Back To Reality

I've at last returned to Puerto Rico, after an all-too-brief 6 week stint in the UK. Having searched fruitlessly for several days trying to find a decent flight, I finally found that the only direct flight here - which was the one I wanted to begin with - is actually perfect.

Why does this come as a surprise ? Mainly because I initially searched, naturally enough, for a one-way trip. The price : £1390, rather on the steep side, but perhaps not all that astonishing given that it's B.A. This is considerably more than I'm willing to pay, having already lost one flight back and half-cancelling my flight to Austin for the AAS*.

*I can use the money again, but only on another flight with American Airlines from San Juan.

However, out of morbid curiosity I decided to search for a return flight. Now the direct BA flight is a highly competitive £550. That's right : for taking me twice the distance, they're prepared to charge less than half as much. My conclusion from this ?

ECONOMICS IS BROKEN !!!

Further proof of this is rendered by the fact that getting a premium economy return costs the same as a regular economy one-way.

What.
The.
Frak.

I arrive back to discover that everything else is broken too. No water, phone, internet, or television. Electricity does work, by some miracle, although without internet or television it has limited uses. And for some reason the electricity company are trying to charge me $72 despite the fact I've been away for 6 weeks and turned everything off before I left. Then the fanbelt in my car decided to pack it in, along with the air conditioning (in my car that is, not in my house or I'd be dead from grief by now).

Some things are easily fixed. The water was off because my landlord turned it off, as the hot water tank keeps leaking. And because he's perhaps the nicest landlord in the world, he took me to buy a new fanbelt and got his brother-in-law to fit it for me. No-one knows why the television was off, but a phone call in work soon fixed that.

So I have the essentials - I can make tea, shower, make tea, watch Jon Stewart, make tea, drive back and forth to work, make tea... but not make any phone calls or use the internet. But I can make tea. I can't play with my shiny new tablet though, but mostly that's because I stupidly forgot to pack the charging plug. Good job I can make some tea. I like tea.

Liberty were supposed to send a technician around to investigate the internet/phone problem yesterday, but they never showed up. A phone call (from work) revealed that the guy had tried to call me to find my house so he could come and fix my phone.


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Aaaaaargh !

Rhys brain melt now !