Day 136

We are living in the gadget-world; we have mobiles, laptops, internet connections, GPS, you name it. They should make our life easier, but does they. Lets take an example of the real world.

I live in Pori where I know most of the places, and still I carry my mobile with GPS on, tablet PC with WiFi connection on, The internet connection is always on via 3G network and it's fixed monthly price. Convenient, but could live without ? After all, the city is familiar to me; I know my location and the restarants and places.

One day I travel abroad, like to Budapest. After landing I turn my mobile on immediately, already in a plane of cause not to miss any possible or non possible calls or message or mails. The first set back is the internet connection via 3G, as it is far too expensive to use abroad. I should buy a prepaid SIM, but then I couldn't use my ordinary sim for incoming calls. Not an option.

It would be nice to get familiar with the city via map. I don't have a paper copy as it would be old fashion way and awkward to use, so I use a map via mobile, but that doesn not work because  an internet connection is needed to download the map of my location. So I need to find a place with WiFi to pre-load it. Found a coffee shop with free WiFi. Done, good. I go for a long walk and after 30 min I feel lost. I turn the GPS on to see where I am. But the GPS does not work; tall buildings around, no connection to the satellite. I walk another 30 min and finally GPS turns on, just to inform that I have walked to wrong direction all the time.

I'm tired, need to find a decent coffee shop to sit down and rest for a minute or two. Luckily I have this Trip Advisor application in my mobile and it has all the coffee shops in Budapest. But oh, I need a internet connection to use the application and its nice features. So I need a WiFi again. After 20 min of walk I find one, without any electronic help. I check other coffee shops around via this application, it shows less than 10 of them, in the whole city? Not including the one where I just sit, nor any of those I have already visited. Bloody handy application!

I turn off all the electronic gadgets and trust my eyes and keep on walking...