I have just spent an entire weekend disconnected from what I would call reality. After an enormous storm our Internet got disconnected and Spain being Spain, it is taking them a while to get us reconnected. Reconnected in every sense of the word. It is unbelievable how much I have come to depend on the being connected and it has taken removing it for two days for me to realise how important a part of my life it has become.
I think being abroad this year has only helped highlight this aspect of my life because my laptop and the Internet are quite literally my only real contact with home and with everyone I know. Skype has become my new telephone and my emails are something I check on an hourly basis just incase someone has messaged me with their news.
I have always prided myself on being someone that didn’t need the latest new toy or technology because there is a big part of me that enjoys being a little ‘old fashioned’. The part that loves going for a long walk for no real reason or loves playing board games with friends to pass the time. So it disappoints me that I found an entire weekend with no Internet quite difficult.
At first I just didn’t know what to do with myself. All I wanted to do was check facebook and twitter to see what people were up to and then my emails for news from friends, family and my uni. When I realised this wasn’t going to be possible for the entire day I began to wonder what I was going to do with myself. Trapped inside thanks to the hammering rain I considered it the perfect opportunity to get on with my essay. However then I realised this too was going to be difficult as my dictionary, grammar book and sources of information are all online. Having already drafted the whole thing in English and translated most of it into Spanish already, it is at the stage for checking and perfection, which certainly requires all of the above mentioned sources.
I also have no DVDs with me and have finished all my books except for my Spanish novel for next year. So, a day of thinking and watching everything on my itunes was in order.
It was actually quite nice to be separate from everything. It is amazing how much more you can listen to the little voices in your head when you aren’t trying to do ten things at once. Being in Austria I had a lot of time on my own and today has reminded me of how beneficial that is every now and then. I am someone who likes to be on the go all the time and so taking a break or stopping for 5 minutes used to seem scary. But now I can quite appreciate it.
So after a fairly shaky start to the day it can be said that I a) survived and b) managed to amuse myself for an entire day from very little.
Sunday morning I woke up with an awful feeling of dread in my stomach… a whole other day of nothing was just not an option! So I made my way over to Flossie’s for some Internet stealing and then we went out for an early dinner. Then I spent another evening in with my housemates. Having no internet has made us all much more sociable and we have spoken more in the last two days than in the last two weeks… and we talk a LOT haha!
I am now in McDonald’s, one of the only two WiFi locations in Alcala and am going to spend the afternoon here, by which time hopefully the internet in CRUSA will be up and running once again… fingers crossed…
It is time for me to get back to my essay…So Adios! xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment