Internet Launched

By my title, you must be thinking to yourself, "Beth must be so happy!"

You would be more than correct.

I had an interesting day yesterday (Tuesday) here at the apartment. The first thing that happened was at around 11 am, I was just stepping out of the shower and I heard the doorbell ringing...continuously. Stephen was at work. I was not expecting anyone. I am dripping wet.

Well, I went towards the door and (thank goodness) we have a neat contraption of which uses a video camera to show who is outside. I know this can be accomplished with a simple peephole, but we live in a technological world these days. The peephole has graduated to a tiny video camera.

There were a couple of ladies' faces on the screen, of which I did not recognize.

Now, let me interject my own thought process on this little scenario: 1) I am alone. 2) I am in a foreign country. 3) I have read that if you don't know who is at your door, don't answer it. 4) I shouldn't open the door.

But I did. In my towel.

The younger chick said she was here to show the apartment and the landlord said she could. Fury rose inside me like you wouldn't believe. I just couldn't believe the audacity of the landlord to A: assume I'm home, B: assume I'd open the door, C: assume that it's alright with me to let complete strangers in. That's a lot of assuming. And you know what happens when you ASSUME.

Anyway, I made them stand in the hallway while I threw some clothes on. Now, I had big plans of taking my time getting ready. I was going to put lotion on, pluck my eyebrows, do all that girly stuff that seems to take time, so you don't do it every day. You gals know what I mean. But, I threw on some clothes and chucked my 4 pairs of shoes that were in the middle of the bedroom floor into one of the suitcases. I let the people in.

The couple looking at the place were very nice and she was very apologetic to me. The realtor was not. I was very honest with the lady about the fact that the internet hadn't worked for the last 3 weeks and the bedroom A/C unit doesn't work. So, they left. It just threw my day off.

Then, at about noon, the landlord called, and I was able to make out enough of her Russian to believe she was telling me the "Master" was coming over soon. Four hours later, he did show up.

And yes, there was Russian yelling at me.

After about 1/2 hour, he called the landlord and figured out that she had given me the wrong user name and password a couple of weeks ago. So, he felt the need to yell and scream and tear up the old password and throw it on the table and tell me I wasted his time. I told him to get out. "Das Vadanya!" I yelled back, and pointed to the door. By the way, there is no swearing in Das Vadanya...just means good-bye!

Can you believe I kicked him out? Sometimes, I surprise even myself!

However, the moral of the story is this: the internet now works at the apartment. I am once again connected to the rest of the world. At least, it works now. If you lose track of me, it will mean that I lost all connectivity again and you can bet that I'm sad.

Igor, our driver, is coming to get me at 2:30 this afternoon and I am going shopping at Pamctop by myself, for the first time! I'm a little scared, but I should be fine.

It is good to be back.