Hello from France, or Montpellier, to be exact. Surprisingly, in spite of this blog usually taking first priority for me, I was unable to write earlier and make one of those Oh-I’m-So-Excited-I’m-Going-to-France type posts, mainly due to general incompetence and sloppiness with regards to owing my editor a couple of stories, and the mad, mad rush over the weekend to write them and pack for the trip.

And I still owe him another, which I promised to write within the next two days. Finger-crossing’s never really worked for me, unfortunately, but trust me when I say mine are crossed fairly tightly anyway.

Well, this post would be fine and whimsical and all excited, if not for the fact that a big downer—even before setting foot out of Singapore—was my losing my mobile phone in the lounge toilet. [Insert wail and/or expletive here]

Clearly, I’m not meant for luxury, because I’d theoretically never have lost my phone if I had taken the economy flight, instead. But no, I had to go into that all-steel toilet with its dim, calming lighting and leave my metallic-silver phone on the counter.

I’m not holding my breath for anyone to return it, in spite of my calling the lounge staff within 45 minutes of misplacing it. Perhaps I sped up the process by pointing them straight to my phone, even. How friggin’ depressing.

Though I thought I was sufficiently over it, I remember dreaming about my phone on the red-eye flight. Pathetic, isn’t it?

Altogether, it’s taken me exactly 24 hours to get here. That’s right—an entire day. Blame it on the five-hour transit from Paris to get here, on the two-hour delay of that flight, making it seven hours, the baggage getting delayed for another hour…Astounding, for what I thought would be a rather straightforward affair. Perhaps I’ve been spoilt by Changi’s efficiency.

I had no idea I was that addicted to my mobile phone, because I found myself scouring the airport for public phones and Internet terminals, in order to get some semblance of connectivity back home. I bought an international calling card, which calls most places I can think of. Except Singapore. Credit card-calling didn’t work either; the operator said that Singapore wasn’t one of the destinations they called. That’s right. Somehow, in the midst of our advancement in the World, the French still think we’re in China.

So anyway, I’m undecided whether it’s that the French really are rude, or it’s just their manner. Or if, heaven forbid, they are racsist. Even the flight stewardesses treat you with cold indifference, and behave almost as if you ought to be going down on your hands and knees thanking God that you had the privilege of being served by them. I don’t know if they treated the passengers in First Class better, but I thought Business shouldn’t have been as shabby.

Oh and thank you Air France, for your wide choice of FIVE “on demand” movies, three of which were in French.

(Another journalist just called to say that she’s at a café next to the hotel, and it’s 1€/hour of Internet connectivity. I try not to think about the 10€/hour that I’m on now—which could ironically run out as I speak.)

So far, I have very little else to say about France itself, given that I’ve only seen the inside of two airports here till now. And this hotel that I’m in, of course. More after the walk that I’ll take, once I get this posted.

Update: Great. I spoke too soon. The connection did drop as I wrote this, so I shall go and get this posted at the aforementioned café.

Further update: Back in the hotel now, because wi-fi is completely unknown here. At least unknown outside of the hotel. The café with the cheap Internet access was equipped with rows of terminals, but all the keyboards were in French layout, and that means that “q” is “a” and “z” is “w” and so on. I tried, desperately and rather stupidly to retype this entry from my laptop screen, but it proved completely impossible. So it’s back to expensive connection for me.