Technology

Technology is a pretty amazing thing.. that I can sit here on a balcony in Berlin, with the laptop literally in my lap, and cheerfully type this is pretty cool. The auto-parking feature on the cars that the Hannusches (our German friends) drive is really clever, too -- it essentially tells them exactly when to stop backing up, how close they are to the curb, etc. And they have the requisite GPS system as well... it says in polite German how far it is to the corner they need to turn at, and to please watch for construction ahead, etc. This is undoubtedly a vast improvement on my role as navigator with Mitch as pilot, which would sound more like: "okay, this should be our corner up ahead.. no, don't turn, you've got to go through the round-about then it's the second right... the SECOND right -- NOW!! Turn!! Yes, there... oh sh*#... now what are we supposed to do?! It'll be ten kilometres before they let us turn again, da%*it!!..."

But as I watch Lisa, who has learned to drive with all this technology, beetling down the street in her Mother's beautiful convertible (that automatically opens and closes -- no heaving the rag-top back for this family!), I can't help but worry what she would do if she was thrown in an old farm truck and had to navigate down a muddy road. Or what she would do if her GPS failed when she was in a dodgy part of the city? "Oh, I could find my way without it," she assures me, "it's just easier this way... ." Hmmm... I'm not convinced. And although it seems impossible that something could happen that would deprive us all of this amazing technology, we are living in the country that had everything they knew and understood stripped from them only half a century ago. Lisa's grandfather's family were turned off their family farm, had all their land and animals appropriated by the State, and were crammed into a small apartment. Then in 1989 when the Wall came down (and people were used to things again), they had everything reinstated, two generations later. Things can change suddenly.

And life nowadays without technology, even for those of us who try to avoid it, is far more difficult than it was in the pre-computer days. When Mitch and I were here in 1991, I wrote a journal-style letter to my Mom each day, and phoned home once a month or so. Now, I have been completely thrown off-track by the fact that while central and West Berlin literally are studded with internet cafes and phone centres, Hellersdorf, the East Berlin suburb that we are staying in (a hour from the centre of town), does not boast even one internet cafe. Phone booths exist, but they mostly only take coins and consume them at an alarming rate, even for local calls. And I can't hook up my own computer (and therefore access my own files) when I do finally get a connection. Suddenly how to stay in touch has become a panic!! Send a letter -- that could take weeks!

And then there is the fragility of technology -- the more advanced, the more fragile. My sleek, feather-weight laptop was no match for the heavy-weight wrestling match of my boys on the top bunk in the very first hotel room of our journey... it hit the floor, cracked -- and is no more. So we're now (shock, horror) a one-computer family and I have to join in the queue with the kids to spend time on-line... in the mean-time, I'll work on Cachell's old-fashioned cursive writing skills and hone up my own as the boys use the computer.

PS: Don't hold your breathe for a letter... all my mailing addresses went down with the Toshiba... long-live this time-saving technology!! But my favorite part about following technology in Berlin is that for ten days I could not get connected on my own computer... but today across from "Check-Pointe Charlie" I discovered a coffee shop that gives me free internet with a decadent hot chocolate smothered with chocolate whipped cream!! This is the life!! Genau... (as they say locally!)

Technology II

Ahh, technology... after waxing eloquent about it, it has taken me an hour of precious internet time to figure out how to get back into this blog, and then how to post the darn thing!! Yeesh...