Highs and Lows

Friday, November 27, 2009

Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving.  We missed you. 

We started by biking over to the Uni and checking e-mail.  We got to Skype with Leah’s parents and family.  It was great to see everyone around the table.  I admit to having a bit of a tear-eye when we saw Stanley.  No offence to you all but I really miss my dog.  Ross is taking good care of him though.

When we were getting ready to sign off with the family our friends in Denver skyped us from the Thanksgiving party.  That really made our day.  You guys are great.  It was awesome to see everyone.  The purple teeth were phenomenal and I could smell the highballs.  We both decided that Skype time with Leah and Todd should be a part of all parties from now on.  Get working on that y’all.

Feeling great we made our way back to Toowong and popped in to the Telstra shop.  They’re still giving us the runaround about the home phone and internet.  We decided to cancel the work order and get wireless internet from another provider.  (Wireless internet here is the kind that you pop into a USB port and it works off the cell network)  The girl who has been handling our account at Telstra was pretty relieved when we told her we changed our minds.  She had been just as frustrated as us.

We went over to the “3 communications” store in the mall.  They have a relatively cheap plan that they call month to month.  It’s not as fast as Telstra’s home plan but the price is right and we thought we could get it right away. 

Even though the plan is called “month to month” and you pay for the USB modem up front, they still want to

do a credit check. It doesn’t make any sense to me.  A credit check for Telstra was no problem.  They were willing to sign me up for nearly $200 a month on a 24 month plan.  So I figured we’d be fine with 3.  Nope.  Since I don’t have a job, have never worked in Australia and don’t have any Australian credit cards they aren’t willing to let me sign up.   

I failed the credit check, credit here is totally independent from credit in America, so they don’t care that I’ve never missed a payment in my life.  It’s irrelevant.  So I had already cancelled the work order with Telstra and now we’re back to square one.  No internet no home phone and no credit.  The guy did say there is an 80% chance that Leah will pass because she’s a student, but we didn’t have enough ID for her to try. 

There are some pre-paid mobile internet plans out there but they are expensive and charge you for downloads in 10 megabyte increments.  Not exactly fair.

I was feeling pretty crestfallen.  We thought we had it all figured out and we were knocked back.  I’ve never

had this much trouble trying to get basic utilities set up.  I feel helpless.

We went home and sat in the air-con while I fumed for a time.  We made some dinner and sat down to watch a movie on telly.  Tomorrow is my birthday so we’re planning on going to the Australia Zoo, the zoo that Steve Irwin started.  I want to wear my white river/pirate/Michael Jackson/spf shirt (GR 09!) that’s dirty so I threw it in the sink to hand wash so it’ll be ready tomorrow and when I pulled it out of the sink it’s got these yellow stains all over it.  I’m not sure what happened to it but the last time I wore it was on the beach and I suspect the sunscreen from the dermatologist had something to do with it.  Whatever it was, my shirt looks nasty and is probably ruined.  It was really the last thing I could handle tonight.  It seems like I can’t get anything right at the moment. 

So I don’t want to sound too negative, because I don’t really feel discouraged.  I’m just feeling stressed.  I never expected to slide right into the lap of luxury here, but internet at home would be nice.  Also I’d like a Diet Dr. Pepper.

Some observations for today:

-The eighties are alive and well in the dress of Australian teenagers.

-School children here all wear uniforms; you can tell what school a kid goes to by the color of their outfit.  All of them include a hat with a wide brim.  It’s cute.

-The Queensland government has a PSA campaign going on now aimed at road safety called “Slow down stupid.” 

-Things I didn’t know:  I didn’t know that the space shuttle was even on a mission until it landed.  It took 12 hours for the story about Tiger Woods crashing to get here.