So after my last post I had planned on a post of things I like about our new place. Unfortunately the ongoing stressful things has continued and have clouded my vision. I thought I would be able to do a post today but we had a few more things happen. So bear with me as I get these out and I really do promise to post about the things I enjoy about our new home. Hopefully, it may take a while.
Ev finally started calling our new place home. During the high stress days as I put her to bed she would calmly say, "mama, I want to go home." That made me cry almost every time. In fact when we would get into a taxi to go home after Todd would tell the driver where to go she would say no and then say in the language our old home's name.
We found out that we don't have floor heating that we control. I don't know if we would have moved here if we would have known that before. We have the lovely ghetto style where we have radiators (most radiators are not hidden like ours are) that are turned on mid October and turned off mid April. Most of this country has this system. Nice control over their people. It can get really cold here so as we are already cold because the past weekend we had lows of 40s and highs in the 50s if we did have our old way of heating the floors with our control we would have used it already. It looks like we are going to have to shell out more money to buy heaters for several rooms. Here in April it can still snow, actually it can snow in May too and not having heat then is not going to be enjoyable either. So I am really frustrated.
Meanwhile the toilet needs fixing still, the sink in the bathroom needs fixing, Ev's window needs replacing... Our landlords are too busy right now to help us out. Oh the joys of a country where people don't take others into consideration.
We got the Internet hooked up on Friday afternoon and then by Saturday morning we didn't have it. We had to call several times and finally today (Monday) we have it again. Why can't people do their jobs correctly the first time?
To top it all off we went to dinner tonight at our friend's house. They have been great sounding boards for us to get off all the junk that we have been dealing with. We stayed over at their house a little later than usual and came home to the front doors of our apartment being locked. Our wonderful (can you hear my sarcastic voice?) landlords haven't given us the key to the front door yet. So far since other apartments are being fixed up so the front door has been open. But not tonight. So we stood outside in the cold and had to call our landlord 2 times for him to get someone from the complex to come and open our door How long have we been living here so far and we still don't have all the keys?!
Today Todd and I went to buy new curtains for our bedroom. Getting curtains made is probably one of my most stressful things to do. If I could get good material that is large enough I would make them myself. But the house we live in has 4 windows that are 2. 5 meters in length and 2.5 meters in height. When you go and tell them the size of your window they double the fabric because they love huge flowing curtains. I'm not a fan of them. So I tell them what I want and they argue with me about how ugly that is and that it will look flat Why should they care? But they do and will calculate the measurements based on their ideas over yours. Meaning if you had a 2 meter length window they will make the curtain 5 meters and it will cost way too much. I am just tired of arguing and defending myself. Plus since I am a foreigner they will charge me more than locals. So I have to go round and round with them to lower their price. It is exhausting.
Today when I was buying something else I was measuring it against something I had just bought. The lady wouldn't sell it to me because she said it wouldn't work. Doesn't that sound ridiculous? I was giving her business but it wasn't to her liking so she would rather not have business.
I would really like to just stay inside my house and not talk to anyone. That really defeats the purpose of why we are here. But I am just undone with this culture that I think I will snap at anyone and at anything.
Oh and Todd and I were trying to research ways of getting to this other city to see Todd's sister. We don't want to do this but other than taking an airplane you can take a train. The train is cheaper than paying for 3 airline tickets but the train is over 24 hours. Meaning we would have to get a soft sleeper bed and buy 4 of them to ensure we would have a space just for our family and not any random person. You can't just buy these tickets. You have to buy them 10 days in advanced and you have to go through a travel agent. Or you could stand in line at the train station before 6am and you are not guaranteed to get the soft sleeper bed. So we went to a hotel that has a travel agent but after waiting for the guy to show up he tells us he can't issue tickets and told us another place to go.
In addition to this we are trying to weigh the factors of taking the 24 hour train. Do we really want to be surrounded by the people for 24 hours? They will stare at us, grab our kids and be up in our personal space. Do we want our 1 yr old to scream the entire time? The only reason why we would even entertain this option is because we have spent so much money so far getting the house fixed up and buying 3 plane tickets to this city are incredibly expensive. It is ridiculous how expensive the tickets are to fly to a city that is 2 hours or less away.
I think I am done now. Don't you wish you lived where we do?
2 comments:
I am so sorry for all the problems with the new apartment. We can make a chat date if you need to. E-mail if you need to.
I used to HATE it when they would try to help me and really the last thing I wanted was their help! Like when they tell you what would really look nice and that your ideas are all ugly...then they just say no! GRRR! Just think of Peter's...Pandas...Scrapbooking magazines...Ikea...friends...family...date nights!!
Post a Comment