No Internet!?!? AND a flood??

Our internet was on the fritz since the last posting, but we finally have it up and running again thanks to a fabulous German-speaking friend who was able to call the internet company for us.

If you've ever had to call the internet or cable company in English you know that it can be a crazy hassle.

"Can I put you on hold?"
"Let me transfer you to..."
"Have you tried...?"
"Ok, open the cover of the box, press the green button, switch all the cables, turn the black lever, snip all of the wires.  Is it working now?"

...and 3 hours later they have to set up an appointment to come to your house between the hours of 7am and 10pm three weeks from today.

I didn't think I could handle that in German.

Thankfully, the internet providers here are apparently much easier to deal with (aside from the holding time of almost an hour in which they charge .19 Euros a minute).

In other news, due to the crazy amount of snow the Czech Republic got in December and the ridiculously warm temperatures lately, the river (the Elbe) is flooding.

This is near the bridge that crosses from Altstadt to Neustadt.  Yes, that is a ticket booth for boat tours (which are obviously inaccessible right now) which is halfway filled with water.

This is a street.  See the stoplights?  And where it turns right to go into the tunnel?

We walked from our house to the Blue Bridge on Sunday to check out the river along the way.  When we got there our favorite restaurant had all these sandbags out to keep their basement from flooding.  On the bright side, we got to see a lot of swans :)