Internet Withdrawal

On Monday morning, I hopped in a carrito, as per usual.  I was in B2 and there was a larger man beside me in B1.  What made this particularly odd was the bag of sweaty, melty marshmallows he was eating from.  I was kind of disgusted by this generally, but even more so when he turned to me and offered me one.  I politely declined, “no, gracias.” 

At the office, the day ticked along like usual.  We were supposed to have lunch with Ozumy but she couldn’t make it over to meet us.  Robert, Mari and I went to Pola instead.  Often, Robert and I will split a pasta dish since the serving size is too big for one person to finish completely.  One of the other workers was manning the pasta station and he wasn’t very good at making the pasta.  His first attempt at making it was alright, except just as he began to combine the pasta with the sauce, I saw a hair in the pasta.  Gross.  So I pointed it out and he kind of looked at it, not sure what to do.  He asked me if I wanted him to start over again, and I said yes.  So he started fresh with the sauce, except this time, he put in A LOT of sauce.  That was the most saucy the pasta has ever been.  When we went to Sweet Bakery after lunch the power was out there so we couldn’t have our usual afternoon espresso.  I always get a kick out of how they will ask us if we want espressos, we say yes, and then they say no, we can’t.  Not sure why they don’t just say right off the bat that we can’t have espressos today because the power is out.

The main excitement on Tuesday was having lunch with everyone (Me, Robert, Mari, Pavol, Paula and Gerardo) at Quiznos.  When I arrived, there was a young boy outside the entrance who was asking for money and such.  He had such big bright eyes and was missing a bunch of his front teeth.  The kids really get to me, in that I just feel the need to adopt all of them and help them out.  He seemed to have the same affect on the rest of us.  I ended up getting my combo with an oatmeal raisin cookie instead of fries, with the intention that I would give him the cookie on my way out.  But, he was nowhere to be found by the time we were finished.  I feel kind of guilty saying this, but that cookie was really delicious and I’m kind of glad he had disappeared, thus leaving the cookie for me.

In the evening, Mari helped me with a secret project I was working on before we took off for pilates.  I was able to get a few more pictures of some of the Christmas decorations around that area.

Lanterns at Banco BHD

Plaza Lama

Nativity Scene at Banco BHD

Stained Glass Nativity Scene

Flowers and Christmas Lights

I was so tired at pilates and the workout was rather hard.  Well not difficult, but just exhausting.  I did notice that my flexibility has improved even more!  That’s always exciting.  I’m really disappointed about the price increase for pilates.  I’ve really enjoyed going there.  I’ll just have to make a point of doing workouts at home now. 

Pilates Studio

When I got back home, I got a load of laundry done over at Robert and Mari’s place (I’m afraid of going into our back area, even though Pavol has assured me that there are no friends back there).  We didn’t have internet since the ladies above us had taken the router to be fixed.  Bart ended up giving me a call on my cell instead of skyping.  It was nice, but it is harder for him to understand me because he gets a weird noise on his end when he calls here.  I spent the rest of the evening tidying up my room since the landlady was supposed to pop by the next morning to inspect the place. 

I was up quite early on Wednesday since I didn’t want the landlady to arrive before I was ready.  I ended up leaving the apartment just after 8:00 – about half an hour earlier than I usually do.  As it turns out, she didn’t actually show up, but instead decided to stop by today.  The ladies from above us also brought over the new password for the internet.  Unfortunately, there was an error in it and Pavol couldn’t get it to work.

Then I got to work.  Since I was there early, I wasn’t surprised to find that there was no internet there either.  Often, when I get in before R, I have to wait a bit for the internet to start working – it’s like he has to turn it on or something.  I’m on a different connection than most people since my computer has to be plugged into the internet as my wireless doesn’t work here for some reason.  Instead, I put in my headphones and listened to the first disk of Michael Tomas’ Spanish.  Finally, my other coworkers started trickling in and there was still no internet.  I went to ask R about it but he wasn’t in his office.  Suddenly fear struck.  What if he is sick and I don’t have internet for the entire day!?!?  I went back to my desk and every few minutes I would unplug and replug in the cable.  Nothing.  All of my assigned work is internet based at the moment so I literally had nothing to do.  I made it till lunch time without losing my mind, which was good.  Mari and I met up at Pola.  I did pretty good by having a meal worth only RD$51 (less than $2 CAD)!

Cheap Lunch

We wandered over to Sweet Bakery for our espressos.  We sat for quite a while chatting about this and that.  Mari had had a good day so far, getting a teaching job offer at one of the private schools!  We had a really nice conversation, but eventually I felt the need to head back to work.  Again, I prayed that the internet would be back on.  It wasn’t.  I kind of wanted to cry.  What was I going to do for the next 3 hours???  It seemed as though a lot of people were in a similar predicament as there was a lot of milling around happening at the office. 

I ended up taking a carrito home because I was so tired.  When I got home, I was determined to figure out the password situation for our internet there.  I tried changing the numbers around in case there was a bit of dyslexia when it was written.  The second part of the password seemed to be a name, and it was capitalized.  I thought about it and figured if I was writing out the password which contained my name in, I might automatically capitalize my name because I’m used to it.  So I tried the password with the letter in lowercase and sure enough, it worked!  Hurray!  The rest of the evening was quite relaxing.  I could have gone to bed at 7:00 but figured I should stay up and chat with mom and with Bart and then go to bed after that.  So that’s what I did. 

This morning, the landlady did come over.  I had to let her in the door and she seemed not very pleased about this.  I’m not sure why.  I tried to be very polite, saying good morning, asking her how she was, inviting her in, but I just got a cold good morning back from her.  Luckily Pavol came out and took over from there.  So once again, I was off to work early.  Instead of walking down to the metro station to catch a carrito, I just went to the park by the apartment.  I should have gone to the metro though since it took a really long time to find a carrito that wasn’t full.  I wandered over to Sweet Bakery and passed by a drowned r*t in the gutter by the Red restaurant.  Eeew.  I also passed A on the way to the bakery.  He was still standing outside the office when I returned and kind of chuckled at me carrying in my breakfast. 

My worst fears came true when I turned my laptop on.  No internet.  Again.  2 days in a row.  I had meant to bring a book with me today, just in case, but my dealings with the landlady distracted me and I forgot to.  But at lunch, I picked up a copy of “Prevention” to occupy me for the afternoon – and as an added bonus, a way to practice my Spanish comprehension!  Prior to leaving for lunch, I wanted to get a picture of the office Christmas tree.  When I went down to the reception area I asked the receptionist, “Puedo hacer una foto?” which means, “Can I make a photo?”  But because I screw up a lot with Spanish, she figured I meant Puede – which changes to, can YOU make a photo?  So she took my camera and made me stand by the tree.  But the battery was low in my camera so that didn’t happen.  Then a visitor came in the door so I just pulled out the blackberry and took a picture that way.  But the receptionist didn’t think this was good enough, so she made the visitor wait while she took a picture of me in front of the tree.  I was kind of embarrassed.  Okay, I was a lot embarrassed.  Anyway, the picture is alright.  As you can see, I have sleepy eyes and a wicked “gringo pose”.

Gringo by a Christmas Tree!

We finally got internet back at the office about 9 minutes before I was supposed to leave.  Sigh.  I took a carrito home because I was too tired to walk again.  When I arrived at the apartment, I turned on my computer in the hopes of sending all of the emails I had written up in Word at work and posting my blog.    But there was no internet at home.  Luckily I have two amazing neighbours who let me come over to use their internet.  They even fed me some bruschetta.  I will be sad to not have them next door after this weekend.