Water Filter We decided to get the expensive ultraviolet water filter (4000 rs (130 $)), this was relatively simple, a trip down town, a trip to a plumbing store, a trip to electrical store, and they came by twice, once to get the money a later to install it. All done in 24 hours.

A feature of this machine, is when it gives you water, it also plays a tune. What tune would you expect an Indian manufacturer of water filters to choose? A medley of christmas songs - Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is coming to town, and one other.

However, on the second glass of water, there were sparks and a loud pop, and it went dead. I will probably spend the next couple of days trying to repair the water filter and get the Xmas music back.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but the department here has a Mark Murray. I am counting on him to get me a fuse as the first attempt at fixing the machine. The day after we moved in, our hot plate burnt out. This was serious, since not only could we not cook, but we were also relying on it to boil milk and water. The housing office suggested it would have to be replaced, which would have taken forever. However Mohan Murray came over to our apartment with all his voltmeters, took it apart, took it back to the department for the day, and repaired it completely. (Better than when we moved in, since initially only one of the burners was functional.) Water Filter II The water purifier story goes on - I had assumed when it quit working that the purifier broke, however (after I had called to get it serviced) I started to think that the symptoms could have come from the extension cord giving out, so I started to plug other things into it and eventually convinced myself that it had a short (the give away was that we lost all electrical power in apartment). I looked around for a fuse box or circuit breakers but couldn't find anything. Eventually, I found someone who called someone else, and after another hour or so, a couple of guys showed up carrying screwdrivers (but no flashlights, and it was pitch black). I explained what I had done, and they started to poke around with screwdrivers, failing to get any sparks, they disappeared down stairs and eventually restored power (I am assuming this is just resetting a circuit breaker). They came back upstairs poked screwdrivers into a few more places, and then wanted to know what I had done. I explained I thought it was the extension cord (which had a fairly complicated mechanism). They then took apart the extension cord, rewired it, and everything worked. The water purifier was working and we had jingle bells again. First thing this morning I called the service department to cancel the repair work on the water purifier. This of course was unsuccessful and there was someone waiting for us when we returned from the market. Since he had nothing else to do, we asked him to disable the jingle bells feature, and he did so. (Apparently Jingle bells used to be a feature that you paid extra for, but now it is standard.)