The wonders of the Internet

Friday, January 21st -

One of the neat things about being abroad is that the power of the Internet becomes much more apparent.  If all we had were international phone calls, it would be prohibitively expensive to be in contact with anyone in the New World very often.  But instead, I can call the States for free with Google Voice (plus a bit of network skills), and whoever I'm calling doesn't even need to know I'm abroad.  And I can write this post while listening to Pandora Radio, even though it's not Swedish, either.  Meanwhile, I can order books from a Swedish-language-only online bookseller thanks to Google Translate and save money from what it would cost with international shipping or buying at a brick-and-mortar store.  For that matter, even if international calls were cheap, I wouldn't have had time to tell more than two people what I've written in this blog.  It took just a few short years I became used to using the Internet for all sorts of things domestically and it seemed like it was just part of life, so it's kind of neat to realize again just how powerful of a tool we actually have.

That said, it hasn't taken over everything.  I got back earlier this afternoon from going downtown to pay my rent in cash.  It's possible to pay over the Internet, but it's easier to in cash (and conveniently my debit card works at the ATM).  And it wasn't easy to get modern communications set up upon arrival.  By and large, though, distance has reinforced just how powerful - in a good way - technology can be.