syncategorematic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
syncategorematic) wrote2010-07-14 07:37 am
syncategorematic) wrote2010-07-14 07:37 am
Entry tags:
Why is it that on credit, on coupons, I am offered the people I love?
So...as soon as I post about being an Internet ganglion again, my Internet conkers out.
So a lot of yesterday and today was spent trying to figure out what's wrong, without using the Internet.
Apparently, after like an hour with the completely Spanish-speaking Movistar representative, we worked out that it it because our account dropped below 3 euros, although the previous time it dropped below three euros, our Internet did not get cut off.
I have to say this for Movistar: they have excellent people trying to make do with lousy technology (I've heard that one before, somewhere). When we first got our wireless with them, the machine printed from my ID that my birthplace was Saudi Arabia (!) because, as the nice guy explained it, "la maquina es loca." In one of the stores we looked into, the automatic top-up machine did not work --- "la maquina no functiona." "X no functiona" became our running snowclone on this trip: "la metafora no functiona," the metaphor failed, came up in conversation.
Anyhow, I had travelled all the way to my bank's office in Madrid, only to find there that in Spain this bank does only commercial accounts, but I managed to get some cash from another bank's machine, so we were good for that, and topped up the account, so I have Internet again. Watch for the next news in this quarter.
Also, in more pleasant news, yesterday to pass the time when we thought it was a wifi problem in general, we went to the Parque de Retiro, rented a rowboat, and went rowing on the pond, amid the carp, koi fish, turtles and ducks, and lots of other tourists. I actually rowed for the first time in...about ten years. I am surprised my arms ache as little as they do. So that was fun.
So a lot of yesterday and today was spent trying to figure out what's wrong, without using the Internet.
Apparently, after like an hour with the completely Spanish-speaking Movistar representative, we worked out that it it because our account dropped below 3 euros, although the previous time it dropped below three euros, our Internet did not get cut off.
I have to say this for Movistar: they have excellent people trying to make do with lousy technology (I've heard that one before, somewhere). When we first got our wireless with them, the machine printed from my ID that my birthplace was Saudi Arabia (!) because, as the nice guy explained it, "la maquina es loca." In one of the stores we looked into, the automatic top-up machine did not work --- "la maquina no functiona." "X no functiona" became our running snowclone on this trip: "la metafora no functiona," the metaphor failed, came up in conversation.
Anyhow, I had travelled all the way to my bank's office in Madrid, only to find there that in Spain this bank does only commercial accounts, but I managed to get some cash from another bank's machine, so we were good for that, and topped up the account, so I have Internet again. Watch for the next news in this quarter.
Also, in more pleasant news, yesterday to pass the time when we thought it was a wifi problem in general, we went to the Parque de Retiro, rented a rowboat, and went rowing on the pond, amid the carp, koi fish, turtles and ducks, and lots of other tourists. I actually rowed for the first time in...about ten years. I am surprised my arms ache as little as they do. So that was fun.