Early morning adventures

It's quite amazing how stupid a person can be in a strange land after a 20 hour travel ordeal. It took me about an hour to get the point of this little gadget just inside my hotel room door. The first thing I wanted to do yesterday after getting my room was to take a shower but I couldn't get the bathroom lights to go on. In fact, none of the room's lights would go on. I half wondered if this was part of the "you really shouldn't even be in that room" deal. Finally, I noticed this key pad and mused, "Now why would I want to unlock the inside of the door?" and then the penny dropped--this is the electricity trigger. I was feeling very stupid until I went back downstairs yesterday and my pretty/nice receptionist was trying to explain to another guest in broken English that "the key goes in something like a pocket and when you do that--poof--you have lights!" The guest either had even worse English or was simple because she just stared open-mouthed at this explanation and, then, wondered off looking very confused. I wonder if she ever did figure it out.
This is cool. It is a two-button toilet flush. The big button is for big flushes--the water pours round and round for a good full minute. The little button is for a little flush--just a spritz. I was half-fearing that one was a bidet flush and jumped up out of the way until I could test both and see what happened.

I haven't figured out yet what this little thing is--small bits of paper in a canister very low to the floor just near the toilet.

This is the stairwell from my room which I need to go down to get to the breakfast room and get outside. I was a bit surprised this morning to find it gated shut. I couldn't get the door to open and the knob didn't work. Finally, after standing there feeling very stupid (I really did not want to have to call out for someone to come and let me out) I noticed a TINY button on the wall, very high up. It buzzed and opened up the door.

I woke up about 4 this morning (I fell asleep about 8 last night) and was exhausted, hungry and bored of laying in bed. I also felt really icky from using body soap as shampoo yesterday. So I pissed about with the internet for a while (couldn't get it to work) and, finally, had a shower and got up to eat around 6. The breakfast was being set up so I ate and drank a ton of tea (the tea in the green packet is green tea, the tea in the blue packet is black tea) and decided to (a) find a store that sold a pen and notepad, (2) find a store that sold shampoo. I also wanted to find out about tipping. Yesterday at the cafe I got the distinct impression that I committed a faux pas when I tipped the waitress 20%. So I asked the guy at the reception desk what the respectable amount was. He shrugged (this gesture is becoming familiar) and said, "Oh, nothing much. Perhaps 5% at most." I thanked him and mentioned that I tipped about 20% yesterday. He gaped at me, said, "20%--for a waitress?!?" and then broke into silent convulsive giggles.

I did manage to get directions for a Tabac and grocery--only neither were where he said they were and, anyway, the stores aren't properly labeled here. Nothing has big, glass doors or windows that you can see into to see what is for sale (the doors are solid wood with giant knocker/handles) and the windows are display windows and they have very old, faded things in them). I did find shamppo and soap in a small corner grocery but it is amazing how difficult it is to buy shampoo when the labels are unintelligible. All the body soaps, shaving cream, washing liquids and such were all in strange bottles in strange colors (a lot of light purple things here). I took the one labeled "shampon". I went into three stores to buy a pen and finally found a stationary store that had one. I also asked for paper, and she first handed me a binder. Then when I gestured that I wanted what went inside the binder, she handed me a ream of printing paper. I said, no, I wanted something smaller, "not so much." So she handed me a tiny stack of stationary with Miss Kitty designs. So then I said I wanted something bigger in size but with lines. Then she got me a ream of lined A4 paper. I gave in at that point. (I would have just taken what I wanted but everything is on shelved behind counter, you can't just mill about grabbing what you want.) Well, the pen only cost about 5 cents and the paper was only about $2 so I took it. Now, my bag weighed about 10 pounds and it was just starting to rain. I was ready to start my morning walk.