During our second week in New Zealand I discovered that I should have brought my computer to NZ rather than “renting” time on a clunky old computer at our hotels. See, in NZ, you generally buy 10-30 minutes of time to use a NZ computer, and if you’re quick, you’ll think that 10 minutes will be enough time to check mail and compose a blog posting. So I started with 10 minutes by putting in a $2 coin and ended up watching the timer at the top of the computer go from 10 minutes to 9 to 8 to 7, and found myself writing faster and faster as if I’d entered a typing contest. I was about to finish the text of my blog posting when I saw that I had no time to edit what I wrote, let alone include a photo. I began editing furiously, when suddenly the computer started to beep–and rather loudly–to let me know I had 25 seconds to either wrap things up or put in a new coin. So I had to to decide: Do I save what I drafted without a photo, or just go ahead and post it? I quickly saved my draft, coughed up another $2 coin and spent the next 10 minutes watching the old computer slowly try to download a photo I took of a kiwi. You know, the bird? Very cute and odd and a real novelty in NZ. I really do have a photograph of one. And I really took it.
I bagged my original version of New Zealand – Week 2, because I wanted to write about kiwis. But we’ll have to cover kiwis later. When I’m home. On my computer. And can do a blog posting without worrying about a timer going off and time running out. I got 2 minutes. Gotta go.
Oh how sadly I can sympathize with you here!
Internet cafes were a blessing and a curse in Germany!
Good luck, many hugs!