starbucks meltdown

dear starbucks:

i love, truly love your coffee. im a sucker for the chai latte and i do love your baked treats especially the pumpkin loaf. really i enjoyed eating it and the general atmosphere of your franchised globalized establishment.

but saturday you were not my best friend.

please dont make me wait until i get back to peru to fix our friendship.

sincerely,

julie

saturday my uncle dropped me off at a starbucks after first asking me if i was sure i wanted to spend 5 dollars on a coffee when there was coffee at the house. :) i replied with a yes because i could use my laptop there to get all my internet...loading photos/making phonecalls/blogging/emailing needs done there.

well i almost ate my words. i spent i dont even remember how long making trips back up to the counter after biting my pride about asking for help, to ask the cheerful staff to help me with my internet access.

my first question? sir there is wifi here correct? i cant connect? his response? oh we partnered with at&t so you need an account... or buy this.. or buy that.... i got really confused in the three minute conversation that we had... and finally just said... okay so uh... what do i need to do to be able to use the internet today? he looked at me like have you listened to anything i just said? to which i thought in my head... i wasnt even sure if you were speaking english...

we spent too long discussing it and on my last trip back to the service counter they just told me to call the starbucks hotline.

now mind you in the meantime of all this madness, i was getting flustered... i just wanted to get online and talk to my friends... tell Julton that i was still alive... and i just couldnt understand why it wouldnt work and all i could think about was if i were in the starbucks in trujillo this wouldnt be happening.

so when he told me to call their hotline i looked at him almost in tears because it seemed like i just couldnt understand anything enough to fix it and it was confusing me because it was in english! and i said "but sir.... i dont HAVE a phone!!!!!!!!!" probably a little more emotionally than he expected because he practically threw their phone at me.

eventually after punching numbers on a phone that seemed like it wouldnt end... i got it fixed and i got to talk to katy... well... after she set up her webcam and we got though giggling excitedly i realized i couldnt hear her voice.... diego (remember the kid that had been throwing stuff at me?) broke her microphone. oh diego. so much to learn my little friend. but she got to hear my voice and i see her face.

im still carrying that starbucks incident with me... you caught me off guard starbucks technology culture shock .... im going to be better prepared next time.