Victory at last

It took me nearly two weeks, but I have finally figured out (almost) all of the appliances in my new home.

Two of my colleagues were over on Friday and took a look at the washing machine. After an explanation of the buttons (apparently unintuitive to North Americans, but instantly understandable to Europeans), we realized that the water wasn't turned on and that's why it wasn't working.

So now I have clean clothes. You don't want to know how long it takes to dry sheets in my combo washer/dryer.

Today I finally tackled the dishwasher. When the buttons lit up, but nothing happened, I checked to see if the water was turned on (I try to learn from my mistakes), and it wasn't. However, it took me several minutes to figure out where to turn it on for the dishwasher.

The only electronic device left is the oven. I've used the stove sucessfully, but have yet to open the oven.

Don't even ask me about my new phone - I bought it for it's answering machine capability, but the manual is only in Polish. Let's hope the English version is available online.

It's amazing (to me) that I work for a technology company, yet can be so inept with home appliances.