internet woes

I didn't expect to miss having the internet so much. When we were staying in our temporary housing, there was an internet cafe that was just across the street. I spent a lot of time there, in the middle of the mall (see below).

But we moved into our new, permanent apartment about a month ago. And it has been brutal not having internet. The closest internet cafe isn't that far, but it isn't as convenient. There is a cafe close to the house that has free wifi--but the two times I went there, I was the only one surfing the internet. Somehow, it feels weird to be the only one in a cafe who is staring at a computer.

I felt very conspicuous.

Plus, I've been wanting to Skype with people--which you can't do in a cafe. So, we've just been waiting to get hooked up. Which turned out to be more of a process than I expected. I'm not sure if it's the same in the US--but two different technicians had to some out to tag the line and get it started on the phone/DSL company that we picked. I got to see the inside of the "MDF" (not sure what it stands for) room. There was a white plastic panel, with all of these little holes in it. Then a mess of red and white wires. The technician had to figure out which of the wires was the one going to our apartment unit--and then had to pull it out from the mess (without pulling out any of the other 100+ wires)--and then had to push it into the white plastic panel.

It seemed oddly primitive.

Anyway, the good news is that we finally have internet at home! Now I can surf the web in the comfort of our house. Sadly, we still don't have our stuff. I've been told that it will take another 2-3 weeks to get our stuff out of customs and quarantine. So, I'm hopeful that we'll get it before the end of January... We'll see.