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Chapter 19, part 3
of
HOW TO EUROPE
The Complete Travelers Handbook
Internet edition. Without photos.
A page from
enjoy-europe.com
with
John Bermont
This internet edition of chapter 19, "Communicating as You Travel Europe,"
is in 4 parts due to its large size. Subjects covered in the respective sections are:
This is Part 3
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internet cafes, libraries, keyboards, your password, your laptop, connecting hardware, your ISP, hotel lines
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Part 4
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telegram, wire funds, final notes, homeland security, meeting point
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Part 1
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calling europe from the USA, country codes, city codes, local numbers, 10-10 services,
how to place a call to Europe, list of telephone country codes, local telephone service
in Europe, totally metered, telephone booths, coins and slugs, European telephone cards,
American telephone cards, discount telephone cards, cellular phones, directory assistance,
international telephone service in Europe, from telephone booths, from your hotel, from the PTT,
telephone charge cards, costs, potpourri.
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Part 2
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sending mail to Europe, US Postal Service, mail forwarding, form of address, receiving mail in Europe, poste restante,
American Express client mail service, PTT, stamps, express parcel services, FedEx, DHL,
Airborne Express, European customs duties.
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If you ain't on line you ain't alive.
INTERNET AND EMAIL
Communicating via internet email is the easiest and
cheapest way of staying in touch. It can also be extremely
frustrating getting connected. Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) require that
you register for the service before being granted access to your account from a remote computer. Check
with your ISP before flying to Europe.
Internet Cafes
Instead of lugging your laptop you can have
internet and email access at "internet cafes" in virtually any city. These
places are not as common as they were a few years ago because it seems that
nearly everybody in Europe has a computer at home nowadays. But the internet cafes are
usually easy to find near train stations, hotels, and hostels where travelers
pass. Internet service is free in some coffee shops, bars, and cafes if you buy a drink.
In other places it can
range up to ten dollars per hour with a minimum one week subscription. Shop
around wherever you are! Read and write and surf the web.
Libraries
More and more public libraries throughout Europe provide
internet connections. You may need a library card to use the
facilities but usually you can just walk in and log on. The beauty
of this is that it is almost always free so unless you have an overwhelming need to
spend your money at a internet cafe try the library first.
Time is normally limited to a half hour or an hour. That's plenty for checking your
email and firing off a reply. You don't want to be wasting your Europe time
at a keyboard anyway.
European Keyboards
Ah hah! You found an internet cafe or library and signed in. You go to the computer and sit down.
You pluck the address bar and go to the URL of your ISP. Now you enter your email address. Oops,
no you don't. You can't find the @ key. You rush over to the manager's desk to ask for help
but he's busy chatting on his cell phone, and the meter on your computer is running. Finally after
ten minutes you get his attention and he shows you where the @ key is located. On the internet
finally, it feels like your first cup of coffee in the morning. Moral of story — find out what
to do before you start paying. Actually there are a few countries with USA keyboards. Surprisingly,
these are among the former communist dominated countries, certainly not Germany or Spain.
Your Password
Getting on line is a snap, but signing on for your email or
financial accounts can sometimes be a problem on a European
computer. Make sure that the
caps lock is off or your password may not work. Also, if your
password includes a Y or a Z you may have problems. For example, in
Germany where the qwertz keyboard is used instead of the qwerty
keyboard you need to know some pretty deep computech to make it
work. As noted above keyboards throughout Europe are often different
from the American version, mostly because they have unusual characters
in their alphabets. To ease access, change your password to all numeric for the
duration of your trip.
Security and Signing Off
As you know computer software does a lot of stuff that you don't know anything about. Amongst this
is the fact that your browser saves the history of the web sites you visited and it saves cookies. It does
this to facilitate accessing those web sites again from your home computer. However, you don't
want the next customer at a public computer to know what you've been doing or give them any opportunity
to hack your personal stuff. Clean it off before you close the browser.
It is simple to clean your traces in Firefox. Click "Tools" on the tool bar and then "Clear Private Data" on
the drop down
menu. Check all the boxes and then click the radio button "Clear Private Data Now."
In Internet Explorer 6 click "Internet Options" in the toolbar. Then click the radio buttons "Delete Cookies,"
"Delete Files," and "Clear History." It's different in IE8.
It's probably not a good idea to be using Internet Explorer anymore because of
the security issues. Germany and France banned the use of IE on government computers in January 2010 because
communist Chinese hackers had broken into zillions of supposedly secure sites using the Microshaft product.
Google has been fighting Chinese censorship and spying for a long time and finally decided to stop
doing business in that dictatorship. Unfortunately the Chinese dictators are behaving like Stalin did
during the Cold War. Shoot first and change the question later.
YOUR LAPTOP
Your Friendly ISP
You are allowed to carry your laptop around Europe. If you have an internet
service provider (ISP) which has local dial up service over there you can dial up from your hotel.
Carrying a computer around Europe is not in tune with the philosophy of packing light,
nor is it good for the health and security of your computer unless it is a
battlefield model. Mine has a solid state hard drive so it is more durable than
a high speed disk.
