Loo. Biscuit. Slip-road. Bin. Liner. Lamp. Trousers. Full Stop. Inverted Commas. There's a whole slew of words that change between American English and British English. I'm trying my hardest to learn the differences and cater to British English. When someone holds a door open for me, I say "cheers" and when I hold a door open for someone else, and they say cheers, I say "ta." I call "compost" "food scraps" and paper recycling "card." Electrical outlets are "plug sockets" and after we have dinner, someone does the "washing up."
But the one thing I will not change, is that it is called a flipping cell phone. Here, everyone else calls it a "mobile" or mostly just "phone." I can deal with "phone." "Phone" I can manage. Slowly, with practice. But whenever I forget my phone upstairs or at home, I inevitably say, "Oh shoot, my cell phone." It's driving my roommate insane. Every time I say it, Rob gets annoyed and corrects me. I have informed him, to seemingly no avail, that I will make almost no effort to stop calling it a cell.
When I first arrived, I had a bit of a struggle with the phone situation, mostly because I was so sick upon arriving. I didn't even really bother until the beginning of my second week, when I went to a shop called "Phones 4 U" and bought a fairly cheap, but supposedly still good Samsung Y. The nice thing about this store is that they sell their phones unlocked, so you can put any sim card in. Since I was planning on getting giffgaff, with which I can load a £12 plan giving me unlimited texts and data, and 250 UK minutes, this was the best option I had. I spoke with the salesman for a bit, and settled on the samsung while my roommate ordered my sim. It was going to be a few days, which was fine since you have to pay for a £10 top up (read: its a prepaid phone, you have to load it a bit when you buy it) when you buy an unlocked phone anyway.
Great. I was happy. I chatted a bit with the few friends I had already made, and burned through my £10 in the blink of an eye.
Then my GiffGaff sim arrived. And thus began the drama.
In order to activate my sim, I needed a credit card with a UK postal code. I tried changing my address on my credit card to my address here, but my credit card needs an address in the US. I was still sick, so I sat on my hands and waited until Monday to open a bank account.
Monday rolled around, I opened the account, and the woman told me it would be about 3 business days until I would receive my debit card. Great. I tried topping up again with the first sim card, same problem. I called them, to explain, figuring that if I got through to a sales clerk, they would be able to manually enter the information. Except, in the UK, automated systems don't recognize "Moreno" as a surname.
Automated phone system: "Did you mean "Reynolds?"
Me; "No, I meant "Moreno"
Automated phone system: "We're sorry, we didn't catch that. Just your surname, for example, 'Smith."
Me: "Moreno."
Automated phone system: "Did you mean 'Morris?"
Me: "No, I meant OPERATOR."
Which then led me to the problem that there were no minutes left on my phone, and I couldn't actually speak to an operator without minutes.
So I just waited, using the internet at my house and at cafes to check whatsapp and facebook until my Debit card arrived. Finally, I loaded my sim card, figured everything out, and had an operating phone. Sort of.
See, here's the thing that the salesman didn't tell me. The Galaxy Y is a fine phone if you're texting and calling. Not so great if you want multiple apps. Apparently, he didn't feel the need to tell me this, despite the fact that I had said specifically that I needed one I could run whatsapp on. After a single day of using the phone with my new sim, it began having issues. The memory card was full. Facebook was seriously slowing it down. Nothing was working. I gave up, pulled the sim out, popped out the micro sim, and am now using my unlocked American Iphone.
Now to convince the phone people to refund or exchange my phone... this could be fun.
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