I had an interesting weekend this weekend, but before I begin, let me set the scene a little bit: my friend Sanaaz and I have been unsuccessfully hunting for apartments for weeks. Finally, we found a great place (picture the awkward love child of a 70's shag rug and a Chinese karaoke fanatic), and we were all set to move in... until both of us lost our debit cards within 2 days of each other, and couldn't pay our landlords on time. Trust me, after weeks of the stress and tedium that comes with seeing new places, we were beginning to believe that it would never end. It took us a few days to negotiate our way back into the apartment (with the help of our awesome realtor, Frank the Tank), and when we finally did, it was like Christmas morning on the day we moved in.
Well, if there's one thing I've learned out here, it's never to take anything for granted.. and to expect the absolute unexpected.. For example, I would never have expected to be locked out of my home on my first night of living there. Yup. That was an awesome discovery we made at about 3 in the morning (an hour normally marked by a certain "lack of sobriety"), literally hours after moving in. Somehow, between the two of us, we managed to break one key and lose the second... I'm still recovering from the trauma of our collective insanity, so I won't get into the process of solving our problem.
It was pretty late before I finally made it home the next day from our friends' house (I also wanted to give Sanaaz some time to figure the key debacle out so I wouldn't be homeless in the cold), and I was still feeling the pain of last night's debauchery. I had about 3 hours to kill before having to tutor that evening and the only thing we could think about was buying stuff for the new place. So, we made the decision to go to Carrefour to buy supplies for the house-warming party that we were throwing that night.
Now, keep in mind that Sanaaz and I had the equivalent of $150 on us (due to our lack of credit cards) that was not only supposed to last the two of us through the weekend, but it was also supposed to pay for food, cleaning supplies, bedding, and all the other amenities that people need when moving into a new home. Surprisingly, that amount of money goes a long way here... long enough for 2 girls to be able to survive for four or five days, but not long enough for what we needed for the house. Needless to say, it was an extremely traumatising two hours in Carrefour, marked by shrieking Chinese people trying to sell their food products to us (alive or not), as well as us getting yelled at and laughed at for failing to weigh our garlic before buying it, and having to pick between "ugly" and "uglier" for our bedding while being harassed by the 13 attendants of the bedding section who couldn't seem to grasp that no, we did not want the hot pint Hello Kitty sheets.
After we finally scraped our way out of the tragic supermarket (rather, we were the tragic ones in this situation), we realised that we were going to have to walk the 20 minute walk home carrying all of our new kitchen supplies in the freezing cold... unless we crossed the highway-like street to get a cab.
So we scrappily scurried around the streets for 10 minutes, trying to elicit some form of sympathy, any sympathy, from any of the passing cab drivers, most of whom refused to acknowledge the pathetic homeless looking (once again) white girls crawling around Shanghai nearly in tears. It probably didn't help that I was wearing a Russian communist army hat that had been given to me earlier this week.
And then... it happened. Sanaaz didn't even see it coming. Neither of us did, really. As we were hobbling along, struggling pathetically with our bags, Sanaaz felt a weird liquid creep slowly down her leg. She looked to see what it could possibly be, and there it was: spilled chicken juice. All over her. From chicken that she didn't even want to buy, except I had insisted on it.
So, after not spending our first night in our apartment actually in the apartment and not having any money to buy anything for said apartment, here we were, exhausted and freezing in the middle of a highway in Shanghai... with one of us covered from the waist down in chicken juice, and both of us lacking any iota of dignity that we might have once started the day out with. At this point, I honestly couldn't help but laugh, especially because I could no longer feel my feet, and my pride had long since "jumped out the grocery bag" along with the chicken juice. But I have to say, those traumatising 24-hours have made the subsequent days in our apartment much more enjoyable. I finally have my own home in Shanghai, and now that I got my credit card back, I'm excited about the prospect of upgrading from the "uglier" bed sheets to just the "ugly" ones. It's the little things in life that count, right?
Well, if there's one thing I've learned out here, it's never to take anything for granted.. and to expect the absolute unexpected.. For example, I would never have expected to be locked out of my home on my first night of living there. Yup. That was an awesome discovery we made at about 3 in the morning (an hour normally marked by a certain "lack of sobriety"), literally hours after moving in. Somehow, between the two of us, we managed to break one key and lose the second... I'm still recovering from the trauma of our collective insanity, so I won't get into the process of solving our problem.
It was pretty late before I finally made it home the next day from our friends' house (I also wanted to give Sanaaz some time to figure the key debacle out so I wouldn't be homeless in the cold), and I was still feeling the pain of last night's debauchery. I had about 3 hours to kill before having to tutor that evening and the only thing we could think about was buying stuff for the new place. So, we made the decision to go to Carrefour to buy supplies for the house-warming party that we were throwing that night.
Now, keep in mind that Sanaaz and I had the equivalent of $150 on us (due to our lack of credit cards) that was not only supposed to last the two of us through the weekend, but it was also supposed to pay for food, cleaning supplies, bedding, and all the other amenities that people need when moving into a new home. Surprisingly, that amount of money goes a long way here... long enough for 2 girls to be able to survive for four or five days, but not long enough for what we needed for the house. Needless to say, it was an extremely traumatising two hours in Carrefour, marked by shrieking Chinese people trying to sell their food products to us (alive or not), as well as us getting yelled at and laughed at for failing to weigh our garlic before buying it, and having to pick between "ugly" and "uglier" for our bedding while being harassed by the 13 attendants of the bedding section who couldn't seem to grasp that no, we did not want the hot pint Hello Kitty sheets.
After we finally scraped our way out of the tragic supermarket (rather, we were the tragic ones in this situation), we realised that we were going to have to walk the 20 minute walk home carrying all of our new kitchen supplies in the freezing cold... unless we crossed the highway-like street to get a cab.
So we scrappily scurried around the streets for 10 minutes, trying to elicit some form of sympathy, any sympathy, from any of the passing cab drivers, most of whom refused to acknowledge the pathetic homeless looking (once again) white girls crawling around Shanghai nearly in tears. It probably didn't help that I was wearing a Russian communist army hat that had been given to me earlier this week.
And then... it happened. Sanaaz didn't even see it coming. Neither of us did, really. As we were hobbling along, struggling pathetically with our bags, Sanaaz felt a weird liquid creep slowly down her leg. She looked to see what it could possibly be, and there it was: spilled chicken juice. All over her. From chicken that she didn't even want to buy, except I had insisted on it.
So, after not spending our first night in our apartment actually in the apartment and not having any money to buy anything for said apartment, here we were, exhausted and freezing in the middle of a highway in Shanghai... with one of us covered from the waist down in chicken juice, and both of us lacking any iota of dignity that we might have once started the day out with. At this point, I honestly couldn't help but laugh, especially because I could no longer feel my feet, and my pride had long since "jumped out the grocery bag" along with the chicken juice. But I have to say, those traumatising 24-hours have made the subsequent days in our apartment much more enjoyable. I finally have my own home in Shanghai, and now that I got my credit card back, I'm excited about the prospect of upgrading from the "uglier" bed sheets to just the "ugly" ones. It's the little things in life that count, right?
