The Internet

Our struggles getting the internet at our apartment are kind of indicative of doing anything in Europe (speaking from experience when we were in Ireland).

We want the internet. We live kind of far away from town, so it's not easy to just pop into the library and check our email. Plus, I have skype and I want to take advantage of it. And it would let us check the weather. And download songs from iTunes (get a free song with purchase of a Coke promotion!).

When we got into our apartment, we were given a flier and told to contact a specific salesperson. Naturally this person keeps regular business hours, so we didn't contact them the day we arrived (because we didn't get settled until after five). The next day we went bank shopping and again missed the operating hours.

Fortunately the next day we ran into a promotional booth for the very supplier we had been given a flier about. We filled out some forms and paid £25.

Unfortunately, when these people tried to follow through, they found our post code was completely ineligible for internet, much to our surprise, since we had been given the flier for this company after all. They gave us back our £25.

Then it was the weekend and of course the salesperson we wanted to contact was out.

We called on Monday and set up an account. The salesperson said she would call in a half hour with a time for the engineers to come in and set us up. Two hours later she called - there had been a cancellation and we could get set up today. Otherwise the next available time slot was October 6th. So we said sure. And she said a salesperson would be over between 1 and 6 that day.

So we waited until about three, when they showed up. They couldn't find the port where they were supposed to hook us up. They disappeared for 20 minutes and returned with a third person who showed them how to do everything. After about an hour they finished up. The engineer told me to pop the CD into my computer and follow the instructions to set up the modem, then he left.

I looked everywhere for the CD he was talking about, but I couldn't find it. I ran outside and found the engineer. He had forgotten to give me the disc.

Now I had it, but I had things to do today, since it was by now, 4:45. I told Grace to pop in the CD and set up the modem if she wanted to use the internet. I left and got a call sometime after five from Grace wondering what the serial number was - she needed it for registration. I had no idea.

Grace called customer service and got the serial number she needed. Shortly thereafter, she hit a brick wall. It said we had an error in our account information. She called customer service again and they asked for our post code. She gave it to them, but they said the code was ineligible or something. She protested that the company had already been in our place and set the modem up. The customer service man said he couldn't help her without a proper postal code. And then Grace ran out of credit on her mobile phone.

I returned and tried to set the thing up again, to no luck. Now it was well after five again, so we had to wait till the next day to call the salesperson we had been referred to initially.

The next day, after nine, I called again. She was confused that we had been asked for a serial number - that shouldn't have happened. She told me how to manually register the modem, without the CD, which wasn't working apparently. I followed her instructions but hit the same brick wall.

I called back and she called customer service. They asked for the modem code on the side of the modem. I told it to her. Apparently our account had never been activated! She worked it our with customer service and told me to manually register again. We hit the same brick wall.

I called again but she didn't answer. I left a message just as my cell phone ran out of credit. She didn't return the call.

I'm writing this from the public library. I added more credit to my phone and I'm going to call her back.

Things just take longer in Europe.