The next day at 8:20am, P and I went to look for a police station near the Canadian Embassy. Before we left the hotel, P's old boss, an experienced traveler who had her passport lost before, had provided us with information on what to do. (big thanks to P's old boss)
We arrived at the police station but the brown policeman sitting at the reception didn't give us a good impression. At first he refused to let me press charge and said I could just go to the embassy with the forms given by Avignon police. We refused and explained to him that we needed a proper police report (not the forms filled my us, you dim witted receptionist). Then he asked us to "wait" while five or six other polices were in the room, seemed to be working on a big case. Every few minutes a gypsy adolescent would come out with a policeman... (sigh, big problems with gypsy adolescent beggars/theives in Europe... will write more about this later).
The wait seemed endless. Then an old couple came in and they reported loss too! The english speaking man told us they were australian and they were pickpocketed in the metro! We wanted to use the phone to ask the embassy for today's opening hour, but the receptionist (i like to call him receptionist instead of policeman because he did not deserve to be called a policeman) refused again. The australian woman could speak french so she kindly helped us ask, but it was useless again. Luckily a white policeman finally finished his case on hand and could help me with my police report. Since I had filled out the loss report form, the white policeman could easily create the report for me without having me verbally described or roleplayed what happened.
We quickly headed to the Canadian Embassy as soon as we got the police report. It was around 10am. Canadian Embassy was near Champs-Elysees, with all the high end brandnames nearby which I thought did not match the down to earth image of Canadians... Anyway, we arrived at the embassy, put down our bags, phones, and talked to the staffs there. The staff explained to us I needed the followings to make a new temp passport: 2 photos, fill 3 forms, find 4 referees, and CAD350. It was like treasure hunting! Treasure hunting was something we had been doing for the past 9 days and this was going to be the ultimate challenge of our trip! I quickly sent out a mass facebook message to my potential referees using the one and only computer at the embassy. Then we went out to have my photo taken which took almost an hour and cost 12 euro (what a ripoff).
When we returned to the embassy's computer, I was so glad to have responses from some of my referees! I needed 4 referees who had to know me for at least 2 years, 2 of them in Canada, 2 can be outside Canada, cannot be family/relatives (that was the instruction I got from the first embassy staff). So I found my friends IH, JL, VY, KC. At first I thought about using ML and JW instead of VY and KC because they were in canada and I had to fill in their addresses and phone numbers and I had ML and JW's addresses when I wrote postcards earlier! BUT the problem was.. it was midnight in Vancouver and ML and JW must be sleeping! If my referees could not respond to the agent's phone calls immediately, I would not be able to get my passport made on time to catch our flight! We had less than 24 hours to go!!!! and FYI, temp passports normally need to wait 48 hours.
I was so glad IH responded so quickly, and she woke her husband JL up, so I had 2 referees for sure. Then VY and KC also replied! I was so surprised coz usually they reply our groupchats very slowly (haha). Rescue Steph from France mission was officially kicked off! After I filled out the 3 forms, the agent took P as one of my referees too (just in case I couldn't find 4). I must thank P for helping me settle the payments for my temp passport. When you lose your passport, you need a rich friend who has a credit card or lots of cash. Then it was lunch hour. I will skip what happened during lunch hour, which was another unfortunate incident of us versus the gypsies, which I will write later.
When we returned to the embassy after lunch, the agent started phoning my referees. P and I had done everything we could do, and it was the showtime for my referees. You know what, at that time, I had 100% faith in my four referees. I knew I had chosen the best four persons who knew me well and were smart enough to handle questions from the agent. However, I was still a little panicked since things were out of our control and all we could do was to "wait".
At 3:30pm, P and I started to prepare for the worst thing that could happen: what if the passport could not be issued before they close the embassy at 5:30pm? We started to call our airline to see if we could change our flights (failed, because we had very cheap tickets), searched for one way ticket back to HK (which costed us minimum 870 euro per person!!!), travel insurance policies (which did not clearly state the amount covered), etc etc etc. We were getting very tired and depressed. And at that time, I finally decided to write a facebook msg to my brother, told him the story and we were safe at the embassy and we might have to delay our flight. I told him to pass the msg to my parents who were in montreal at that time thinking I must be having a good time in france.
It was also the same time when I saw my referees exchanging information in the group chat about what the agent asked them. It was hilarious and ... I was really thankful to them, facebook, internet, everything... and updated my fb status even though we were still waiting for the "result".
At around 4:30pm, the agent called us into the room, and said she had "good news" for us. The temp passport was READY!!!!! She said the forms were filled out nicely and the referees were easy to reach, and emphasized at least 3 times how lucky i was!!!!!! The rescue Steph from france mission was a complete success!!!!
