If at first you don't suceed . . .

try, try again!!! That seems to have been our motto over the past week. I'll explain what I mean . . .



We have access to a vehicle, which we are thankful for, but it has led to a few frustrating moments. I learned to drive a stick in high school because the car I had to drive was one, but Mark has only driven one a few times. So our first outing alone in the car was a try, try again moment. Mark got us to the parking lot at the local grocery store, and we walked the rest of the way. I drove home.



Later that evening . . . we heard that the same grocery store we parked at earlier in the day was selling good phones for cheaper than normal. We desperately needed a phone so we got in the car and Mark stalled his way halfway uphill before he stopped the car and I got in the driver's seat. We got to the store only to find that they had sold out of the phones. We chose a cheap basic one and headed back home. We understood enough of what the check out girl told us that we knew if we had a problem with the phone to bring back the receipt. I drove home, and what do you know? one of the parts to the phone was missing!!! We drove back to the store, showed the picture of the missing part to the customer service rep., and waited for her to bring the part to us. Of course, we're sure she just went to the one other phone like that, pulled out the piece we needed, put the box back on the shelf. I feel for the person who bought the last one!

Well, the next day we went shopping for appliances . . . what an experience! I won't go into detail about it, but I do want to tell our "try, try again" appliance story. We got our washing machine hooked up and a friend helped me make sense of the writing/instructions on the machine. I was so excited to get to wash clothes!! We discovered that the faucet connected to the washer had a leak. After trying to get a plumber to fix it and trying to get our apartment doorman to fix it, it was decided that we should just take the old part to the hardware store to get a new one and fix it ourselves. Mark set out to get the part and found out that there are multiple kinds of hardware stores here one for plumbing, one for electrical things, one for construction supplies, etc. He finally got to the right one, got the part, brought it home, and installed it. I was so excited, again!!

So then we decided to start a load of laundry. Our washer holds 5 kilos of laundry at a time - not very much, but we were still excited. In the time between the initial instructions we received from the installation guys and our friend and this moment when I could actually use it I had forgotten what the words on the washer meant, where to put the detergent, and what buttons to press when!! I stood in front of the machine with the dictionary trying to translate and understand for an eternity. I finally decided to just go for it and see what would happen. Everything worked beautifully, but it had been washing for an hour and had not changed cycles yet. I was a bit concerned. After it continued for another few minutes, I decided to stop it and start the wash cycle over again. The wash cycle took 2 1/2 hours!!! That was OK though because the water leak had been fixed and we were washing clothes.

I felt so confident about the second load that I didn't walk into the bathroom to check it every 10 minues like I did with the first load. I chatted with my mom on the phone for a while, sent a few e-mails, cleaned up the kitchen. When I noticed that the machine had stopped (after another 2 1/2 hours) I went in to get the clothes out and hang them to dry. Well . . . the floor was covered in water, everything on one side of the bathroom was wet, and I looked up to find that another leak had sprung out of the water faucet connected to the washer! We mopped up the floor, hung the clothes dry, and managed not to cry over it.

The next day Mark went back to the plumbing hardware store to get plumbing tape. I'm happy to report that after two loads of clothes today there have been no more leaks!!! It really does pay off to try, try again!!