The title of today's rant is either "Russian Bureaucracy" or "Inconsiderate People." If I was smart or a writer, I'd think of some clever way to combine them. Luckily (or unluckily for you if you're reading this), I gave up almost all of my pretensions to some kind of literary merit a long time ago.

After school, I went with Lena to try to get the SIM card stuff straightened out. It's registered in her name, apparently because there are less hoops to jump through, but all the other Americans got their cell phones okay, so it probably was more of a hassle than it needed to be. Anyway, we started out by going back to the place where I bought the phone because Lena didn't believe that there was something wrong with the SIM card. The guy at the phone place pulled out my SIM card and put his in, and the phone worked fine.

Then we went back to the place where we bought the SIM card. They told us that they didn't know anything about it, and that we'd have to go to the Megafon store down the street. We go to the Megafon store and wait in line, and wait and wait and wait. When it's finally our turn, the girl looks at the computer, and says that everything looks okay and that it should work. Lena says that she knows that everything looks fine, because that's what they told her on the phone last night, but the SIM card doesn't work. So the girl does some more digging on the computer and consults one of her coworkers, and then finally tells us that when the people at Ultrastar were writing out the contract, they didn't match up the right phone number and SIM card. So we have to back to Ultrastar for them to fix it.

When we walk in to Ultrastar, the seventeen year old in charge of customer service looks at us like we're nuts. Then he finally looks at the phone, looks at the contracts, looks at the phone, and finally acknowledges that the SIM card does not, in fact, actually work. So he disappears for a while, and then looks at the computer, and then disappears again, and then reappears and starts writing out a new contract. As he's doing this, his phone rings, and he proceeds to fill out the new contract while talking on his cell phone. He finishes the contract, and makes us wait while he finishes his call. Then he has Lena sign the contract and tells us that the phone should work later that night, and if it doesn't, to come back tomorrow.

So all in all, we went to four places, spend most of the afternoon waiting in line or waiting for something to happen, only to find out that nothing will probably actually happen and we'll have to go through the same thing again tomorrow. Welcome to Russia.

I had to hustle home a little bit because we were having a little dinner party. Lydia Borisovna is very concerned that I haven't been spending any of my time with the other Americans in my group. I'm not very concerned, because frankly, I don't really like most of the other Americans in my group. Or I like them fine, but I don't particularly want to go out of my way to spend more of my time with them. Anyway, she was super worried, so she wanted to invite them over for dinner. So I invited Emily, Laura, Lexi, Clark, and Eric. Emily and Laura were on time, and Eric said that he'd be coming later, but Lexi had texted Emily saying that she was going to be a little late. Clark had called Laura about five minutes after we were supposed to meet to say that they'd be there in about fifteen minutes. Forty-five minutes later, still waiting at the Metro station, we discover that Clark and Lexi had decided to walk. It takes about an hour to walk from downtown to my house. Why they didn't call to let us know not to wait, I couldn't tell you. However, inconsiderate people. Yeah. Between waiting at the Metro station for an hour and dealing with the SIM card stuff, all I could do was laugh.

Anyway, everything was fine, and my phone still doesn't work. Back to Ultrastar again tomorrow, I guess.