Dodgy Internet

I seem to be cursed with having to fix computers and stuff wherever I go.

We were lucky that the family that we’re renting from (has some connection to the orphanage or knows someone there) installed a DSL line on Wednesday. So after we visited the kids in the morning, we came back to the apartment and found it all set up and working. We unplugged the data cable from their computer and into the laptop and checked email really quick. After shooting a couple of quick emails, we head out once more to the orphanage.

That evening we came back and talked first to my parents and then to Tony (Lori’s brother) via Skype. As we were chatting and transferring photos, the connection died and we couldn’t get it to work. After various futile attempts I decided to try resetting the router, but forgot that I didn’t have the ISP settings. So there, I blanked it out to factory defaults…DUH!!

The next day I called Olga to ask for the settings. That morning they came to the apartment and supposedly fixed it, but were told the provider had sever problems and asked us to try connecting again in the evening. However it didn’t seem set up correctly to me (looked like a dial-up setup) and the settings were nowhere to be found. We tried over and over but could not connect.

Finally today the lady and her daughter, who speaks pretty good English, were in the apartment when we got here after the morning visit. They told us we had to wait till Monday for a technician to come over because they didn’t know how to fix it, and service should be running fine. I asked if she had ISP settings and she pulled them out of a drawer (should have looked!). I said I know how to fix it and they both looked at me incredulously. Now for those that know me a bit, you probably wouldn’t have doubted me ;) So I asked her some questions as everything was in Russian on those papers, and it took just one try….the Internet LED finally went from dead to red to green!

 

This should explain our absence and we hope it keeps working. Later I’ll post about yesterday’s events, were we did a lot of shopping and planning for the coming weeks.