Week in, none the wiser

Hello,

My new update:

I have signed up for school which does not start till April, which means that for the next month I will largely be a bum, not sure how I feel about that: Guilty I guess, bored a little - in anticipation of being bored. I have grand plans to look for something exciting to do but who knows what the reality will be.

We have managed to paint another room, now we just have the small spaces left to paint (kitchen, hallways etc). Ohh and of course we have to fix all the mistakes we have made and the doors which are in terrible shape. All in all still a lot to do. The big question is will our landlord approve? We did not ask him before doing all this stuff so i hope he does not flip. At the moment I am choosing not to think about it.

Now on to the exiting developments: we have purchased a TV and a washing machine. The way it works here is that if you want a fridge, stove, or a washing machine (no one has dryers, you dry your stuff the old fashioned way: air-dry) you have to bring them with you from apartment to apartment (even if you are renting), nothing comes with the home/rental. So for the first time in my life I purchased a washing machine, which was a very interesting experience. Besides the fact that you have to bargain for the price of everything, which gets really annoying when you are not used to it, people try to swindle you left and right. For example you can purchase one thing and then something completely different will get delivered, or they will outright lie, at least that is what we think happened to us. Now we are not 100% on this but we are pretty sure that when we were promised a full HD TV, what we were actually given was an old crappy model that was not even HD Ready. At this point we went to a chain and bought there, a bit more expensive but a piece of mind.. or so we hope :)

Another reason I love America: Everything is HUGE, you may not realize this now but comparatively speaking.. huge. I was in shock when I was looking at these washing machines. From the outside they look normal but then you look inside to where the cloths go they are teeny-tiny. My aunt tried to reassure me that I was crazy and that she used a 5 kilo machine (that's how much fits inside per wash, about 10 lbs) her whole life, with a family of 5 (including 2 growing boys), and since I only have to wash for 2 I should be fine with a 3 kilo (6 lbs) machine. My response to this was: Listen lady I am sure that it was great, but when you are used to a machine that fits the entire apartment inside, going to a 3 kilo machine... well... you might as well just wash it all by hand.

We proceeded to purchase the largest machine option they had which was 7 kilos (about 15 lbs). Just for comparison; now I cant be sure since I never bought a machine before but a normal machine in the States probably fits about 30 lbs.

My next adventure is getting a cell-phone plan which I started today and plan to complete tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes but should be fun since this too is a bargaining exercise.

After living here for a while I think I will be able to go back to the states and become a negotiator :)