31 Days of Traveling to Europe: Day 7 - Keeping in Touch with Home

Our mother was a little nervous about both her girls traveling so far away from home. She made us promise that we would never leave each other's side and we kept our promise. She's practical and didn't want us to spend the money to talk to her on the phone - an email a day was enough to put her fears to rest.

My sister and I took Kindles with us. They were lightweight and gave us WiFi connections to stay connected with our mom and we used them internet access for weather reports as well as details on places we wanted to visit. Most of the hotels we stayed at offered free WiFi. It wasn't until we got to Florence that we had to pay for access. Our first hotel charged 5 euros for 24 hours and the second charged the same amount for 20 minutes. In Rome it was back to being free.

My boss travels to Europe frequently for business so she has a smart phone that can be used internationally and all she has to do is purchase an international package for the days she's traveling. Once again, I'm old school and don't have a smart phone so we didn't make phone calls the whole time we were gone. The only time this would have been nice was in London when we had trouble contacting the tour company but our hotel helped us out and placed the call for us. It was nice to be unavailable for those three weeks.

I also didn't access Facebook or Twitter while I was gone. Since my house was sitting empty, I didn't want to advertise that I was out of town and it was nice to not feel overwhelmed by a Facebook and Twitter feed to keep up with. It seemed appropriate to unplug while visiting places that had been around for hundreds and thousands of years. It helped me to stay in the moment and enjoy my surroundings instead of always checking what was going on back home.

I highly recommend taking the break from social media and just taking in what's right in front of you. You won't regret it.

Comments

Five Minute Friday: Roots

Lisa-Jo Baker (lisajobaker.com) hosts a weekly event on her blog called "Five Minute Friday". The rules are 1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. 2. Link back here and invite others to join in. 3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.. So here's my first try at this. Today's topic was Roots. Roots – I think about my grandparents who lived on a farm until my grandfather’s diabetes worsened and they moved to a town with a hospital nearby. My father still says he wished he could have kept that farm. I think of my grandmother who was a widow for 20 years. Every year she would stand over my PaPa’s grave, wishing she was with him. I think of my parents, a product of those grandparents, how hard my father worked to put 2 girls through

Five Minute Friday: Time

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Time. Sometimes time feels like this, like we are in it. Standing inside it, watching life pass by. It is so easy to get stuck in a time - in our pain, in our hurt. We hear the ache tick away in our head like a giant clock. Time, instead, is a gift. More time with family, more time to accomplish goals, more time to see the world. When you are hurting, it seems like time takes forever. One day turns into another day, turns into another day. When we hate a job, the five days of time that make up a work week seem to go on forever. But those five days are also a gift. Because these days, a job is not a guarantee. I want to see time as gift, not as a chore. I want to be on the other side of it, wishing there was more of it. Making the most of every hour, minute, and second instead of

Five Minute Friday: Dwell

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Dwell. I have thought about this word a lot - where should I dwell. After my divorce, I had a big decision to make - did I buy X's half of the house and continue to dwell where I had for the past 15 years or did I sell and move to a new dwelling. After crunching numbers and weighing my options, I decide to stay in the house we had bought together. Because, when it came right down to it, I loved my house. I felt safe there. I try not to dwell on the sadness that happened in this place but instead try to dwell on making it my own. I have painted rooms in colors X would have never agreed upon, I have bought artwork that he would never have hung. I want to dwell in a place that reflects who I am. When the yard is full of weeds and the basement full of water, I long to dwell in

One Is Just A Number

Search This Blog