The World of Technology in Europe - A Lost Adventure

When I arrived in Europe I never thought about how much I rely on technology being a photographer. During my time here I have been uploading photos to my website Hannah Swick Photography, Facebook, and of course this blog. Unless I have perfect Wi-Fi connection it takes hours on end to upload my photos onto anything. It makes it difficult to share everything that I want to.

Before I left Colorado I unlocked my iPhone to have world access via Verizon. I thought that buying a SIM card ahead of time through UNC would be great! It promised too much and sounded like it wouldn’t be very expensive but boy I was wrong. The SIM card that you can buy through the ICIS card that I got from UNC was one of the worst things I ever did. It said that you would be able to call at a low rate but it charged me more than anything else. I made only a few essential calls and it cost me over 150 euros in two weeks. I wanted to cry. When I arrived in Italy I bought a specific SIM card for Italy. You bought the SIM for 25 euros, which included the first three months as a down payment, then after, that it was supposed to be 9 euros. If I didn’t have to try and call my credit card company who kept hanging up on me, and the calls kept dropping I would have been fine, but that wasn’t my case. WIND, one of the Italian phone companies here charged me an arm and a leg and my minutes were gone along with my entire down payment. So my dad found the app where I could call through until I could pay again for the month and everything was fine. Phones are complicated here. Recently I prepaid for my last month here in Italy (10 Euros) and before my contract restarted for the month, a Slovenian phone company charged WIND 12 cents for me apparently using their phone signal, even though I haven’t even been in Slovenia. Because Trieste is so close to Slovenia, this happens a lot. So I went to WIND to see what happened and they told me that there was nothing I could do about Slovenia picking up my phone signal so I owed WIND money. I found this not my problem but theirs, but I couldn’t win the battle. The minimum payment to WIND is 5 euros so I had to pay the 5 euros even though I only owed 12 cents. It was ridiculous.

Free WIFI in Europe does not exist. That has been a trouble of mine with blogging and uploading photos onto my website. I decided to not pay for an Internet card for my computer in my apartment the duration I have been in Italy because it thought it was too much. So I have only used my computer for iTunes and editing photos at home then I go to the University for Wi-Fi, which bumps you off every 2 hours until I found a local coffee shop named Kulp in Trieste that has fast Wi-Fi and a big comfy couch that I spend most of my time on when I am not at home or at school. Paying 2 euros for a cappuccino for unlimited Wi-Fi for roughly 6 hours (the time that I normally am in the Kulp) is much cheaper than paying for Wi-Fi or Internet at my apartment and I also enjoy the coffee! Compared to home, I can upload about 30 photos in 6 hours here in Italy, but at home I can upload 30 in about an hour.

If you have Apple products I would recommend anyone traveling abroad to buy the specific outlets for mac products! They are interchangeable and fit better in the plug-ins throughout the UK and EU than the all-in-one big bulky converters. The best apps that I have found while being abroad are WhatsApp, iTranslate, Duolingo, Skyscanner, CNN, Linphone, The Weather Channel, FaceTime, and Maps. CNN is always nice for me so I can stay updated with the United States and see what is happening in the countries I am in. I also don’t have television or the radio to stay updated (even if I did, it’s only in Italian).

One thing that I found very impressive was that FaceTime is a billion times better than Skype. I tried Skyping back home and the connection was awful. I couldn’t hear or see my parents, so we decided to try FaceTime. I had never FaceTimed before I was here in Italy but it works 99% of the time. I also use WhatsApp to stay in contact with not only my friends and family back at in Colorado, but almost everyone uses it here in Europe as well. It is a free texting app that connects to your contacts that have the app. I have friends from Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Colorado, and Oklahoma.

My view on technology has changed while being here. I have learned tricks by experience and hopefully I was able to let everyone who wants to study abroad or just travel some in on insight on what to expect in not only Italy but also Europe.