Getting settled

I decided to sleep in this morning to recover from an exhausting day. By “sleeping in” I mean I went to bed at midnight (10 pm in my US time zone) and got up at 10 a.m. (8 a.m. my home time zone). I immediately went to recharge my phone so I could begin to make my phone calls to get things rolling. Well, when I bought the card to get my minutes, I noticed there was a problem: It was not accepting the code. I went to the store where I bought it and they told me the customer service number. I called them, they said to have the store sell me a new SIM card because I hadn’t used the phone since July. I went to the store, they didn’t believe me. They told me to call customer service again, where employee number 2 told me that they’d reset it so that I could use it again. I’d just have to wait an hour. After waiting an hour (which I spent writing the earlier blog entries), I tried again. Still no use. So one more time, I called customer service. Employee number 3 tried a lot of different things to reactivate my SIM card, but she finally said that despite her best efforts, it had been more than 211 days since I’d used my phone (I can’t imagine who came up with 211 as a good cut-off number), I’d have to buy a new SIM card for 10€. But of course, by this time, siesta— that plague on efficiency— had already begun, so I had to wait around. I went back there, they gave me a new card, and I had almost escaped when the manager looked over and said, no, you can’t just give him a new card, he needs a new number. So now, after paying an additional 10€, I have a new number (which immediate family should receive via e-mail tonight).

Then I called Jorge, and we met up, spent the evening with his friend Samuel (who bought us dinner at a Haitian place, though I felt obliged to chip in), who Jorge said would help me find a place, thought it seemed that Samuel was unaware of this plan and now I have to get up early tomorrow and keep looking. Wish me luck!