The cultural war continues

Internet is often sketchy at the hotel so I have been writing offline and then uploading to Blogger. I barely have time to Google or browse or answer e-mails. The internet goes in and out so much that I barely have time to finish a blog entry before it crashes. Even with Blogger's auto save feature it still putters out and loses sentences. I can't wait to get settled and have everything set up properly but who knows if our own home internet service will be any more reliable?

We've been trying in vain to buy a tv and some stereo equipment. This is big purchase stuff, you know in the thousand dollar range when you add it all up. When we whip out our credit cards it seems we always have a problem. Mexican stores it seems do not trust credit cards at all. Lots of phone calls have to be made. French credit cards are a big no-no (as we learned). After four trips to Sears we still haven't been able to purchase our tv and stereo. Last night the cashier handed Seb the phone. It was our Mexican bank. "What's your address sir?" the man on the phone quizzed Seb. Now there's a vague question. Seb's company set up the bank account since it's a free perk given to all employees. Who knows what address they used. We didn't have an address until a few weeks ago. "Uhh...Seb stuttered...we're in the Holiday Inn but the company probably gave you their address...Uh so I'm not sure." Strike one. "And what's your account number sir. Seb read them the number off the card. "Sorry sir that's not the account number." "Well I haven't got the account number on me. That's in my files at the hotel." Seb grumbled. "And sir frankly there have been a lot of purchases made on this account lately and it's suspicious to us so this account will be frozen until you can come in and straighten things out." And so our entry in to Mexican banking. Too many toaster and blender purchases can land you with a stifled account. We had to say goodbye to our tv yet again and the 15 percent discount we'd worked our illiterate asses off to secure.

After the tv fiasco we went to eat at a little sandwich place we've discovered. The young Mexican couple at the next table overheard us struggling with the menu and came over to help translate. We meet so many nice people here. They gave us their cell phone numbers and e-mails and asked us to call if we ever needed anything. That isn't the first time this has happened. I joked with Seb because the guy was really cute, "I'm definitely going to ask him to come over and translate for me some afternoon..."

The big news of the week though is that Seb is leaving this weekend for a 12 day business trip to France. It can't be helped and so we've decided that I'll go and stay with mom and dad in Florida again. I'm not pleased about it but there isn't much else to do. I don't know a sole here and it would be really hard to go 12 days alone here with just me and Little S (ie. I'd probably lose my mind). It really, really sucks traveling pregnant with a toddler and a cat but it's better than being trapped in a hotel room with them. Besides we'd be alone for Little S's birthday and how sad would that be.

At 30 weeks I finally found a new obgyn I like. I will probably update about this on my other blog. He's modern and fairly young. He didn't talk about cesareans or forceps and he's given me some confidence about the birth. He did a beautiful scan on the sushi baby. He even gave me a cd of the scan and I can watch it on my dvd player. He's also in support of breastfeeding moms--very important to me. I know it won't affect the delivery but it at least means we're on the same wavelength.

It's hard to believe we'll have a new family member in 10 weeks or less. That's amazing and scary--very scary (but in an exciting way I guess). Gulp.