artoodeeto
06-04-2010, 01:04 AM
ARG! So my girlfriend's in Italy, Urbania to be specific (about 200 very windy miles north of Rome). She flew out on Tuesday. She's there for a month long opera/Italian language program, and I think it's going to be fantastic. However, it's proving to be a bit harder to stay in touch than we thought. See, her apartment doesn't have internet access or a phone. She has her cell, but because it's Verizon, voice doesn't work unless you use Verizon's system which is a dollar a minute. :facepalm:
We downloaded Skype mobile onto her phone, a blackberry storm, thinking that because Skype works for calling normal phones from a computer if you pay the $14/month, it'd work the same from her phone. No such luck. Turns out Skype mobile doesn't work at all outside the US. not even for IM'ing. There's a nearby internet cafe, which is only 2 euros for unlimited internet, but there'd be no privacy for her and it closes at 10pm. With the 9 hour difference, that's 1pm here. Ok for weekends, but I'm still at work on weekdays. We could talk, just not for very long.
There's a card she could get for her laptop that's 40 euros for 100 hours of internet, but apparently they're not very fast. Not sure how it'd work for voice chatting.
We did discover that AIM works for IM'ing from her phone. But her phone randomly drops the internet connection, and AIM doesnt' always send the messages right away, if at all.
don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to whine, I'm really excited that she's doing this, and I know that as problems go this is really rather insignificant. But she's my best friend, and someone I'm used to talking to and hanging out with for a big chunk of each day, and it's not easy suddenly not being able to talk all the time. Of course, it *does* give me about 3 weeks with nothing really to do other than finish my sandcrawler LOL...
BTW, did I mention I'm going over there for 10 days at the end of the month? Once her program is over, we're going to Florence, Venice and Rome. :P I'm practically counting the hours....
We downloaded Skype mobile onto her phone, a blackberry storm, thinking that because Skype works for calling normal phones from a computer if you pay the $14/month, it'd work the same from her phone. No such luck. Turns out Skype mobile doesn't work at all outside the US. not even for IM'ing. There's a nearby internet cafe, which is only 2 euros for unlimited internet, but there'd be no privacy for her and it closes at 10pm. With the 9 hour difference, that's 1pm here. Ok for weekends, but I'm still at work on weekdays. We could talk, just not for very long.
There's a card she could get for her laptop that's 40 euros for 100 hours of internet, but apparently they're not very fast. Not sure how it'd work for voice chatting.
We did discover that AIM works for IM'ing from her phone. But her phone randomly drops the internet connection, and AIM doesnt' always send the messages right away, if at all.
don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to whine, I'm really excited that she's doing this, and I know that as problems go this is really rather insignificant. But she's my best friend, and someone I'm used to talking to and hanging out with for a big chunk of each day, and it's not easy suddenly not being able to talk all the time. Of course, it *does* give me about 3 weeks with nothing really to do other than finish my sandcrawler LOL...
BTW, did I mention I'm going over there for 10 days at the end of the month? Once her program is over, we're going to Florence, Venice and Rome. :P I'm practically counting the hours....