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by Russell Beattie.
Original Post: Morning in California
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I woke up *way* too early this morning, but it was nice. I got to see the sunrise out here in Concord. I'm in the burbs because I got a deal from HotWire for car+hotel that was relatively cheap. It's just for a week - I've got a lead on Studio apartments for rent in SF, so I'm going to see how that works out.
California is fantastic. I love being out here in the hills. I watched the sunrise and it was beautiful Today's a fantastic day as well. I went downtown to Pleasant Hill where they have a little area with a ton of chain-stores like Borders and T-Mobile. So while I waited for the shops to open at 10, I went to McD's and had an Egg McMuffin breakfast (they don't have them in Spain) and read the Sunday paper. Mmmmm boy! It's weird the shit you miss, I'm telling you. Then I went and bought an American cable for my laptop brick at Radio Shack and then went to Borders and hung out for a bit before I bopped over to the T-Mobile store to buy a pre-pay SIM. I knew that Borders had WiFi, but my laptop is dead from not being recharged so I didn't bring it. The availability of WiFi here in the States is *fantastic*. I can really see why everyone thinks that it's so great. Cellular 3G services will win out in the long run, but being able to have broadband at the local Bookstore with your coffee and bagle is just sooo awesome.
Anyways, bad news at T-Mobile: The SIM doesn't work in my 3650 for some reason. I'm not sure what the deal is, we tried 3 different SIMs and they just didn't work. Roaming works fine with my Movistar card though, so I know that's not the issue, nor is the phone locked since I've also used my Vodafone SIM in Spain in the phone as well. I'm not sure what the deal is. But no biggie, since the guy literally gave me a phone - usually there's a pre-pay pack, so he just said "pay the tax, and it's yours". Cool, a nice new little Nokia 3390 for me! Have things changed in the U.S. for cellular or what? Man, it used to be insanely difficult to get phones here.
The other bad news about the T-Mobile prepay is that GPRS isn't supported. Can you believe that? It's nuts. Even if I could get it working on my 3650 (it just locks up the phone on restart), I wouldn't be able to use the phone digitally. Urgh. That's pretty dumb. I'm going to find an AT&T Wireless or Cingular and see if they work any differently. I'll sign up for a contract later when I have an address etc., but right now I just need the prepay.
I'm heading down to meet Matt in a bit. It'll be my first time back in the city for over 2 years. I'm pretty pumped.
Ana and I Skyped + MSN Webcam last night and this morning. Skype starts to get longer and longer pauses in between so it became *really* frustrating to use. Webcamming, though, *really* helps home-sickness. What a great invention.
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