Pure indulgence
Finally it has arrived. After two weeks in an American post office, five days in the fingers of Austrian customs, I picked it up impatiently at the post office in Gleisdorfer Gasse. They charged me another 90 euros for vat but I had waited too long – almost four weeks – in order to complain. I had expected it anyway and it could always have been worse. What I didn’t know, though, was that I still had to go a long way before I could actually make calls with my new techno toy. After I had unpacked the phone and marvelled at its impeccable design, I realised that the American seller had not included the iTurbosim which was supposed to be used together with my Mobilkom-simcard in order to unlock it. 
So I had to find another solutions since I did not want to go argue with the Yanks, wait another fortnight or spend another 50 euros for a new next sim to unlock the phone. So with the help of my friend, Alex, I found another solution: A method to unlock the phone with a patch, run with the installer. When I was running the patch, Sylvia came to have a look at what I was doing and, having not seen her for the whole day, I listened to her account of a full and interesting seminar day which was properly finished with a yoga session. Unfortunately, I did not pay enough attention to the instructions so I crashed the phone. At first, it would not restart and I was devastated. I felt like crying . Reconnecting the phone with my PowerBook resurrected it. I managed to run the patch again and, hey, it recognised my Austrian sim card. Wow. 
I made my first call to Sylvia, who was already fast asleep, leaving a message on her voice mail. But still, I was not there, the dialler still crashed returning to the springboard when I tried to dial a number. I also couldn’t reach my iPhone with another telephone. So the search went on. I came across IClarified.com, a website with a multitude of top iPhone tutorials, where I was able to take the next step. Still I had to overcome obstacles like sshing to my phone with Fugu – which I completely failed at – resorting to cyberduck, trying dozens of password combinations, and – after I had given up all hope – managing to connect to the phone and installing the necessary files. And still it wouldn’t work. I had to go another round. I had to run still another patch and after rebooting the phone, I couldn’t believe my ears. I really was able to make and receive phone calls from my beauty. Yes!!! I have been working for five hours now and, believe me, my eyes are heavy. 
Still, it’s good to have fixed my phone and a good feeling to have overcome all these obstacles . After all, this phone is pure indulgence . You wouldn’t go through so many glitches if you weren’t a little queer. But here it is, welcome one of the few iPhones in Austria!
