The New Apartment or "It's Always Christmas in the Laundry Room"

     It has, admittedly, been quite a while since my last post.  In my defense, we've been pretty busy.  On the 26th, we finally were able to move into our apartment.  The night before I called a driver and scheduled him to arrive shortly after breakfast the next morning.  Afterwards, we packed up as much as was possible and went to sleep for the last time (for now) at the Green Lake Hotel.  The next morning, we paid our bill, loaded up the van, and here we are.  The day we arrived, the driver helped us up carry everything up the four flights of stairs.  We had previously ordered a new refrigerator, washer/dryer (the have one machine here that does both) a new water cooler and a new stove top.  We had it all delivered ahead of time so the driver, whom we have known since our visitation trip here in March, helped us get everything moved into place and hooked up, with the exception of the stove.
     Excited about the ability to wash our clothes in our own residence without having to use the sink, we immediately started a load of laundry.  We were so excited when it was over that we started a second load later that night.  We started the second load around 10pm that night after we put the boys to sleep, and a few minutes later, we had the landlord's mother (she lives downstairs and is a really nice old lady who really likes Stephen even though he runs away from her) and another old lady who lives across the hall.  She told us that her apartment was leaking and wanted to check the room above the leak.  Of course it was the bathroom with the washing machine in it.  I showed her the drain the washing machine was using and then she took me downstairs to her neighbor's apartment to show me the leak, and sure enough, it was raining in the bathroom below us.  One thing I found strange was, despite the fact that the old lady living in the apartment below is living there with her younger son and his family, they decided to send the old lady up to talk to the new American family and not somebody younger.  Anyway, I switched the washing machine's hose to a different drain which fixed the problem, and the landlord's mother said they would send a plumber by the next day.  A few days later the plumber arrived and discovered that the drain we were using wasn't actually connected to anything (i.e. pipes) below it.  That was eventually fixed and luckily we didn't have to pay for it so it was a relatively minor issue, but thank goodness we live on the top floor.
     The next day, we had two big events taking place.  The first was the man coming by to install the stove top (free with purchase) and the second was a man coming by to change the lock on the front door.  Now, a part of being over here as an active duty Soldier is that military has to put somebody in charge of us.  In our case, it is kind of the Consulate in Chengdu even though they have pretty much said they won't help us with anything.  Anyway, one of their requirements is that a security inspector come and look at our house.  His job is to make sure the place is safe and secure and make recommendations as to how security could be improved.  This is really just checking the block because the Consulate will not pay for any security upgrades and since we don't work for the consulate, they can't really tell us to rent a different place.  The inspector's only suggestion was that we have the lock on the front door changed so we could be sure we were the only ones with keys.  Since this was a simple, inexpensive thing to do and it sounded like a good idea, I decided to take his recommendation.  That was my first mistake.  The locksmith finally came by around 7pm that night.  It only took him about 5 minutes to change the lock and cost less than thirty dollars.  I paid him and he handed me 7 keys.  Five were in a plastic case and two were separate which he used to test the lock after installing it.  Before he left, he said what I thought sounded like something to the effect of, "Only use the ones in the plastic, these two won't work, you can throw them away or I can throw them away for you."  I thought there's no way he could have actually said that and why would I give him two of my keys so I kept them and sent him on his way.  That was my second mistake.  It turns out, what I thought I heard him say was exactly what he said.  I put the two keys that were already out in my pocket, put the other five in a drawer, and then left the apartment to go help Kate who was on her way back from WalMart.  At that point, it was about 7:30pm and when we got everything up the stairs to our door, we found we were locked out and that the keys I had didn't work.  Luckily I had the locksmith's number and was able to call him and ask him to come back and help, at that point, he was about 10 minutes away.  So there we are, with a pile of groceries on the landing while David is crying because he's hungry, and Stephen is crying because he thinks we won't be able to get back into the apartment when the locksmith arrives.  Turns out, he's just a guy who installs locks and doesn't have any way of picking it, but he still volunteered to stay and try to reach through a window to jimmy the window lock open so we can crawl in and open the door.  At this point, it is about 9pm and the locksmith is precariously hanging on to a very shady look ladder that is half on the stairs and half leaning against a wall trying to get the window open.  Turns out we have very good and very safe windows.  Eventually the landlord, who was downstairs visiting her mother, comes up and asks what is going on and then offers to help.  Eventually, after she called and arranged a repair man to come on Monday (this all happened on Saturday) she told us to go ahead and break the window as long as I was willing to pay ($10 for glass in installation) to have it repaired.  We broke the window, opened the door, and before leaving and refusing to take any money as compensation for his time (this guy was really nice or really felt sorry for us) once again told me not to use the two keys he used when installing the locks.  I threw them away while he watched.
     One peculiarity about our apartment is that in on of nearby buildings is somebody who likes to play the piano.  Now this person is a very skilled piano player, but most of the time, they only play and elaborate version of Jingle Bells.  Not only that, but they'll keep playing it for hours straight.  It's like a Liberace Christmas 7 days a week here.  On days when we lock ourselves out of the apartment, it is kind of nice to have cheery music in the background.  You can imagine that any minute, Clark Griswold is going to plug in his Christmas lights and brighten up the entire neighborhood while Cousin Eddy empties his RV's chemical toilet across the street.  Anyway, to make matters worse, our new washing machine plays a tune every time the cycle is complete, and wouldn't you know it.......Jingle Bells.  再见！