Hello, Hello

Best news of the week....we now have our home internet, phone and cable successfully set up. This marks the end of two weeks of impatiently waiting for this luxury. We signed up for the service the day after moving into our house on December 16th. In what we are coming to understand as typical French customer service, we were told we would receive our "equipment box" in ten to twenty-one days. Excuse me??? Yep, that's the best they could do. I'm pretty sure Comcast people arrive within a day of signing up for a new service, but that's in the land of twenty-four-seven Walmart. And, (sigh), we're a long way away from there!

Anyway, after only a two week wait, our magical cable box arrived. Excitedly, we torn into the package thinking everything would work smoothly and we would be up and running within minutes. But at this point, we should know better. Nothing worked like it should.

Our very helpful French friends came over to see if they could assist us in figuring it out. But when they couldn't get it to work either, they assisted even more by making the call to the customer service department. The next day two technicians arrived from "Free" and were able to hook us up (literally). The problem had something to do with the new electrical system in the house. They got everything to work, but told us it would take an additional twenty-four hours for the WiFi signal to be up and running....whatever...what is one more day at this point. It's almost comical.

With our high speed (but still Ethernet-cord-confined) internet, I'm now able to look at Christmas pictures from family and friends without having thirty extra minutes on my hands for the pictures to load up. Our Skype connection should be more fluent without as many interruptions. And just in time for the Rose Bowl (whew), our Slingbox should provide a much more clear and consistent view of the Buckeyes as they beat Oregon tonight.

But I'm most excited about finally being able to have Vonage up and running. We are able to make and receive calls from the US with our local "614" number. If you have my cell phone number (which I've had since my freshman year in college) you can now call us---and it will be like a regular call from within the US. No extra charges!

Oh, the beauty of being able to talk to my beloved sisters/best friends with a good connection, and no running tally of charges in the corner of the screen rushing my conversations. And my Mom will finally have the number she has been waiting for...a number she can call us on.

We didn't bring out TV from the States...it wouldn't work here. So for the moment we have this hand-me-down TV from Elise. Phil is going to pick up a new European TV when he makes a trek to the US base in Germany for a flight physical in a couple of weeks. They will be cheaper there. In the meantime, Lily can work on her French language acquisition via cartoons on this little tube.

Just another milestone in our journey of feeling settled and "at home" in our new life.



And give us a call...we'd love, love, love to hear from you! Just keep in mind we're six hours ahead of EST.