Can you hear me now? Oh, thats right, we still don't have phones.

As we finish out our third week in Sheffield and enter the fourth, our home is feeling homier, our muscles have adapted to walking miles up and down urban hills, and we've even cheered up to the change in weather. But we still can't ever seem to locate one another because the British government does not want us to have cell phones. Correction, the extreme regulations associated with the British government's positions towards cell phone ownership stipulates that we are not yet able to acquire said necessary devices. We are currently preparing ourselves to return for the fourth time to the phone proprietor we've chosen to provide us cell service, having visited on three prior occasions. Each time we were privy to a new morsel of information, like following bread crumbs through the woods until a full picture of policies and procedures comes clearly into view. On the first visit we were denied because we had no proof of address. On the second visit we were denied because our proof of address was the wrong type of proof of address (didn't you know, there's more than one way to prove where you live), and during our final attempt we were denied because the bank statement we provided only had three transactions on it and legally it needs to have five to prove you will actually stay in the country long enough to honor your contract with the phone company. Because apparently home is not where the heart is, but where you've made five or more transactions through a bank account you've recently acquired.

Feeling down because we were once again leaving the cell phone shop without any cell phones, we brightened up at the prospect of going back to the HSBC to visit Roger and ask for a new bank statement. We met Roger, our favorite mediocre banker, during our first and second weeks in Sheffield through our many attempts to open bank accounts. As foreigners we had to open Passport accounts and verify our American addresses. Like our friends at the phone company, the bank also has a very specific way it likes to verify addresses, and the letters addressed to us from reliable institutions we presented them upon our second visit were simply not good enough. We had to provide specific letters addressed to the bank from the University verifying our American addresses. Unfortunately the University did not let us technically register as students until the end of the introduction week, so they did not have our American addresses in the system, and could not print us letters. After a disappointing visit to a woman in the student union who delivered this unfortunate news, we set out like good Americans to get a second opinion. A helpful administrator at the international affairs office came through, updating the system with the American addresses and sending us back to the student union and to the first, decidedly more unhelpful, women. Eventually, with our official letters in our hot little hands, we successfully opened bank accounts and got to see Roger many more times, (Did you know Roger went to the University to become a teacher but it wasn't quite a good fit so he became a full time bank assistant instead? He didn't quite fancy living at home with his parents, either.)

Today bank statements finally arrived, proving that we're not going anywhere because we've bought enough stuff, therefore the phone company can trust us. Where would the world be without morals such as these?