Good, Horrible, Great, Bad-ish

Happy New Year! Today’s entry is perfectly explained by the title. It all started when a friend invited me to have New Years Eve dinner with her and some of her Italian friends. We went to a Japanese restaurant . Fun. Fun. Fun. Since italian is so similar to Spanish I was able to understand a good amount of things. I actually learned a lot of words like, Hello and eat, for example. Good. Now for the horrible part. The next day when I opened my purse my wallet and my cellphone are both missing. Let’s take a look inside my wallet, ok? Debit card, credit card, Chinese student ID, Chinese library/meal card, transportation card, UNM student ID, driver’s license, random cards, two packaged wet towels, train ticket to Shanghai (for tomorrow), train ticket for Harbin, at least 1000 yuan. All gone. I went back to the restaurant to see if I had left my stuff there but no luck. We went to a club for a few minutes after the Japanese place so I checked there too. The only person inside was a cleaning lady. I told her what I was looking for. I honestly have no idea what she told me but from her tone of voice and gestures It seamed like she was scolding me for being irresponsible and not taking care of my things. I think she hadn’t seen any wallet. Next, I went to the train ticket shop to ask if they could reprint the train tickets. Turns out the tickets can be reprinted but at the train station and not the shop. In sad an low spirits I walked back home. My phone had died before we left the restaurant the night before so there was no way of calling it. Back home when you lose something its very unlikely you will get it back. Same rule applies here, especially since the population is of about 14 million people. My roommate let me borrow her iPad to log into WeChat (Chinese messaging app).  All of the sudden I see a message pop on my screen. I had no Idea who this person was but the message read, “did you lose your handbag?” Yes, I know, jaw-dropping! Who was this person? How did he get my WeChat? I couldn’t think straight. As we kept messaging he said something that finally clicked. He said, “good thing you kept my business card.” Just then everything finally made sense. His name is Chris, he is the manager of a latin-style bar I went to about two months ago. He gave me his business card and we traded WeChats. So, that’s  how this guy knew me! Chris gave me the phone number of the person who found my wallet and I sent it to my Chinese friend so they could arrange a meeting. At 9:40 p.m. my friend and I walked towards the university’s north gate to retrieve my wallet and pay its ransom. From the beginning the guy asked for money in return for the wallet. In total I had about 10 kuai to my name since all of my money was in the wallet.  My friend and I discussed it on the walk over and she lent me 100 kuai to pay for my purse. Of course, the guy wanted more money. He wanted 500 kuai! He even said that he had planned on keeping the wallet and only selling me back my train tickets for their original price! My friend talked to him for a while and he accepted the 100 kuai and left. I was so happy to have my wallet back! There is one thing that I didn’t mention. In the morning I had e-mailed my bank to tell them that I had lost my wallet. They cancelled my card. Still no money. It’s going to be a long long time until I can get a new card shipped here. For the meantime I’ll be transferring friends money and having them withdraw for me.