phones and more!

wow, am i tired! i suppose it could be leftovers of jet lag, or just stressing from finding an apartment and everything else that i need to do. like getting a bank account... which i’m still waiting to hear back on.

we went and looked at phone things today. it was about 105€ to get an 8 megamax internet connection (i have not the foggiest what that means...) with integrated landline that includes unlimited calls to other landlines in france (you pay per call here... and it costs more to call a cell phone than to call a fixed connection), and two cell phones with an hour of minutes each for the month -- but whitney and i would have unlimited calls to each others’ phones, so that wouldn’t be too bad... i mean, who else are we gonna be calling around here, sarkozy? oh... i also saw the smallest laptop ever today! 10” screen. it’s called the medion. check it out. (it's a youtube... watch the first minute to see the size of the thing...)

well, our apartment is nice. 31 m2 (or about 335 square feet...), two rooms, kitchenette, small bathroom (toilet, sink, shower). a few pieces of decent furniture. and only 330€ ($495-ish) a month, utilities included. not bad at all. a little pricey by american standards, but hey. and it’s central to everything, in the old part of town. gorgeous!

we did a little shopping spree to get it all set up and ready... to finish off what they already gave us. we went at the end of the day, when we were both really tired, hungry and all around grouchy. bad move. what’s more, they started to close the store, and we were only like 1/2 done with our stuff. bah! not the best experience of all... and a little spendier than i would have liked... but that life, eh?

church is amazing. me likey much. the branch is so friendly and receptive. great folks. the new branch president (for like 2 weeks now...) used to live in a city i served in on my mission. he’s super chill and funny. comes from a good family. we went to the start of the year institute meeting (something we’re pretty sure we’re gonna keep doing), which was a lot of fun. met some really swell folks there. i like this area... even if the elders do call it “the end of the earth” and “middle of nowhere france.” silly missionaries.

yeah... so major frustration. we went to the bank today to drop off one last little paper for the account. we pulled out 80€, 30 to keep on us, and 50 to put in the account (which, silly me, i didn’t realize we couldn’t do yet because we haven’t actually been approved yet). we then went about our business for other things, and decided to stop off at the pharmacy to pick up some cold medicine (we’ve both been hit with something nasty). my card was refused... twice. so, we paid cash and went on our way. i was a little apprehensive about this, since i noticed like 8 transactions were still pending online, from several days. we go to the store to do some food shopping (because we only grabbed enough for the weekend when we went saturday), and again my card was refused twice. what the frick! i told the bank i was leaving the country for a year... and i’ve been making random purchases for the last week. what’s up? it’s not like there’s a lack of funds... so, we’re gonna try sending my mom an email, and see if she can’t get this regulated with the bank. if not, we’ll have to use the money we have to buy an int’l phone card, and fight it out with the bank sometime. talk about stinking annoying! grrr...

ok... way too much fumage for one day. i’m done.