in French, as are a lot of menus.  But at least I can sort of read most things to get me where I want to be for now. 

I just finished reading "The Four-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss, wherein he talks about all of his sexy cool adventures around the world.  I am currently reading "What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding" by Kristin Newman, wherein she talks about all of her sexy cool adventures around the world. 

 To summarize, people, so far my sexy cool adventures around the world involve isolating at various hotels and Airbnbs while my compatriots enjoyed all of the tours and expeditions I was signed up to enjoy, booking lodging I could not get to, hopping a plane to a different country instead, sleeping in a pine box, and now "fixing" my computer to speak a language I don't speak. I have been in France, on the outskirts of Paris, for five days now and have yet to see the Eiffel Tower. It’s less than 7 miles from my hostel. I can’t find my way out of a paper bag (or a pine coffin). I’m too scared to attempt the trains far enough into the city to see any of the amazing things to see. 

 It is 9:30 p.m.  I am going back to my coffin.  Please don't wake me until at least half past noon.  Let's see if I can avoid teaching my phone to speak German overnight.