IRL

"This is a perfect island!" Sennen said as we rounded the bend overlooking a west-facing cove on our way home from Agriolivadi. "This is the most perfect island of my life!"

I wanted to question that perspective when I realized he has been on a few islands in his life…

Ailyn seconded Sennen's sentiment. Whether or not Patmos is the most perfect island, it's pretty astonishing and it is THEIR perfect island – which is heartwarming.

Perhaps their enjoyment of Patmos and the various things they find themselves doing here has helped buffer our internet situation. Yesterday morning at about 10am, our internet massively slowed. I did all the usual things – a speed test, unplugging and restarting the router, etc. No change. We have a wireless gateway – meaning we have no hard-lines bringing us internet – a simple white box uses broadband wireless signal to bring data to our home. This technological advancement saved me a LOT of money because our house was never wired for phone or cable – meaning there could potentially be some construction work and massive fees to the phone company to get us internet. Or, we could just get one of these white rectangular boxes the phone company charges $120 for, turn it one and call the problem solved. No brainer.

I have a wireless gateway at home too from AT&T. It works well  - offering more than sufficient bandwidth. This wireless gateway functions at three times the speed – like we could operate a tech startup out of my living room. Until yesterday at 10 am.

This is where expat life can sometimes be trickier than home. Manos, my Patmos attorney handles things like bills, property taxes and any other incidental adulting associated with the house in my absence. He invoices me periodically, I pay and things seem to work well. I imagine he has a stable of expat clients and it probably forms a pretty easy book of business – especially if he has an assistant doing the administrative tasks. 

Because I do not yet have a residency card – something Manos is helping me obtain – they couldn't setup internet in my name. So the account is under Manos' wife – whose name I actually don't know and who I am not aware of meeting, although it's always possible I met her in another context. In any case, it means I can't just call up the phone company and inquire about my internet problem – and I tried.

My hope is that it's a broader network problem. Most businesses around the island have hardlines – so they aren't feeling the pinch and the loss of service probably affects a more limited set of residences. If it's a network issue, the phone company will at some point fix it and nothing further needs doing. Only, I don't know that's the case. I decided rather than bother Manos – an attorney with higher priorities than my internet – I'd give the situation a day to see if Cosmote would deal with the network outage and data would magically return to my home.

That day has come and gone. After a few more futile remedial attempts at troubleshooting, I had my equally futile call with Cosmote – although the lady who helped me couldn't have been nicer – and then texted Manos for help. I haven't heard back yet, but that was only an hour and a half ago and the man could be doing something big and legal-like.

Lucky for me, I have two workarounds to internet problems: 1. going to any cafe or restaurant around 2. my phone works as a hotspot. I just connect my laptop to my phone via Bluetooth and I'm good to go. It seems traditional cellular data remains intact – thankfully.

All of this has meant that while I was able to work last night, the kids were without any reasonable form of internet. Given our access to television and movies relies exclusively on streaming, a malfunctioning wireless gateway meant screens were pretty much useless. I was interested to see what would happen.

After a little whining – and my making it clear I had to get to my calls – Ailyn decided to run some errands and do some shopping. She also spent time with the cats and began a painting. Sennen read and also had some cat time. Both had worked out with Coach Thanasis at 5pm. So they took showers, got themselves comfortable – we had dinner. In short, they figured it out without too much fuss or problem. Both kids already have a screen-time limit anyway. But this killed it – and it was a good reminder they are capable of being happy without any internet at all. 

Of course the big winners were the cats and the good folks at Purina whose Party Mix treats were being tossed about with abandon.

I can fully admit I'm as addicted to devices as anyone – so internet interruptions are anxiety provoking and problematic for me. Just like my grandpa who could tell my sister not to smoke as he exhaled thick clouds of cigar smoke, saying he became addicted long ago but she had a choice (which wasn't wrong…) – I have my work as a fig-leaf for my own internet needs while my kids have to fend for themselves.

For me, internet enables my being here – I couldn't work without it. However, being internet-less is the perfect thing for Patmos – so much so that I did it myself for a day voluntarily and really wouldn't mind doing it more. This is a great place for the kids to thrive without electronics. Ailyn in particular turns to art when she isn't staring at a screen. It's wonderful to see her engage her creativity and talent.

Not that I wish it to continue, but this outage is a bit of a gift. Maybe to us more than poor Manos and his wife.