Since we’re moving soon, we’ll also be needing a new internet connection. We currently have ONO and they’re reasonably ok. The package we now have includes 12MB internet, TV with some international channels and telephone with free calls to domestic landlines.

The international channels of the TV are a joke, so we decided that we no longer need that, especially also because our new apartment has a satellite dish installed on the roof. I guess if we can get a decoder from somewhere, we can receive whatever we want.

With normal Skype, Skype Out and our mobile phones we hardly use our land line, therefore the “free calls promotion” is just not worth the hassle. You still end up paying a fee for the phone line being in your home, I think in the end it’s just not worth it.

The 12 MB internet translates to 500 kbps, which so far I never reached, but that might also be because Mia uses part of it via Wifi. I am sometimes under the impression that our internet connection in China was faster than we have here.

When I started to look around for internet providers I noticed that ONO has this fantastic offer: 50 MB speed via optic fiber for only EUR 60 per month!

Wow, that’s just what I need!

I looked everywhere around their site to see if we need any special requirements to have this package installed, but couldn’t find any, so I decided to give them a call. Friendly people on the phone, but when they asked me where I wanted this new package to be installed, they informed me that this offer is only valid for Madrid. Pfffff…

In The Netherlands we call this misleading advertising and there are actually laws against that. What a bunch of bullocks. How can you set up a nationwide website for something that you can only offer in Madrid? Spain has around 45 million people and only 3 million of them live in the capital. I really don’t get the point of this “stunt”, apart from leaving your customers with a general feeling of disappointment.

And what is my alternative? 12 MB for EUR 50 per month. Really a not so good deal…

So in a couple of weeks the long wait is over and we can together start our life in Valencia!

The initial date of the start of her 20 week Spanish course has passed (planned originally for next Monday), but hopefully Babylon Idiomas has a spot for a week later orso.

It’s strange, earlier today we talked on Skype and said to each other that probably this round her visa would not be approved and we had to seriously prepare for a longer waiting period.

Now that has shrunk to merely two weeks, HURRAY!

The microphone and camera for Skype work great so I could do some talking with Mia.

Discovered that bloody Movistar (from Telefonica), where I bought my prepaid phone card from yesterday, doesn’t have an agreement with China Mobile and therefore sms is not possible between Spain and China on their network. Luckily Skype works well to contact Mia and there is always email and phone…

Did some work and more walking around through this beautiful city and tried my luck at some real estate agents. Unfortunately hardly anyone speaks English (where did I experience that too?) and if you cannot speak Spanish many of them are not even interested to assist…

Back online I had more luck. Rod, an Italian guy who has been here for four months called me back immediately. I had already had contact with him in China, so it was nice to finally meet him. He showed me a home which was not that good, but promised me to keep looking.

One thing I noted today is that elevators here (probably like everywhere else in the world, but China) have the actual 0 or B for the ground floor. Many times I have made the mistake already to press 1 when going down, which means that I arrive on the first floor and not the ground floor. Strange how after 10 years these – seemingly normal – things actually change in your mind…