Cell Phones

We heard that using our Telus cellphone to call home would cost us about $1.50 a minute, so we followed the advice of fellow Canadians down here in Arizona and purchased a cell phone -- a Net10 with 300 minutes already, what, installed? Every time you look at it, the little window tells you how many days and how many minutes you have left. We have 58 days now. But we're down a few minutes; we have 186 left. And have we been enjoying those reduced Canadian rates? The calls to Canada for 10 cents a minute?

No. Not at all. Why?

Because we can't make international calls yet! We have spent over 100 minutes trying to get the phone to work, and we have used our other cell phone to contact Net10 FOUR times and each time Anita or Jeremy or Jessica or Eric assured us that our phone WAS properly activated, and our international calls could proceed. After much trying (read: 114 minutes worth) and still no completed call to the kids back home, we are wondering what to do next.

Ah the Yanks. They want our money and we give it willingly, but Net10 is getting on the naughty list pretty fast. And that reminds me, the lines are often rampant with static and buzzing and background voices. Not good, not at all.

We'll phone you and tell you about our adventures here. We're having lots of them! Oh wait, no, we can't -- we don't have ILD. International Long Distance.