One of the things on my To-Do list was to finally get my film from Budapest developed. I'd been dragging my feet about it because the only decent film developer I know in Amman is all the way over on University Street, a place I rarely have occasion to go. I'd been developing my film closer to home, but was not pleased with the quality. So on the way back from the spa yesterday, we stopped off at Rite Aid to get my film developed.
I waited and waited at the photo counter, rang the bell repeatedly, and no one came, so eventually I went over to the cashiers. The older of the two saw me coming with two film canisters in my hand, and said, "Oh, we don't do those here anymore. You'll have to send them away."
"How long will that take?"
"Oh, about a week."
"How reliable is it? Because I'm leaving in a week...."
"Oh, well, then," she said, lowering her voice, "you probably don't want to do that. They're very unreliable!" Then she turned to the younger cashier. "They don't still do film processing at Hannaford's, do they?"
"No," said the girl. "They're not doing it at Wal-Mart in Windham anymore, either. The policy is these days, when the machine breaks, you don't bother to have it repaired." Between them, they couldn't think of a single place within a good 50 miles that did one-hour developing.
When I went out to the car and reported this to Mom, she said, "You know, you're not going to be home for Christmas, so we could just buy your Christmas present for you now...."
So today, Dad and I went down to the camera store in Portland, which still develops real old-fashioned film, and got a sweet new digital camera: a FinePix S1500 from Fujifilm, if anyone cares for the details. It was on sale, so a lot more camera than I expected for my money. Most importantly, in the bright sunlight of the Middle East, I wanted a viewfinder, and I got one!
You can, therefore, expect to see a lot more of my own photos on Picasa!
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| From Maine 2009 |
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