complaints of the pampered

internet connection in this country is irratating. it is rather expensive to have a connection into ones home, so most people frequent cyber cafes that are all over the place here. most of the time you can find a place that costs 1 schilling per minute, which is more or less the same as a penny. i heard a rumor once that the cyber cafes were losing money because their connection speeds were too fast. so they implemented something to make everything run really slowly, thus insuring that their customers spent at least enough to make them some money. i don’t know if this rumor is true or not, but it sure makes sense. most of the time it takes me something like 10 minutes to log into my hotmail account and get to the page where i can check my mail. maybe i just get impatient.

i went to change some US currency into the local schilling today and had a bit of a shock when they told me that because i had small bills (smaller than a 50 or 100) i was going to get a lower exchange rate than i would have with the larger bills. it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but i was going to lose about 10 bucks in the overall transaction. luckily i was able to find someone who would trade my smaller bills for larger ones and then i was able to go back and get a better exchange rate. only wasted about 2 hours of my day sorting that out.

still struggling with jetlag. got home around 7 last night and passed out. Slept for 12 hours, got up had some breakfast and then went back to sleep for another 2 hours. is a rough life. but now its only 6 in the evening and i already feel like i am about to doze off again. really aggrivating.