Good News!

Oh happy day! Do you see this? This is the best thing that has happened to me this week, grilled chicken aside.

This is a picture of Niko signing for our Internet. And thus bringing our two month quest for utilities to an end. Now, we don't actually have Internet in our house yet. We won't get that for another week (in Turkish time, it might be closer to two weeks).

Here's a example of the circles of insanity that are so easy to get caught in here. So when we rented our apartment at the beginning of September, we were told that we didn't need a residence permit to get utilities in our new apartment. This was great news because you need an address to sign up for an appointment to get a residence permit, and the appointments are so backlogged that it takes six weeks to get an appointment. So if we didn't need this permit for utilities, we could just sign up for them the next day instead of waiting the six weeks. We signed the contract.

But it turns out you DO need a residence permit to put utilities in your name. So we have had water, gas, electricity, and internet in our house over the last two months but their acquisition was not exactly kosher.

Last week, Niko got his residence permit (the first of us - I get mine next week) and spent the last hours of the last working day before a four-day holiday securing us water, gas, and electricity. So we went today to sign up for Internet. The last thing. So exciting. 

But it raises a frustrating problem - you can't get a residence permit without an address and you can't get utilities without a residence permit. It wouldn't be an issue if the appointment happened a couple days after signing a contract but SIX WEEKS?!?!? That's ridiculous. Most people have their utilities in their landlord's or company's name but neither of those things was an option for us. 

So yes, this blog post is coming from sketchy Internet sources but hopefully, this time next week our apartment will be fully operational. And I'll consider myself fully settled in my new home.