The Great iphone Debacle

Often when there is a muddle or a confusing situation at the field school, our friend Lambrini will say, "Oh, it is a Greek salad". It means that a bunch of things are jumbled up together and need sorting, just like the Greek salad pictured here. The situation this year with my phone was a Greek salad.

I have had a Greek phone number for a few years now. I simply swap out my American SIM card for the Greek one, and then I have a working phone without the high roaming charges.  Usually as a bonus the Greek company throws a bit of free wifi my way too.

This year I attempted to change the card out while I was extremely jet lagged. I slid out the tray with the American card, but I forgot to put the Greek SIM in the tray.  Instead I just jammed the Greek one into the slot on my phone sans the tray.  It got wedged way inside the phone and was rattling around in there. Aaahhh!

We brought the phone up to the director of our field school, as he is a master at using small tools.  He popped the iphone under his microscope and attempted to extract the card with very fine tweezers, but he could not pull the card out.  Our friend Lambrini then took the card, after telling me what a fool I was, and gave it to the local fix it guy.  He could not budge the card either.

I decided that maybe we should put it in a car and drive it around the bumpy roads, maybe the jarring from numerous potholes would shake the card free. No such luck.

Finally Andrea took the phone and got the card out with a little tiny flat tool that was supplied to eject the SIM card.  Will miracles never cease!

However, the phone still did not work and all I could get from it was a long message in Greek that I could not understand at all. Another day went by before I could get someone to translate it for me. It seems that I needed to top off the card with money. Easier said than done as the place to do this task was open either in the morning or after 7 pm.  So I decided to try it on line. After about an hour I finally figured it out and it worked! My phone is up and running!

It only took 5 people working over several days to make it so!

Things happen slowly here on the island, that is how we know all is right with the world.

Feel free to call me if you have my Greek number.

More soon.