When I lived in Belgium, I had a USian professor who had brought his car with him. Someone there stole his Maryland plates off his car, which was a giant pain in the ass to deal with overseas prior to the widespread adoption of the internet.

Which leads me to ask, I wonder if study abroad is different now that it's easier to stay in contact. No more of those flimsy air mail letters?

I had very basic email in Prague, but had to go to a computer center housed in trailers in the courtyard at the FFUK, stand in line for a vax terminal, sometimes outside in the snow and keyboard was czech which lead to some weirdness. Applied for internships that way. But home still seemed much more remote than now when I travel. I mean, I sent email from Bhutan!

Study abroad is totally different now. I stunned the students I was teaching a couple of weeks ago with my tales of post restante, traveller's checks, and once-a-week-four-minute-pay-phone-calls-that-cost-$20 from 1992-93. They have ubiquitous internet, credit cards and atms, and unlimited-access cell phones. They text their parents from Rome like they're on campus.

flea, I guess I also wonder if all of that access changes their experience. I'd assume so. But I'd love to see how. And there would be no good way to do a study of that.

Not important enough to say twice.

But I'd love to see how.

DH and I would never have had much of the adventure we had when we met if there'd been cellphones and maps. Getting lost, being out of touch, very much disappearing art forms.

traveller's checks, and once-a-week-four-minute-pay-phone-calls-that-cost-$20 from 1992-93.

THIS! I was in London the spring of 93, and my mom saved all the letters and postcards I sent them. I called my folks like, 3 times in 5 months, and when I got my tax return and needed the money desperately, they had to send it Western Union, or some such.

I wrote all my papers for classes, including a 12 page research paper, longhand, because no one had access to computers in my program. ONE person in our program of 40 people had a laptop, and it was purely for WP.

You guys, I want to eat the same thing for lunch every day. Is that OK?

I think that is OK. I eat the same thing most weeks, because I bring in cold cuts and make sandwichs.

I am SUPER BORED. I really should work. I have reached the end of the internet. I am mildly agitated because people on the bus were yelling and it aggravated me. (the bus driver and a wheelchair patron got into a fight because he didn't buckle her in).

I eat the same things for meals almost every day, when I'm home. After a while, I get bored and switch to something else. I have not died of malnutrition yet.