day 65:  still marooned in the apartment without internet, television or telephone.  our only means of communication with the outside world is a finicky USB key that sometimes connects to the internet at sloth-speed and sometimes not at all, and charges us 10 euros a day regardless.

downloading a one page pdf document takes 18 minutes.  if it doesn't time-out or produce all manner of new and exotic errors.  

to fill the void, we are forced to watch all 7 seasons of buffy the vampire slayer, dubbed in french, on one of the 3 channels our television captures.  yesterday, dawn was nearly killed by a giant snake.  

all attempts to rectify the internet situation are uniformly met with hostility on the part of the natives.  apparently in this region, customers are considered a great nuisance and are dispatched with haste.  declarations such as "if you can't give me an answer i'm going to find another service provider" are met with great encouragement.  

clearly, we need to rethink our approach.