Clean Start

So up until this point, I have been extremely lucky with washing my clothes. You all remember my experience in Paris with the old man who did everything for me, then there was Fanny and Christian who took care of everything for me and in Marseille the washer and drier in the hostel that were just like the ones at my dorm. I have done pretty well.



This morning I set out to do one thing: laundry. I walked for twenty minutes and found the laundromat that I had been eying on my many bus rides to the hotel. It was a little whole in the wall place with three washing machines and one drier. One machine had 11 minutes left, one was being loaded by a woman and one was empty. I was excited by this and started to put my stuff in and then realized it was the large washer…I only had 7 days worth of clothes and did not need that one.

I waited for the second one to be done and waited and waited. After ten minutes I started to take the clothes out to put them on the table but then put them back. Is that bad manners? I have no read anything about laundry manners in France…The woman had left a bag on hers, at least if she was late someone could put her clothes in the bag. I stuffed all the clothes back into the washer and waited some more.

About twenty minutes from when the wash ended I decided this was crazy and started to take the clothes out again; of course the guy pulls up at that moment. I stuff all the clothes back in and he gives me a very dirty look as he walks in. He takes his stuff and we say goodbye. I put my clothes in, they are about 2/3 of a load. The washers are very small here and the people over stuff them to no end. According to the French standards, I had 1/5 of a load. They basically stuff it so that when the clothes are done at the end, there is no room to stick your hand in to pull the clothes out.



Anyway, with the twenty minute wait I had plenty of time to read the signs and try to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do. The lady who was putting her clothes in when I got there had already done the money part so I was out of luck. The washers had no place to put money and I was clueless. I finally figured out that all the money went in the machine that said “central de paiement” obviously…you put the money in, pushed the number of machine you wanted (this included the washer, drier, and soap dispenser) and then pushed start on the machine.



I returned in time to watch the last two minutes of my wash and then put it in the drier. It was only 1,00 for the drier and I was excited. Here is the fool that I am…it is 1,00 per ten minutes. I have jeans in there and only two euros on me. I guess we will see where I am in twenty minutes; surprisingly everything but my shorts were dry.