So, I think this works now. Sort of. Eventually, we´ll have this set up on our own site, but for now this will have to do. Right now we are getting ready to move into our apartment, and that means talking to the utilities. This is something we never really mastered in Boston. We still don´t know how electricity deregulation improved choice for us, the consumers. Luckily, there´s no confusing deregulation here. Quite the contrary.

Getting water was easy. Perhaps that´s for the best, since we need it to live. There was a nice woman there - Olga - who spoke English and after we retrieved our passport number, bank account number, rental contract number, and the number of something called a Cedula de Habilitabidad, we were told we would have water on Wednesday. We shall see.

The gas company had the gall to employ no English speakers, but we were able to determine, after several phone calls, that we need 5 numbers from a meter. Now, this sounds easy, but we haven´t done it yet. Considering that one of the neat things we found out the water is that we need to get our own meter. We could buy or rent, which is nice. I suppose the last tenants took theirs. Hopefully there will, in fact, be a meter there to read.

Electricity may be a little tougher. Apparently (this transaction took place in Spanish, as well. This is a language we do not speak.) we need to find an electrician. Again, something we don´t really know how to do in English. Luckily, there is a doorman (doorwoman?) in our building, who has been very helpful. A lot of things here start off complicated but become very easy of you say "por favor" a lot and look like you don´t understand. We´ve mastered this. An equal number of things, though, remain complicated.

We´ll just see. We´ll keep you posted.