Sept. 8, 2011 (phone numbers)

Skipped an update yesterday, but the big (kind of, anyway) news is that we now have Internet at the apartment! Sue, in particular, is welcoming being connected again (I was able to use my cell phone, so was in denial about life without the Internet). Anyway, we bought two of these devices that take a cell phone 3G signal and then broadcast wifi from them. So, to your computer it looks like there is a modem coming into the house. But the best part is that these devices are small and portable (think very small, very light cell phone). So, you can take them with you and have wireless anywhere inside or out. Very nifty! These are just coming on the market in the US and it is the first thing that we've found that is actually cheaper here (unlimited internet for 9 euros a month with these). Anyway, a nice development for us.

Secondly, we both have a cheapie cell phone that you can call and text us on. Now, you probably won't want to do so (the calling part) b/c it will cost you overseas fees to do so. But the texting shouldn't cost you too much. You may have to play around with the number you use (explained below). And with Internet at home, we can check e-mail easily and we will try some skyping soon.

Other updates:

- Went to Henry's school yesterday and checked it out. Besides the apparent lack of legos, he liked it :-) The Director can speak better English when I was there before, but it will still be an adventure to figure much out :-) We'll see how the dynamic of Grace going to school less than Henry (most days Grace is done at 11:30, but some days at 9:30!, and Henry will go to noon).

- I worked! Yes, it was inevitable, but I worked almost a whole day. Wednesdays are going to be my "US Meeting Day," with meetings going to 1p or so Central time (which means 8p or so CET). I was home by 9p and it was kind of fun to be out after dark for the first time.

- Today I spent a good chuck of the day doing the above while Sue took the kids on a shopping trip for school supplies. A kind person there took pity on Sue and took the list for Grace's class and basically filled their basket with everything on the list :-)

Ok, that's it ... I need to figure out how to put our new cell phones on the English setting ... at least for now!

Bye!

Russ

Address: 

This is how it is written here ...  

 Meller-Hankins  

 <e-mail for address>

 8010 Graz

 Austria

We live in an apartment and everyone assures us that we don't need to list our apartment number.  That's a good thing because we don't know our apartment number ... our mailbox key opens #2, but we are on the top floor, and our buzzer seems to be in the 3 spot.  So, maybe no one knows our apartment number!

Graz is the city and the zip code is 8010.  We don't think you need to list the state, but if you did, it is Styria.

Phone numbers:

Russ (+ 43 650 490 5939; 00 can be a replacement for +, and 43 is the country code)

Sue (+43 650 4901469)

E-mail stays the same!