Electronics & Phones

       Purchase an electrical outlet converter to take with you.  American appliances won’t plug in to European outlets.  And if they do, you’ll be sorry.  Europe uses a different current than the US.  The converter that Connie bought actually does have a right way and a wrong way to fit into the outlet.  We learned this when we left the laptop to charge overnight and it was still dead the next morning.  We never used the converter for very long because it would heat up and we weren’t sure why, but didn’t want to zap our electronics or create a fire.  

     Neither of our cell phones would work in Europe so on our first day in Munich Connie bought a $40 phone that came with a free “pay as you go” card that was supposed to allow for 100 minutes to anywhere including the US.  After about 5 minutes it stopped working and was followed by an announcement in German that we eventually learned said “You are out of minutes”.  It was days before we were back in Munich when the store was open so we could complain.  They gave us a different “pay as you go” card for 100 minutes that was really, really supposed to work in calls to the US.  Once again, it stopped working after about 5 minutes.   At this point, we gave up.

Bolzano, Italy

      We had a laptop and our hotel had free wireless internet, so we were able to communicate with home.  Or rather, Sheila was able to communicate with home.  “E-mail is for old people,” grumbled Connie’s son, after his grandmother forced him to send a message to his mother. 

       As it turns out, by using Skype, Connie’s children were able to call her and she could see them even though they couldn’t see her since her computer doesn’t have a camera.  However, she could share some of the pictures we had taken with them, including the video clip of the snow.  That was cool.  We only did this once because of the time differences.

·         So, if you absolutely, positively, must stay in touch with the real world, there are a number of options you should check out BEFORE you go. Bringing along a laptop so you can Skype is probably not the most practical, but it was the one option that actually worked for us.