11/8 Wednesday

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I slept through both lunch and breakfast at the dining hall.

I did more shopping for my place at a large super market, and returned in time for dinner at the dining hall.

Later that night, I decided it was time to try the shower. I was not convinced that I would get hot water in the first place. I turned it on and let it run, with the ‘hot’ knob on full throttle. The water remained cold for about four minutes before I decided that something was wrong. I tried turning a red lever on the cold hot-water pipe. This is where my evening got ugly.

The valve burst, sending the lever flying across the room, as well as dozens of small bits of rusted pipe, carried by a jet of water. I tried to stop it with my finder but it was coming out too fast and just sprayed all over the place. I eventually got my hands on the lever, and jammed it back in. I was soaked and shivering at this point. The water still trickled out and I had to apply pressure to the handle to keep it from shooting out again. I thought I might end up there all night holding the lever in, but luckily I was in reach of my towel rack. I grabbed one of my hand towels and made a bandage around the lever and pipe. It held, but water had already soaked the towel and it was pouring out through the threads. My land lady had showed me where the main water pipe was, so I dashed there and looked for a switch off knob. I found it, and with quite a large amount of force, managed to close the valve. There was still water in the system, so it continued to leak for quite some time. I decided to deal with the rest in the morning.