I really want to thank IH, JL, VY, KC for their efforts and concern! (What were you guys doing at that time??) P, my "bestest" travel buddy, for her unconditional financial and physical support! P's old boss for sharing her experiences! SS for being my online support to help me search some info! Canadian Embassy for their speedy rescue (who could have thought canadians could work so efficiently all of a sudden)! and everyone on fb who concerned about our safety (it must be like watching reality tv while eating popcorn/peanuts, thanks for watching)! and of course, thanks for reading this long story of our last 48 hours in france, I hope it was entertaining enough.
Oh yeah, what happened after 5pm? We celebrated by rushing to Galaries Lafayette (enough churches!), had a nice dinner near the hotel, and visited the Pont des Arts the next morning before leaving Paris using my white temp passport :)
PS, Good luck to the Winnipeg girls who were pickpocketd in Provence and the Toronto couple who had their things stolen in front of Louvre, we met them at the Canadian Embassy! Good luck to all canadian travelers! beware of the cheap french thieves who like to steal our things!
Sunday, October 13, 2013
the last 48 hours in france (part 1)
At first I wanted to write a detailed story of our Tour de France 2013 starting from Day 1. If you have been following my facebook, you would have noticed a series of unfortunate events happened in the last 48 hours which deserves to be recorded first. Here we go...
On day 8 of our tour, P and I packed our luggages in early morning and checked out the hotel as usual, headed to the TGV station and took the train to our next destination. Avignon was our final stop before going back to Paris in the evening on the same day. We planned to store our luggages at the train station and spend a couple of hours visiting the historic monuments on foot. As soon as we arrived at Avignon train station, we faced our first problem: our luggage could not be stored. We knocked on the doors at the hotels nearby and were rejected without an explanation. Even the staffs at the tourist information centre failed to provide an explanation. What could we do?
We went into a pharmacy store, like shoppers drug mart in Canada or Watsons in Hong Kong, and were looking at some local skincare products. A store manager approached us and then an idea came to us.. hmmm...we decided to ask if she would allow us to store our luggage at the store if we purchase a certain amount! At last, she was kind enough to let us store our stuff if we purchased 50 euro worth of products (which was easily achieved!). She even let us use the spa room to store our luggages and explained to us the city does not allow storage of luggage for tourists due to avoidance of bomb attacks. We thanked her and started our walking tour thinking that we had finally met a nice (english speaking) person in south France!
After we finished lunch, we started our walking tour... visited the church, bridge, blah blah blah. Then we went to this street called Rue de la Balance, which was a quiet street with around 8 to 10 souvenir stores right next to the Palais de Papes (the most famous tourist attraction). I bought a nice Avignon magnet at the first souvenir store and window shopped at four other stores. When we were about to exit the street, I found that my backpack was UNZIPPED and my small hello kitty bag was MISSING! and the worst thing about it was that my PASSPORT, hkid, credit cards, cash (not much coz it was near the end of the trip) were in the bag!
P and I panicked and quickly ran back to the shops to ask the shop owners if they had seen anyone with the stolen bag. But of course, the thief must have ran away immediately. So we asked for the nearest police station. When we ran to the municipal police station inside the walls of Avignon, the fat french speaking policman couldn't speak a word in english (fucking useless). Having just 1.5 hours before our arranged train ride, we immediately ran back to the pharmacy to get our luggages, ran to the federal police station outside the walls. From the pharmacy to the police station was a 15 mins walk, but when we were speed walking with two luggages each weighing at least 13kg, it felt like a 30 mins walk.
When we arrived at the police station, the french speaking chubby/blond policewomen asked us to fill some forms for reporting loss, and wait to press charge. But there were 10 people in front of me waiting to press charge (jeez! why were there so many people at 4pm?!! were there so much crimes in Avignon??) Then we decided to go back to Paris first since all the embassies were all located in Paris and we had to catch our train anyway! So we went to the train station and found that... our booked train ride was supposed to depart from another train station! It was the first time we got our train station wrong! Who could have thought such a small town had two train stations with similar names! We were destined to be unlucky on that day.
Luckily the TGV staff there helped us arrange the next available train so we could make it back to Paris on the same night. On our 3 hour train ride, I cut my 2 credit cards, P and I brainstormed a list of things we had to do in Paris to manage this crisis. One of the most urgent things was to open the lock of my luggage because my key was stolen too! If the luggage could not be opened, I would be stuck in my sweaty clothes and pants for the next 48 hours and my glasses were in the luggage! We thought about cutting it open and then buy a new luggage at Carrefour or wrap it back in saran wrap. But a less damaging way would be to destroy the lock. As soon as we got off the train, we ran to the information centre to find the train station staffs for help because they must have tools for repair and maintenance. And it must be Gare de Lyon, the huge train station that we were getting off, not the small station near our hotel.
