Dial-up Hell (and Egyptian bureaucracy)

We have been in our new apartment for two weeks. But do we have wireless internet? Nope!! Not for lack of trying though. First we tried to transfer our account from our old line in Zamalek to our new house, as we had a month remaining on the account already paid for that we didn't want to lose. But it became very clear very quickly -- through requests for neverending pieces of stamped papers -- that that path was more trouble than it was worth.

So we embarked on a new path of simply ignoring the fact that we already had an account, and simply opening a new account on the new line. But it turned out that the previous tenants had an ADSL account with a separate company, and that company had not released the line when the account was cancelled. We managed to get all the required bureaucracy, including a confirmation number for the cancellation of the leased line, but we still don't have a high speed internet connection. Aaaaaahhhhh!

So we are working on a free dialup connection, which is not bad speedwise. I guess no one uses dialup anymore so that's why it's fast. But unfortunately it is not fast enough for me to upload pictures. Believe me. I tried!! I am hearing that it could still be two more weeks before our high speed connection is up and running (I know, I can't believe it either!)

The interesting thing we found is that Mike's new bought-in-Cairo Apple laptop does not have a place for a phone jack to go. So he can't do even dialup on his computer. Nananaa nananaa! I guess even in Egypt dialup is obsolete. And to think I was jealous of his new computer!!