Things I do not love ...

One thing I do not love is spending all day with customer service of various sorts.  I had to send a sassy e-mail to my management company for my apartment since they decided to bill me for my deposit/last months rent + this months rent even though I know both have been deposited into their account.  Plus, my oven has been out of commission for over a week now.  No word from them yet. 

Then it was on to Amazon UK.  I ordered a few things from them last week (a cookbook and a drying rack) but part of my order hadn't shipped with the rest (namely kitchen utensils and the Britta pitcher that will hopefully make my water taste like Not Garbage).  All of that was supposed to be delivered today, but I got a cryptic e-mail saying it was being returned.  So, back to the e-mail I went trying to ask WHY it was being returned.  I got a really nasty message back about how sometimes if you write the wrong address they can't deliver it.  I knew this was not my fault so I pressed the issue with them again.  And it turns out their delivery guy BROKE all of my stuff (dropped some other heavy box on it).  So they were refunding me.  But I don't really want a refund.  I want my Britta filter and a pair of tongs so I can turn over meat without having to stab it with a fork or scoop it between a ladle and a sieve.  Plus, all of the things I had ordered were on sale last week, but not anymore.  After some finagling, I got first class shipping on that package, plus they're refunding the difference in price.

The final customer service nightmare was the worst.  Verzion Wireless, how I hate you.  Long story short, I'm trying to transfer my old phone number to a prepaid account - which I know you can do since my friend Neil did just that before he moved to Europe.  Well, of course it's not that easy because I had a smart phone in the US.  Apparently that ruins everything. This is literally the 10th time I have called Verizon about this.  I tried to resolve the issue via e-mail and I got a ridiculous reply telling me to use a link that does not work outside the US (a fact I said in my first e-mail to them).  I hope the guy gets in trouble because I complained about it when I called.  A lady insisted on transferring me, but I refused (and cried - which, let's be honest, always helps), and she finally fixed the problem.  Mostly.  Apparently, Pete has to call to make sure the number is transferred to my new non-smart phone in the US.  I actually told the lady at the beginning of the call "I am really, really mad at Verizon, but I am not mad at you because I know this isn't your fault personally, so I'm sorry if I sound like I'm mad at you."  She actually told me at the end of the call that she really appreciated me saying that.  She said she was also sorry that I had to call after a long day of work.  Which I was also sorry about.  I did not want to spend an hour and a half between 7:15 and 8:45 on the phone with Verizon Wireless.

In spite of all of this ridiculousness, I did manage to get work done today, which is a minor miracle.

This is all just foreshadowing the Spanish customer service I have to deal with in the next few weeks, picking up my resident card, changing my bank account from a foreigner account to a national account, and getting a cell phone here.  Hopefully there will be no crying and much less drama.

I also made two mistakes in the blanket I'm making but because the colors change every other row, I didn't have enough yarn left on the ends to go back and fix it.  So I made an improvisational fix.  I'm getting good at improvisation now, in crochet and knitting, in cooking, in shopping and in language.  Maybe I'll learn to be more spontaneous while I'm here.

Hah!

Finally, Pete said he sent me my camera cord, so in the next week or two there will be many (many) picture posts!  I can't wait to show my apartment and the town!