Wednesday Jan 25/12

Wednesday Jan 25/12 Update
I never expected to be able to blog tonite but we have Michael's internet stick and Bella's laptop which is driving me crazy.
I met Michael at 9 and went to the TV Cable office expecting to have to battle to avoid a $140 penalty if we cancelled the TV portion and hoping to sweet-talk them with a longer term internet contract.  We had to bounce between two desks and I had brought the TV box with me but had forgot the remote.  The cancellation was only $25 so I paid cash.  Then we went to arrange the move of the uy,internet to the new house.  Lo and behold they don't provide service into our area of the city...  So we grab a cab home and unhook evrything and return with the modem and the remote and all the cables.   They are satisfied and we are cancelled properly.
Michael suggests I try Etapa about five blocks away.   They turned out to be horrifically expensive and slower so I quickly crossed them off my list.   Also their systeaym had been down for long stretches in the last two days.
So I head to the new house to meet with my computer guy, Xavier, but I make a detour into the Mall De Monay to check out other providers.  Everyone is offering these USB sticks for $20 but they are all slow and unreliable.   Also we will have 2-3 computers to satisfy.  Movistar has a small modem that will run up to 5 computers but they want $50 per month.  I discuss all this with Xavier as he is picking up my laptop for cloning and he recommends Alegra (whose stick we are using tonight) and their office is 1/2 block from the big cathedral.   I'll have to see if I can make it there tomorrow or Friday.   I really need internet to set up my new computer on Saturday.
I expected to be meeting the door installer around 2 and the granite installer around 3 but Jorge stopped by to say the granite guy will show up at 5 and the door installer at 8am tomorrow.   Jorge dropped off the matching window for the upper terrace, all except for the glass for the round upper part.   I guess they make those to fit after the fact.
I had a quick nap on my new bed and Bella phoned that the drapery people were coming by at 3:30 and that she was rushing down to meet us.  I asked her to bring the vacuum so we could clean up quickly behind them.   Well the installer and a cab driver could not find our place in spite of detailed, simple instructions and photos.  He ended up sitting in the rain at the cab stand 2 blocks away.  Some neighbors stopped by to chat and one fellow spoke pretty good english so we called the guy back and had this fellow talk to him.  When we found out where he was I walked down to help haul the stuff in.   You could tell immediately that this guy has installed a few sets of drapes in his day!   Other than borrowing my stool and a hacksaw he had all his hardware and tools neatly arranged and he put the drapes on the rods the correct direction every time.  There are a couple of minor differences from what we ordered but nothing to cry about, the drapes look tremendous, especially in the living room.   I purposely did not take any photos today because I want to show you the finished product after Friday's move-in.
Then the granite guy showed up early and installed the granite countertop in under 1/2 hour and we are again tickled pink with that result!   We now only need the door installed tomorrow and we could move in nicely.  The terrace roof construction will have to await the final bill from Jorge. We decided to go to Mall De Monay for supper and to check out items at Coral.  After wolfing down a small pizza we shopped to find two great adjustable bar stools for the breakfast island, a lovely plant to hide some exposed plumbing, and some garbage cans which we cabbed quickly to the new house before returning home.
Once home we packed up the computer area and the TV.   It won't take much to do the rest which will probably fit in my big suitcase.   We are getting VERY excited to be so close to fruition.
Bella points out that Jorge had estimated the work to take up to two months to complete and we have managed to cajole our way into getting most of it done in under 3 weeks.  Jorge deserves a lot of this credit.
Anyway, that was today's excitement.   Hugs to all.