The Always Off World

I have had a brutal entrance into the always off world in the past few days. For the first time in five years, I do not have a cell phone with me at all times (okay, so I do, I just don't have service in Europe). For the first time in five years, I can't jump onto a free wifi network (i.e. the one in my house) whenever I want. On top of that, I'm not exactly fluent in German, so I can't understand 25% of the signs on the streets and I understand very little of what's on the hotel television.

This has forced a huge shift in the way I live my life. Outside of the obvious time conflict with communicating back home in the United States, I can't rely on my always-on services like AIM and my Cingular cell phone. I have to plan my use of the internet to minimize the excessive expense incurred when connecting (I'm writing this offline). I do not have the ability to use Bloglines to consume all the news, photos, and 150+ blogs that I'm used to reading on a daily basis. My Germany experience so far has been like geek prison.

While this all may change in a few days when I move in with my home family, for the time being it's pretty disruptive.