Yesterday was a mixed bag sort of day. First the weather. It started out when i woke up to a really thick fog and temperatures that remind you that winter is on its way. Then after a full day of work I truly had to come to the sad truth that the period of evening, or simply post-work daylight is over as by time I get to step out of the office… darkness is settling in.
During the day I had the pleasurable experience of being “that guy” or since I am in Santiago of course, “that gringo”. All i was attempting to do was pay my rent. Seemingly a simple task, requiring only that I write an account number on a piece of paper, with the name of the woman who owns the apartment. After filling out the form incorrectly twice even before stepping up to the counter, I then proceded to fill it out three more time before finally getting it right. Naturally what was a short line when i got there was pretty long afterwards. In fairness to myself, how was I to know the woman’s name that i was given wasn’t her full name.
Following work though turned out to be somewhat exciting in that I was able to finally get my pretty new Nexus One onto the 3G network down here. Granted I’m still generally forced to make a choice between going broke by having data on at all time or saving what money I have for more entertaining activities such as travelling to Argentina.
But in an effort to save said money, my first order of business today was to finally force my Chilean phone number to memory. Since I’m still using my cell via pre-pay, and data cost a lot via pre-pay I figured I’d splurge and add ten lucas (or ten thousand pesos… roughly $20) onto my phone. The woman at the cashier puts the number into the computer, i verify it and all is right.. just have to wait to get the text message alerting me that the money has been added.
Fast-forward about 9 hours, and still no text message. What gives?
On the way to work I decide to stop at the same store and figure out what the problem is. The really nice woman working goes through the trouble of calling Entel (the phone company) and quickly realizes the mistake. I gave the woman the wrong number because in my contact list for myself, i had in fact entered it in incorrectly. So, in the end, some person who is lucky enough to have a number one off of mine was gifted about twenty dollars in phone credit. Hope they appreciate it.
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