no S E R V I C E still

At a glance, looks like Caden is talking on our house phone. Not so! It actually rings when someone is at the door ringing the bell. There's a phone on the main level and the lower level and ringers on the front and side doors outside. You can talk to the outside party without ever opening the door. Of course, the boys love this- especially since every time they go outside, they have to knock (or call) in order to have the door opened to get back in. Very annoying on both sides of the door- getting locked out, and having to open it every two minutes for little guys who can't make up their mind to stay in or out! About our house phone. I'm not even sure I want one now after paying our phone bill at the hotel. Phone service is (like everything else over here) very expensive. We applied for one (around Nov 25th) and were told we'd know within a couple days if we could even get Internet service. There are only so many available ports for Internet in our village. Even if the previous tenants had Internet service doesn't mean it's available for us. Anyhow, after waiting over two weeks we found out yes, we are eligible for service and they will be out on January 4 to hook it up. January 4th, are you serious? This was last week, so it took them over two weeks just to look up if we could get it and another three weeks to hook it up. Wow- so behind the times. In getting Internet, we are getting a home phone number- only because it's part of their cheapest package. I think if someone calls to our home phone from a land line it's $1.25 a minute to talk. Maybe only 20 cents a minute if someone calls from a cell phone. I think it might be for emergency use only- might be having to tell any friends I meet to just Skype me...  everyone has Skype, right?

On the other side- Germans consider being late very, very rude. If they say dinner is at 5:00, be ready to eat at 5:00. We've heard this over and over. Early is actually on time. But, if you're waiting for any type of service- forget it, you're on their time and they're in no hurry. To hook up our service on the 4th is an all-day appointment between the hours of 0800 - 1600 hrs- nice.  With one company having a monopoly of 95% of Internet service in our area- we have no other choice. In the meantime, thank goodness our neighbors (Americans) are still letting us link in to their wireless connection from our house.