What could possibly go wrong: Monaco
Strangely, instead of doing nothing and relax, I spent all my summer solving problems which seemed that they should not happen at all. As I think of them from time to time. For reasons, I was mainly travelling from August to early September, during which I met some really curious and ridiculous problems that really let me have a rethink on how life works. For the first part, I shall pick one of my stories happened in Monaco back in summer.
Monaco is famous for the prestigious Formula One Monaco Grand Prix, Hôtel de Paris, Casino Monte Carlo and of course, thousands of hypercars driven by some super rich Monegasques with money that they should have paid in tax, who spend all day driving round and round and round the principality. As a car enthusiast, it was the exact reason why I went there. Right at the moment that I left the Monaco Railway Station, my attention was caught by the raging soundtrack from a matte black Lamborghini Aventador’s massive exhaust. I could feel my blood boiling with passion and petrol, and I went down the road to Monte Carlo.
After some 15 minutes of capturing absolutely nothing worth capturing at all along my path towards the Hôtel de Paris, I decided to enjoy the view of the world-famous Port Hercule. Beside the Avenue d’Ostende, across the magnificent Hôtel Hermitage Monte Carlo, there was a small garden where I took some rest. It was also where the catastrophe took place.
At that moment, I was actually in a fight with my girlfriend, who was around 6250 miles away. Over the phone call, “Hello? Can you hear me” only and always makes things worse during a fight with someone. To cheer her up, I made several FaceTime calls to her and of course, the signal was rubbish. At last, I hatched a plan to enhance the signal — so as to save my relationship.
A friend of mine gave me his backup phone, kindly telling me to turn on the personal Internet hotspot of it so I did not need to buy a SIM card during my visit to France. Sadly, most of the time outdoors, the signal was beyond terrible. So, as I made an unsuccessful FaceTime call to my girlfriend for the millionth time, an idea struck me. It was the worst idea ever if I’m really honest.
I sit in the garden and ejected the SIM card from my mate’s phone, trying to put the card into mine. The SIM card did not fit the slot of my phone. I had to place the card on my lap and put the card trays of the phones back. It was not until the SIM card fell through the grilled cover into the ditch right under my feet did I realise that aged, washed cotton chino fabric could be slippery.
I was astounded. Mercifully, I could still see the SIM card through the ditch cover, which meant that there was a chance for me to save it. What with haste and what with adrenaline, I went down on my knees, lifted up the cover, reached down into the ditch and finally, picked up the SIM card. Funnily, every single move of that was witnessed by a bunch of Chinese tourists. No, no one gave me a hand. After that, I did my best to put the cover back. However, it was Monaco ditch cover. It was robust, sturdy and very, very heavy. I could not believe how I lifted it up so easily just then.
Back to the phone, I moved to a safe spot in the garden and put the SIM card back. There came a problem. I was told by the phone to enter the PIN code after reading the SIM card. How did I know what the code was? I couldn’t ask my friend for I couldn’t make a phone call. There were only three chances for me to enter the right code, which I had spent two by guessing. “It’s my first time here. I rely on Google Maps and I don’t even speak French. How on earth am I going to solve this?” I thought. Thereafter, I was on my quest for public free Wi-Fi. And in Monaco, it was even easier to find an unicorn than that.
Around 20 minutes after my quest started, I popped in a souvenir shop to ask if they sold SIM cards. “No, we don’t sell those. You have to get out of Monaco into France to get one.” I felt suicidal. Another 5 minutes later or so, miracle happened. I connected to the holy “Public Wi-Fi of Principality of Monaco”, which charged me 5 euros a day. Thereupon the network worked, I phoned my friend for the PIN code. Before my heart literally popped out, I unlocked the phone and called my girlfriend. She could not believe what just happened, neither did I.
It had already been nearly two hours since I arrived at Monaco, and it was all devoted to solving problems resulted from my stupidity. However, I somehow turned positive and optimistic. Think about it, I’d done something really, really stupid, but it happened just beside the famous Circuit de Monaco. Who’s going to do that again in human history? I carried on my journey afterwards.
What was my first thing to do the next morning? Pop in the Orange Network boutique and get a bloody SIM card.
