Well, since I am sitting here on hold with the phone company, I figured now would be as good a time as any to write in my blog!
This was a good week. I got my new car on Tuesday and guess what—it wasn’t a stick shift afterall!! Imagine my surprise and relief when I walked outside and looked in the car and saw P, R, N, D instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! Figuring out how to drive a stick has been a source of stress for me the past few days, but now all that worry is gone. Woo-hoo! Anyway, I got a cute little funky 2007 car called a Renault Magane and it is electric blue. I like the color because it is something that I wouldn’t normally pick out on my own. Also, the car didn’t come with regular keys. To start the car, you just put this card in a slot and push the start button and the engine comes to life! Neat! I like it a lot, but I will only have this car for a few months and then I will getting one of my co-worker’s cars in February when she moves back to the States since there will still be a year left on her lease. She has a Ford Focus, but it is a 2006 so it won’t be too much of a downgrade. Plus, it’s an automatic so that’s all that really matters!! If you click on the link there are some pictures of my car and the “key”, and I also threw in a picture of our street and the gym that I go to. :)
I’m serious about running this marathon in April! I worked out 5 times this week and on Wednesday I met with a trainer at the gym and he gave me a workout plan so that I will be rock-solid and in tip-top shape in no time! Anyway, Victor and I had dinner with some of the other Fellows last night and one girl said that she was going to run the marathon with me. This was after a couple of glasses of wine though, so may be she didn’t realize what she was saying. Ha! I told her that she could back out if she wanted to because I have backed out of running marathons too many times to count. I’m really going to do it this time though.
A word about British television…sometimes I giggle when I watch TV because on some shows instead of having closed captioning, they have a little man or woman standing in the corner of the screen doing sign language. I laugh everytime. One day when we first moved here Victor and I were watching TV and the man was in the corner signing away and then all of a sudden he disappeared and Victor was like, “Where did he go?” and I was like, “It must have been time for his break.” Ahahahahaha!! I crack up everytime I think about my funny joke. A lot of the commercials are funny too. I’m going to start posting some of them if I EVER get the INTERNET in my APARTMENT!!!!!! Sorry—touchy subject!
What else…oh yeah, I went to the Civic Office yesterday to pay our Council Tax, and the lady was so rude to me. L Unfortunately, customer service is not one of the UK’s strong suits. For instance, I have been waiting to get my check card from the bank for two weeks now. I called the bank a couple of days ago to let them know I had not gotten my card and they checked at it hadn’t even been sent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was very polite and asked that it be sent rush delivery because I don’t have access to my funds and they said sure. Well, I called back today and I was told that the card was sent rush delivery yesterday but it would still take 4 business days to get to me. ???? Guess how long it takes for them to send it regular delivery? 5 DAYS!!!!! I was not lying when I said that they like to take their time doing stuff here. Oh well…and by the way, it’s been 40 minutes and I’m still on hold with the phone company…
5 comments:
I cracked up when I read about the little people doing sign language on the tv. In my mind I imagined a little person (midget) popping out of the tv and doing sign language in the middle of your living room LOL!
Abigail
Hi Lydia, sounds like you are having fun...well not with all of these companies. I don't know if you know this but your car in the same color was on a BBC show called Torchwood. I like it!!!
Hi Lydia and Victor,
Your phone company is behaving the way the phone company use to behave in the States before deregulation back in the late 70's or early 80's. Back then, the phone company had a monopoly and they treated you any way they wanted to treat you and you had little recourse. But after deregulation, there was a lot more competition and the phone companies cleaned up their customer service act quite a bit. Not that customer service is still anything to write home about (Sprint says hey!).
Glad you all are settling in as well as can be expected. Nice looking car. How much is gas in the UK these days?
Talk to you soon. Love, Daddy
That car is clean...very sporty. I think you should put some 20's on it!
Mark
Hooray! The blog is back! Sounds like you will be refining your patience skills while you're over there. I wonder what the benefit of using a card and pushing a button versus using a key is. I bet it is more fun than using a key.
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