Efficiency / die Effizienz

Austria follows her German neighbor in efficiency and orderliness. The bus arrives when it it supposed to, stores open or close promptly at the noted time, streets get washed and sidewalks get swept on a daily basis. When it snows or spritzes or dips below freezing overnight, the roads are treated before the sun even rises. Fresh bread is hot on the shelves promptly at 8:00 AM. Trains depart on the exact second that they are supposed to. Like the movie The Truman Show, living in Austria is predictable and pleasant, unless...you happen to be having problems with your toilet or technology.

In mid- to late-October, we were stricken with toilet and technology woes. What exactly is the issue in either case, I can't really say. Our toilet room stinks (literally) as does our internet connection, and both of them have been an ongoing bother for weeks and weeks.

The toilet room began to stink when we got back from Innsbruck, which actually means it's been going on since the end of September. It's an odd stink. Not really what you'd expect to find in a toilet room, even at stinky times. At first I thought it was a dead animal, but the smell lingered. Some days it's stronger than others, and I swear it's really strong when the toilet upstairs is flushed. We keep the window open all of the time, which has gotten to be a rather chilling experience in recent weeks. The owner of our apartment has a plumbing contract which we hope he doesn't pay very much for. Over the weeks, we've seen a plumber three times and had 'emergencies' force our appointment to be rescheduled at least a dozen times. The first plumber suggested it was the curtains. The curtains? They are rather retro and ugly, but not stinky. The second plumber said he didn't think it was the curtains, but that maybe the toilet needed resealing. The smell of silicone was a welcome change for a couple days. The third plumber-visit was by chance - Peter ran into him outside. It was a particularly smelly day, and he said the toilet should be lifted out and a new mounting pipe be installed. Super! We scheduled an appointment for yesterday.

The internet went out one Thursday night a long time ago. Peter spent hours on the phone with Telekom Austria that first weekend with various tech support people, who mostly kept telling him to turn off the black box and turn off the silver box and wait for a while before turning them back on. After several days and many shutdowns later, Peter was given a special number to call which would cost €1.60 per minute of consultation time. After many minutes, the internet started working again...at least temporarily. Long story short, after many more phone calls, a visit by a technician who unplugged and replugged wires for an hour, and a couple more weeks of shutting off the black box and silver box almost every time we wanted to get on line, we lost all connection again. A technician was supposed to come today, but decided he'd change our settings 'on their end' instead of coming over, which, of course, did nothing. After more time on the special €1.60 per minute number where the black box was magically changed into the silver box and the silver box became a switch (huh??), the internet is back on. We can only hope it's really fixed.

As for the toilet, yesterday came and went, and another 'emergency' meant that no plumber showed up, and our toilet room still stinks. We'll hope for better luck on Monday...