Part 1
I asked in my best but rusty French if she had a cappuccino. I actually meant any coffee with something creamy/milky in it, but I had already made my first mistake. She looked at me with her dark brown eyes just peeping over the glasses resting on her nose: 'Non, café', and when I asked she replied 'Yes I could get milk with that'.
We felt very much out of place, my boyfriend and I, but this restaurant with a sort of 'lounge' where we were allowed to get a drink was the only place we came across on these tiny roads. So we sat there, the two of us, sipping our coffee, while The Lady made us feel like we were 'sort of welcome' but not really. Well, we were off the road, so all was well, right?
It was time to pay, so I grabbed my wallet with my debit cards and walked towards The Lady. "No Card", she said, or well, she spoke in French, but I'm not going to bother you with that throughout this post.
I immediately knew: I'm in trouble! I never carry cash because I never ever ever need it in the Netherlands. If I travel 'far' I might take some cash because I know not all countries accept cards for every tiny amount of money, but France was sooo... close to home! I hadn't considered it wasn't possible to pay by card like at home. Mistake!
Of course, my boyfriend didn't carry cash either, so we asked for the nearest cash machine. 'Five kilometers' she said. That seemed a bit much (maybe not if you're an American, but here things are always within 200 meters distance :D) to just go grab 10 euros to pay for the 3 euro and 80 cents coffee. So first we explored other options. "Can I transfer the money?", I pointed at my phone, where I have my banking app. She looked at me. "Very complicated", she mumbled, but she went upstairs to search for the banking information I needed.
In the meanwhile my boyfriend and I kept brainstorming. Even though this should have been her job, we realized people would have to pay for their meals and do really all French people carry that much cash all the time? So maybe she didn't mean 'no card', but meant 'cards only for bigger amounts'.
So when she finally came down with a note in her hand with the banking info we asked her if we could pin a bigger amount, and she would return us the difference in Cash. But that was a 'No' again, since the cash register wouldn't open if a costumer was using a card.
Then we said: well, what is the minimum amount? I would have gladly paid 10 euros to get it over with. Then she said: '6 euros'. Well, six euros... That was only 2,20 more than we consumed, and driving 10 kilometers in total to get some cash would cost us as well.
So we swiped our card.
Now, one thing I know is a weak point of mine: I can't handle people who are not considerate of others. She, the French lady, had in no way shown interest in thinking with us to solve this 'problem'. She only said 'No' to whatever we suggested or offered, and didn't seem to appreciate we had solved our, her (!) problem.
In times like that I get annoyed easily. A smile doesn't hurt anybody! So I was very very willing to leave the place where we had never felt really welcome and where we now had finally paid for our 2 cups of coffee...
Part 2
Oh, WOW! An hour later we arrived at a gorgeous lookout spot. Some crops with gorgeous leaves with leading lines towards the water, in a late afternoon sunlight... I had just been driving this hour and was happy with a break. I opened the car door to grab my camera - but where was it then?
I sort of instinctively knew: Mistake, again.
"Fuck fuck fuck I left my camera at the restaurant, nooooo!" I yelled, very angry at myself, as I felt 1) I couldn't take that perfect picture (worst thing for a photographer, immediate punishment for stupidity :D), 2) We were actually very much in need of a place to rest for the day, but this would add 2 hours to our driving hours for the day at least, and 3) I would have to face The Lady again!
My boyfriend, never angry at anything or anyone, went into his 'let's solve this' mode, calling the restaurant, only to find out that they were closed for the rest of the day. "Nothing we can do now!", he said, and we would find a place to sleep and get the camera back the next morning...
Part 3
And so we did. We woke up, hopped in the car, and arrived at the restaurant at 10:30, 30 minutes after Google said the restaurant would open. I stepped out of the car, looked at the place, and yes... Mistake. We had assumed Google's info was right and hadn't checked by calling, of course, so the place was: closed.
I went to look for information, and there it was: open from 12:00. So we would have to wait 1,5 hours. We quickly decided to not let this prevent us from having fun, so we looked up a bakery and a picknick spot, and off we went again.
Driving off the parking spot, turning left, almost... A car approached, and the lights told us it wanted to come on the restaurant's parking. I quickly deducted: that must be an employee! Since there was nothing else to do in this neighbourhood, and the parking was a dedicated restaurant parking, and the restaurant was closed so chances of it being a wannabe customer were small... I looked at the car, tried to see the driver, and YES! There she was. The Lady.
What are the chances?
So like a good good stalker I was already out of my car walking towards hers before she even was able to use the brakes and turn off the vehicle. She stepped out of the car, looked at me with her strict eyes over her glasses still resting on her nose: "Oui?"
No recognition. No indication she knew what I was doing here. Not even a bit of surprise I was here when she had just arrived.
"Did you find a camera?", I asked. "Oui", she said, and explained it had been hiding behind my chair out of sight, explaining why I hadn't noticed it anymore while leaving the place.
