Hard days….

So, I had a very trying day yesterday. I was walking around Chichester and it isn’t that big really, nice, but not very big – and as usual my walking took me past HMV which to my horror advertised with up to 70% off on DVDs and CDs. I kept telling my feet to just walk on by, but they would not listen. I am now the proud owner of:

• Jurassic Park – The ultimate collection
• The company of wolves
• Big Fish
• Jarhead
• The Chronicles of Narnia

On these 5 items I spent a total of £45. I could’ve spent a lot – A LOT – more but I managed to escape before I’d totally ruined my economy for the next months!

What I was really looking for in Chichester yesterday was a mobile phone, I’ve been meaning to buy a British one so that it’d be cheaper for people from Norway to call me (well cheaper for me anyway, as when they call me on my Norwegian mobile when I’m here I end up paying about 6 NOK pr minute) and I sort of figured that it would be cheaper for me to send sms and call Norway from a British mobile phone as well, especially if I got one on a contract and not the ones on “pay-as-you-go” deals. Well, I got a bit disappointed. Granted, I did only go to one store, but the salesman informed me that yes I could get a Nokia N73 at the price of £35 a month which seems to be just the right price from what I’ve seen on the net. The phone would then be for free, and this price would include 300 call minutes and 300 sms pr month – great I said, I’ll be calling and sms’ing to Norway a lot so…. Oh, no the man said, none of the monthly contracts you get on mobile phones include calls to other countries, for that you have to pay extra! For a sms it’d cost me 24 pence, about 3 NOK, I pay 4,50 NOK with my Norwegian mobile to sms to Norway. So, suddenly not so happy about this deal. Because, I know I’ll be making friends here eventually, but still, most of my calls and sms will be to people in Norway – and then I’ll have to pay a lot more than the £35 a month and maybe not even get to use all that’s included? So yesterday I decided that I’d just stop thinking about mobile phones for a while, after all I did get the official letter from the letting agent yesterday saying that they would be happy to let me rent the house I’ve been looking at and that I should come to their office at the 4th of October to sign the contract and get the keys. Once I’m in the house I’ll have a landline I thought, I might not even need a British mobile then.

In the afternoon I got an email from the letting agent asking me to come to their office this morning, I thought to go over the details. That was yesterday….

Today I got up at half past 7 (which in my universe is dreadfully early, almost in the middle of the night) to get to the meeting with the letting agent at 9. When I got there the agent was very sorry but had to inform me that I would not be able to rent the house from the 4th of October anyway. The reason being that the people who own it, the reason why they’d be moving was that they’re buying a new house – and after two months of negotiating, and yesterday they were about to put the money on the table and sign the contract, the seller of the other house decided not to sell anyway. Obviously they need the house I was supposed to rent a bit longer. They are probably going to buy another house on the same road as the other house they were originally buying, but this won’t be available till late December. Both the agent and the couple that owns the house are of course very sorry. So was I! It turns out though that this couple, they’ve got some friends who have a house no more than 2 minutes away from them – they have an attachment to this house, a small cottage: 1 bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom. They usually only let this out in the summer to people coming for the Festival Theatre, but they would be willing to let me rent it for a couple of months until the other house that I was supposed to rent from the beginning of October becomes available. I saw it today, it’s ok – a bit small, but it will only be for a couple of months anyway – and I’ll manage – so I guess I will take it. I’m really longing for a place where I can store and make food now. The B&B I’m staying at is really really nice, but they only serve breakfast there so all other meals I have to buy when I’m hungry somewhere in the city or at the university – getting a bit fed-up with that now!

So, back to the mobile phone business. There is no landline in this small cottage that I might now live in for a while, so now I’m thinking mobile again – but “pay-as-you-go” this time, a cheap one, just so that people can call me without it costing me anything extra and oh well… and I have actually found this thing on the internet, with the company O2, they’ve got in their pay-as-you-go deals something called “Bolt Ons” and “International caller Bolt On” and from the tariffs there it seems like it will cost me only 10 pence to send sms and 30 pence to call Norway – so I’ll be heading down town soon now to check this out with the stores here – there are PLENTY of mobile phone stores, 10 or something I’d guess.

Anyway, movies, mobile phones, homes that comes and goes – that’s mainly my life these day – if nothing else, it sure gives me a lot to think about, doesn’t it?