I spoke to the black lady staff who didn't appear to be friendly (maybe because her english wasn't very good), she only asked me to "wait". I stood there, listening to her speaking in french to someone on the phone, but her hand gesture of describing the size of the lock ensured me she knew what she was doing. A few minutes later we saw an old man in uniform with a big pair of orange scissors in his hands. At that moment I really wanted to cry. I never thought a man with a pair of scissors could be so charming. The scene reminded me of Ben Affleck / Bruce Willis in Armageddon. We thanked the black lady and the scissors man and rushed to our hotel. It was already past 9pm and was too late and dangerous to find a police station.
On day 8 of our tour, P and I packed our luggages in early morning and checked out the hotel as usual, headed to the TGV station and took the train to our next destination. Avignon was our final stop before going back to Paris in the evening on the same day. We planned to store our luggages at the train station and spend a couple of hours visiting the historic monuments on foot. As soon as we arrived at Avignon train station, we faced our first problem: our luggage could not be stored. We knocked on the doors at the hotels nearby and were rejected without an explanation. Even the staffs at the tourist information centre failed to provide an explanation. What could we do?
We went into a pharmacy store, like shoppers drug mart in Canada or Watsons in Hong Kong, and were looking at some local skincare products. A store manager approached us and then an idea came to us.. hmmm...we decided to ask if she would allow us to store our luggage at the store if we purchase a certain amount! At last, she was kind enough to let us store our stuff if we purchased 50 euro worth of products (which was easily achieved!). She even let us use the spa room to store our luggages and explained to us the city does not allow storage of luggage for tourists due to avoidance of bomb attacks. We thanked her and started our walking tour thinking that we had finally met a nice (english speaking) person in south France!
After we finished lunch, we started our walking tour... visited the church, bridge, blah blah blah. Then we went to this street called Rue de la Balance, which was a quiet street with around 8 to 10 souvenir stores right next to the Palais de Papes (the most famous tourist attraction). I bought a nice Avignon magnet at the first souvenir store and window shopped at four other stores. When we were about to exit the street, I found that my backpack was UNZIPPED and my small hello kitty bag was MISSING! and the worst thing about it was that my PASSPORT, hkid, credit cards, cash (not much coz it was near the end of the trip) were in the bag!
P and I panicked and quickly ran back to the shops to ask the shop owners if they had seen anyone with the stolen bag. But of course, the thief must have ran away immediately. So we asked for the nearest police station. When we ran to the municipal police station inside the walls of Avignon, the fat french speaking policman couldn't speak a word in english (fucking useless). Having just 1.5 hours before our arranged train ride, we immediately ran back to the pharmacy to get our luggages, ran to the federal police station outside the walls. From the pharmacy to the police station was a 15 mins walk, but when we were speed walking with two luggages each weighing at least 13kg, it felt like a 30 mins walk.
When we arrived at the police station, the french speaking chubby/blond policewomen asked us to fill some forms for reporting loss, and wait to press charge. But there were 10 people in front of me waiting to press charge (jeez! why were there so many people at 4pm?!! were there so much crimes in Avignon??) Then we decided to go back to Paris first since all the embassies were all located in Paris and we had to catch our train anyway! So we went to the train station and found that... our booked train ride was supposed to depart from another train station! It was the first time we got our train station wrong! Who could have thought such a small town had two train stations with similar names! We were destined to be unlucky on that day.
Luckily the TGV staff there helped us arrange the next available train so we could make it back to Paris on the same night. On our 3 hour train ride, I cut my 2 credit cards, P and I brainstormed a list of things we had to do in Paris to manage this crisis. One of the most urgent things was to open the lock of my luggage because my key was stolen too! If the luggage could not be opened, I would be stuck in my sweaty clothes and pants for the next 48 hours and my glasses were in the luggage! We thought about cutting it open and then buy a new luggage at Carrefour or wrap it back in saran wrap. But a less damaging way would be to destroy the lock. As soon as we got off the train, we ran to the information centre to find the train station staffs for help because they must have tools for repair and maintenance. And it must be Gare de Lyon, the huge train station that we were getting off, not the small station near our hotel.
I spoke to the black lady staff who didn't appear to be friendly (maybe because her english wasn't very good), she only asked me to "wait". I stood there, listening to her speaking in french to someone on the phone, but her hand gesture of describing the size of the lock ensured me she knew what she was doing. A few minutes later we saw an old man in uniform with a big pair of orange scissors in his hands. At that moment I really wanted to cry. I never thought a man with a pair of scissors could be so charming. The scene reminded me of Ben Affleck / Bruce Willis in Armageddon. We thanked the black lady and the scissors man and rushed to our hotel. It was already past 9pm and was too late and dangerous to find a police station.
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