We walked towards the restaurant where she would grab my camera to give it to me. In those 30 seconds she finally showed a little bit of humanity: "Were you already far away from here when you found out?"
Which was really all it took for me to see The Lady wasn't as stoic as she appeared to be after all.
Greetings, dear Soyrosa
I saw from your writing that you are a very empathetic person. This is really cool. How good that you consider others.
I thought your story was pretty funny. Thank you and good night!!!!
Thanks @julisavio! Yes, I'm very empathic, which can be a good thing, the downside is I hold other people to very high standards which can make me disappointed in them very quickly as well! :-)
Glad you found the story funny! Thanks for stopping by for a reply!
Ahahah. I am laughing because everything ended up well.
Yeah, French are cold like that. And that minimum charge amount for cards is quite normal, as they need to pay a fee for every transaction. It doesn't make sense to charge a costumer 2€ if they need to pay 1.5€ for the transaction. Or whatever is the fee they pay.
Here in Portugal the minimum is 5€.
A worse thing happened to me in the UK. I had to pay for a beer, which was 3.5£. The lady said she couldn't charge less than 5£, so I told her "that's OK, I'll drink another one afterwards. You can charge for both."
Then, after I pay, she brings me two 1L beers at once and says "drink quickly because we close in 15 minutes."
Really? She couldn't warn me before!?
LOL! Your story is even funnier - that's just crude! 2 liter of beer in 15 minutes? Even the Brits don't do that! (And they can drink a lot quite fast!)
Oh yes, last winter I was in Lisbon, and I ordered some empenadas, wanted to pay by card, and the guy said NO! Now you have to know, I was visibly having pain that day, walking with a stick even, so he was actually feeling awful that he had to say no, because: the nearest cash machine was quite a steep alley down (you know how Lisbon can be) and I had just walked that alley upwards, only to walk down and up again to pay my 4 euros :')
The empenadas were delicious though :D
They gave me an extra 10 minutes while they were cleaning up. And I managed to drink nearly everything. I never got so drunk so fast. 😅
Ugh - 2 liters of beer - beer belly! LOL! :')
It is always the first thing I ask in all the shops/bars that I visit "do you take card?". To avoid exactly this! But I find it interesting to see how you perceived this as her problem where I would consider this my problem :)
Well, it felt like my problem, but I also felt she would want us to pay. She mumbled at some point 'I have to be able to explain it to my boss' (as a reaction to not let us pay by card for the low amount) so she certainly sort of showed she felt it was a problem for her too :-) But putting the work to find a solution with us.
The customer needs to make sure he/she can pay. The business needs to make sure he/she can accept pay. We both did what we needed to do, only our methods didn't match. So in my mind we had to work together to solve the shared problem.
(But well, the most important lesson is indeed to ask for card payment possibilities from now on :'))
Coffee for 2 10 Euro
Dumb looks and shitty attitude free.
I'm glad you got your camera back. I've never completely lost the camera but I have assumed firing position to a dead battery more than once :)
Thanks Soyrosa. This seriously made me giggle.
Glad my horror story made you laugh @bigtom13 :')
It didn't mean to make light of your problems, not at all. It's just that is so much the way I travel, I always figure that I must need to see something more when I have to double back or wait or get completely lost.
I giggled because your story reminds me of me. Thanks again for sharing it.
Hahaha, I absolutely know how you meant your comment @bigtom13! It's what I try to tell others: "Traveling is always worth it, because even the bad moments turn into awesome stories which you'll be able to tell for the rest of your life!" :D All those little "Why didn't I think of that before" and "Does this REALLY happen to ME?" moments are worth it <3 I know you appreciate it too :D
Sorry the two days must have stress you so much at least you find your camera
Its like a lesson!
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So glad you got the camera back!!!😉
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Five KM IS very far for an American, as we may have great distances but we are a lazy pampered lot and there are cash/debit machines everywhere!
Isn't it funny things that come up when in foreign climbs. I hope part 2 is less fraught with trouble.
Why?
Hey @sapphic, nothing personal! :-) It was bugging me lately that I had sometimes passively voted on witnesses based on word of mouth but couldn't answer the question 'why are you voting for that witness' if someone would ask me. So I'm in the process of cleaning up my witness list based on that. I'll have to do a few iterations probably before I feel like my witness vote list is 'mine'. Doesn't mean the vote won't ever come back, I just want to vote more mindfully from now on than I've done before and understand why I'm voting for a witness.
That's super cool, that you are doing that, I wish more thought about their witness vote.
And thank you very much for your reasons. If you ever want to ask me anything please do, I've been a little inactive with posting lately as uni has been really busy.
Thanks, I appreciate the offer and might take you up on that :-) I could use some sparring partners on 'what is wise and what is not' regarding witness voting from time to time.
Glad you got your camera back! Scary story... Happy travels!