interwebsless

(from 12 January)

All day today I’ve been without the internet, which has been killer because also all day today I’ve been without a housekey. Long story short, I spent the day getting to know Bailey and doing some serious reading. I also met the cleaning lady, Anne, who is incredibly sweet and friendly. She set out my breakfast for me and introduced me to his highness Purdy, a fifteen-year-old housecat who, apparently, ‘thinks only of himself’ Anne says. This is sort of true for all cats, I suppose, but especially Purdy who seems to think it his duty to block my radiator for his own comfort, and eat breakfast on the counter next to me. He’s great! I guess he belongs to Hilda’s oldest son, whom I haven’t met yet. I got to use the space-age kettle this morning! You set it to boil, and literally as soon as you’ve gotten out the milk and teabag it’s completely ready and as hot as blazes. I ate Strawberry Crisp cereal for breakfast, which was a lot like the topping usually found on crisp desserts, with dried strawberries. Apparently it’s the Korean girls’ favourite. Oh, and the milk here doesn’t offer a percentage, but is a lot like drinking cream. So I think that it must be homogenized.

I learned the bathroom rule yesterday upon arrival, which is ‘there’s only one, so be quick.’ Hilda just had it renovated and showed me with pride the installed electric shower. Whatever that is? All I know is that I have to pull on a switch before I’ll get any water out of the showerhead. Also, heated water is very expensive here and so we get only eight minutes allotted to shave and shampoo. But I should also note, the bathroom door doesn’t lock, the transparent shower wall (with no door) is surrounded by mirrors, and there’s a skylight directly above the shower stall. All very modern and stylish, but you can probably assume that there isn’t much that will keep me in that bathroom for more than a second, let alone eight minutes. I keep thinking I’m going to look up to spy the guy from that Wal-Mart commercial. It’s weird. I mean true.

Awesome fact: Hilda’s youngest son, who was here yesterday, owns a PS3 and a Wii, so when he gets back from his dad’s on Monday I hope that he will let me play!