I HAVE INTERNET AGAIN!!!!!!

And so ends yet another 2 month internet-less odyssey.
Sometime mid-November, we decided to switch from a shared LLU Vivodi account to a full one. For those who don't know what this means: basically here in Greece there is the government phone/internet provider, big bad OTE, who until recently controlled all the phone lines. This meant that even if you got your internet from a private company, you still had to pay OTE ridiculously large amounts of money for use of their line. Thankfully, this has been changing. Now there are several companies with their own lines but, a couple of years ago when I first moved, the only company which did was Vivodi, so we had initially decided to go with them. So started my first odyssey, which left me on my own for a whole summer without phone or internet. Vivodi was not to blame for this however - OTE was. Basically, they try to make the procedure as difficult as possible for the private companies, to discourage people from switching to them, and take months to approve the switch, or whatever it is they have to do. Anyway, at the end of this period Vivodi informed us that the lines they had had available in our neighbourhood were used up, so we ended up having to go the OTE route for our phone and line after all, and just used Vivodi for the internet. Ahhh!
Then in November we learnt that Vivodi had more of its own lines available in our area, and decided to make the switch and at last cut OTE out of the deal entirely. Vivodi's phone service is far cheaper than OTE's, who still charge you per call made rather than letting you talk freely. Vivodi, on the other hand, give you lots of free minutes and have way cheaper calls to mobiles and long distance. Not to mention their internet is economical and fast. In fact, we've been very happy with them for the last few years. (NOTE TO VIVODI - you realise I'm giving you free advertising here, right? How 'bout waiving the set-up fee in return, huh?)
Anyway, we thought it would be simple. After all, we had a Vivodi account already, right? They told us it shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks. We cancelled our OTE account accordingly. But, of course, OTE had its way and has managed to stall Vivodi for the last 2 months - something to do with letting us keep our existing phone number. The bastards. Although I'm sure the fact that the switch coincided with the holiday season and everyone taking off on holiday didn't help. Either way, yet again I found myself unexpectedly cut off from the world wide web and all forms of communication besides my cell phone.
But at last, yesterday, it went through. The guy came and hooked us up. We're wireless now, too, so I can actually use my nice Mac powerbook without having to hook it up each time. Yay!

So basically this very long and boring explanation is to apologise to all of you that I know and love and with whom I have not been able to communicate properly in the last two months. Sorry. Let the gates of communication open!!! We will speak soon.

And to my loyal blog readers (I've still been getting visitors all this time it seems, even with no updates) the journey will continue.

And now I really must go lie down and nurse a hangover. Before going out again. Jesus, I've gotten so damn... SOCIABLE these last few months without internet. It's unbelievable. Will it now all change? Will I start spending my Friday and Saturday nights with Mr Monitor and Mrs Keyboard again? We shall see...