2022.10.13. The nerve-grinding one (or when problems can’t seem to get solved)

Finally, a fairly uninteresting day – but also grinding on our nerves (after yesterday's high, this is probably (hopefully) our low for the week).

Had a late morning, then went down to the lobby to let the staff of the building know that the heating and hot water situations are still not solved. This is out third day of no hot water and basically no heating (lucky this happens when the weather outside is pretty mild and sunny – we’d have frozen by now if it was -10 like when we arrived). A woman (cleaning lady, I suppose) came to our flat with another woman and a man and they stood in our hall, clueless, while the (possibly) cleaning lady checked that there was, in fact, no heating or hot water. Then they left and we thought they would try and fix it but it’s 11 pm now and nothing has happened so far. At least they know about it, I guess. Still pretty frustrating.

The only thing they actually managed to do was make our water super dirty (but still cold).

I also went to get some work done (class planning and taking some books to my shelf and getting used to my desk) at the university and ended up spending about 2 and a half hours there. I asked how I could use the Wi-Fi and it seems like that’s not really possible so they told me to just switch my desk to the one sitting in the opposite corner of the office since that one has an internet cable running nearby that I can connect to my laptop whenever I need to use it. So I guess I’ll do that next time.

Lesson planning at my (current, probably soon-to-be-had-been) desk

Coming home for a late lunch, our grocery delivery was still nowhere to be seen (we’d ordered yesterday) but they called us soon – only we had no idea what they said since they spoke no English, only Mongolian. I went down to the street to check if they were here but they weren’t (or they were hiding, who knows), but since we supposed they were close enough and probably just wanted to let us know that they would soon be arriving, I kept my boots on and sat in the hall. And waited. And waited. And I spent 90 fucking minutes sitting in the hall with my boots on, scrolling on my phone, before deciding they weren’t coming. I asked Nandia to call them for me and she said they were on their way. So I kept my boots on and kept waiting – but moved to the kitchen table and my laptop bc at this point I was super bored and very grumpy. Another 90 minutes of waiting later, we basically gave up and decided to just have me go to the nearby Indian restaurant Namaste for takeaway since it was too late now to go grocery shopping and my husband (quite understandably) didn’t want to have rice for the umpteenth time in a row, and we didn’t really have anything else at home but rice and pasta with nothing really to spice it up. So I got dressed yet again and went to Namaste to order a proper feast to boost our moods (and energy levels). And just as I placed the order and sat down to wait, my husband texted me that the delivery guy arrived with two boxes (and his kid in tow). They arrived four and a half hours after the first phone call from the deliveryman; four and a half bloody hours. If there’s one good thing I can say about this whole experience is that they had perseverance alright. But I’ll probably just go myself and rather take 3 turns to be able to bring everything home than have another round of this whole ordeal – better for our sanity, better for their sanity, better for everyone really.

Waiting for our order in Namaste (seems a lovely place, can't wait to come and eat here in person)

Can't believe our groceries have finally arrived (well, 2/3 of our order, at least)

On the bright side, our dinner from Namaste really changed our moods for the better – we’d been so hangry, gosh. Food there is fairly expensive (well, compared to home-cooking) but the portions are huge and the dishes ridiculously delicious (and healthy too). So worth it, honestly. And now I don’t have to cook tomorrow.