When I lived in Holland I subscribed to a local ISP. This is only
practical if you are living in Europe. It also entails local phone
costs which can be much higher than at home. In Europe you pay per
minute for every call. It gets very expensive if you are spending an hour
or so every day on the internet. The phone bill is sent every two months.
You can be shocked out of your URLs. If I move back to Europe again I'll sign
up for a flat rate cable service.
European phone systems are still mostly on "pulse" dialing. American systems
are mostly "tone" dialing. You will probably need to make an adjustment in your modem setup
to make a connection.
Wi-Fi
However, modem and dial-up be gone, at least for the traveler. The world of the traveler
is going Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is available in many hotels, hostels, trains, ferries,
and other places where travelers are. It is often free.
Wi-Fi is the trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. According to its website
In 1999, several industry leaders came together to form a global,
non-profit organization with the goal of driving the adoption of a
single worldwide-accepted standard for high-speed wireless local
area networking.
In practice, if your laptop computer is Wi-Fi enabled, you can go on line wherever
there is an open Wi-Fi signal, known as a "hot spot." You don't need a modem or a cable connection.
Many hotels and cafes in Europe are hot spots. They have a trademarked emblem
on the window. If you buy a coffee you can use the hot spot, usually for free. I did this daily
on my trip to Paris in December 2008 using my beautiful little
Asus EEE
laptop. My two star hotel had a hotspot also but the darn
thing would not work for me. It was probably not Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ since that hotel is not listed
on the official Wi-Fi Alliance web site. On my spring 2009 trip around England, Wales, Ireland,
and Scotland I brought my netbook and was able to catch free hotspots in a number of places. The
Stena Line ferry to Ireland and National Express trains from Edinburgh to London provided free
Wi-Fi. This was particularly nice because I could use the dead time to catch up on email. The train
even had an electrical outlet so I didn't need to use my netbook battery.
There are security issues with Wi-Fi hotspots so it might be best to avoid doing your banking
over these systems. Use them to check your email and to browse for hotels, restaurants,
museums, and such. I use the Linux OS and Firefox browser for greater security compared to Windows
and Internet Explorer.
On the way home I was stuck at Detroit's airport for a few hours and found a hotspot
under one of the airlines lounges. It came in strong at about 100 feet away.
If you travel a lot you might want to subscribe to one of the Wi-Fi services like Boingo.
There are devices that can detect hotspots so you don't need to turn your computer on
to find one.
Hardware
European electricy is supplied at 220 volts and 50 Hz. Most laptops sold in the USA
are now rated for this voltage and frequency in addition to the American specification
which is 110 volts and 60 Hz. To make sure, flip your laptop over and check the manufacturers
nameplate or look at the brick on the cord. It must be rated for up to 240 volts and
for 50 Hz to use it in Europe.
The plug on your laptop will not fit in standard European electrical outlets. Continental Europeans
use a plug with two round prongs, except Britain and Ireland. The Islands have their own plug design.
See chapter 11, Electricity
in Europe:
Travel Voltage Fundamentals, to get up to speed on this subject.
If you are using a dial up modem you will probably need a telephone plug adapter in order to
plug your modem into a European phone line. Each country has its own
version of telephone plugs, and some countries have more than one
style. Check your European hotel or residence to see what you need
and then go out to a shop which sells telephones and buy the proper
plug adapter.
Switzerland's phone plugs are unique. Adapters are more
expensive than any I have seen anywhere. In Germany the data
connection in the house was different than the regular phone line.
This required a different type of adapter. Fortunately, Holland uses the
same phone jacks as the USA. I could plug in my phone, fax machine, and modem
as if I was at home in the USA. Thanks KPN for making it so simple.
RETURNING TO THE USA
If you bring a laptop computer to Europe you'll probably want to bring it home.
The Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection Service,
may want to see what is on your laptop when you arrive back in the good old USA. These folks have the
right, and the duty, to see what you are bringing into the country. Their inspection may take a half
hour or half of a month looking for bomb ingredients or subway maps.
I suggest that you carry back-ups of your working files on a
flash drive in case your computer ends up in DHS quarantine. In fact, I don't store anything on
my hard drive. I keep all of my files on flash drives and disconnect them whenever I move
my computer.
NOTE TO READERS
I welcome questions and comments. If you have any concerns about your trip to
Europe that have not been covered well enough in this chapter do not hesitate to write and ask.
My email address is
johnbermont@enjoy-europe.com.
When you write please include as much detail as possible. There are about 50 countries in Europe.
It will help me answer if you mention the countries and/or cities you plan to visit.
I will reply in a day or two.
Don't forget to scroll through the Table of Contents below. The other 29 chapters of
HOW TO EUROPE
are also available, free to read on line. In addition, the Google search box below can locate specific subjects
in any chapter or page on site.
For a check-off punchlist of everything go to The Finale,
Packing List and Last Call
For Travel In Europe
.
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