It’s a funny world we live in these days. She had had a cellphone of some sort for about 12 years, but before then she had managed perfectly fine without one. Had she wanted one in Jr. High? Sure, all the “cool kids” had them, but she wasn’t missing out on anything great by not having one. She had survived just fine without one. So, why did not having one now become such a fiasco?
Before they flew over to Germany for their move, they had contacted their phone carrier to determine what their options were for while they were living overseas. They had an idea, but wanted to be sure before they made any decisions. The options were pretty clear, free texting, slow data, and a per minute charge for phone calls that made them not want to make any ever again. She knew that she could call over Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and just figured that would be work out for them. A fairly straightforward situation.
But, nothing is ever as it seems.
They lasted a week without “full” phone service. Not being able to use their phones to translate from German to English while they were out and about. The maps function taking a very long time to upload. The only time they were able to connect to anything was in their hotel room on the WiFi connection. This wasn’t a huge deal for her as she was in the hotel most days due to only having one vehicle, but when they were out and about it was difficult. Then it became even more obvious that for his work he would need to have full use of his phone at all times.
The decision was made to go with a German phone plan.
Since they only had one vehicle and were trying to get the phones changed quickly, it was determined that her husband would take both her and his phones to the phone place and get them switched over. Together they had reviewed the phone plan options and decided what would be best for them. She was not worried about being without her phone for the day, knowing that when he came home (which was early afternoon at the time), she would have full use of her phone with no problems. Maybe a total of 8 hours and they would be good to go.
She didn’t know how this would affect her one app that she used to stay in contact with her nearest and dearest, so she quickly messaged her to let her know that the number may change. She told her it may be a day or two before they could reconnect, and it may mean changing contact numbers in phones.
They contacted their Stateside mobile carrier about placing their phones on hold, unlocking them to use them internationally. They were lucky to have this option and were going to take full advantage of it. Everything seemed to going smoothly. During the phone call, the customer service rep told them that by unlocking their phones they would have to do a factory reset on each device. A factory reset would delete everything on the phone and the phone would appear to be brand new again.
Her face fell and her heart dropped. A factory reset. She couldn’t believe it.
It’s a funny world that we end up storing so much on our phones. Contacts, Photo’s, Videos, Apps, Notes, the list is endless. Even people who aren’t big into phones still use them on a day to day basis. For her, her phone held EVERYTHING. Photos and videos of their children, notes upon notes for blog posts, book reviews, links for things she was interested in, not to mention all of the apps. Everything was programmed exactly as she liked.
She couldn’t even remember the last time she had backed up her phone, let alone transferred any of the photos, notes, or anything to her computer. It was going to be a LONG night.
She started by backing up her phone, although this doesn’t really save too much it would help her start the process of getting her phone back the way it was. Since it had been so long since she had done it, it took a little while to do.
Once the backup was complete she had to go through the process of importing EVERYTHING. First photos, then videos, then transferring the notes from phone to computer. She was up into the wee hours of the morning making sure everything was transferred over so that when her husband took the phone she could easily transfer back what she wanted.
The next morning, she passed her phone off to her husband confident that everything would go well and that if nothing else, she would have a working phone by the end of the day. One that would work wherever they went.
Later that day, during naptime, her husband walked into their apartment handed her her phone and said:
“Yours isn’t ready yet”
“What?!” Was her immediate reaction. This was not what was supposed to happen.
He had her restart the phone, put the new pin in (for the unlocked phone) and nothing had changed. The phone looked exactly the same as it had when they left.
“That’s not right” he said, “I had to reenter my [I-Tunes] password and do a couple other things first”.
“So you’re telling me my phone is dead right now. It doesn’t work”. She wasn’t worried, but she was worried. She didn’t NEED a phone like most people may think. She could live without the Social Media, the internet, the photos (which were all successfully on her computer), but she had herself, two young children in a new country and no way to contact anyone? That worried her.
Her concern starting to wash over her ever so slightly, her husband tried to call her phone from his. He dialed her new number and it wouldn’t connect.
They restarted her phone. Reentered the code. The phone didn’t ask for her I-Tunes password and looked the same as it always had. Her husband dialed her number once again. This time it connected.
Relief washer over her. Her world was right again. She tried messaging her friends over the various apps that she used to contact them. Everything worked perfectly. For whatever reason her phone did not need to factory reset in order to work with the unlocked pin. She didn’t know why or if that was correct and she spent about an hour that evening making sure that everything was correct.
In every location her phone indicated the new carrier, new plan, new data. It seemed to have worked and her late hours the night before were not needed.
All was well.
***Author’s Note: I hope that you enjoyed this next installment in Utterly Ridiculous Stories of My Life. It went on a little bit longer than it should have, but I felt it was necessary to include the ending. This story is a particular gem of First World Problems, but it is funny to me as I used to never be so reliant on a cellphone. I never realize how much it really ate into my day to day from chatting to friends, to Social Media, to Music and while we have other options to get in contact with people (namely a very expensive computer), the ease of a cellphone is hard to replace. Out of all of this though I have definitely made even more of a point to put my phone down more and more and not be so “attached” to it.***
For the courthouse, you are given a little handset that relays the information about the trials and the various parts of the exhibit in your native language so you can get a full understanding. Not only do the handsets detail out the rise, fall, and trials from the Nazi Party, but it also goes into testimony and audio accounts from the trial.
There is something to be said for listening to the audio of the trial while sitting in the gallery of the courthouse.
Our next stop was the Reichsparteigelande. This is about a 20-minute drive from the courthouse and is truly a site to see. We started at the Documentation Center, which is the unfinished remains of the Congress Hall. The cost is incredibly reasonable and once again, you are given a headset to detail out the exhibit information in your native language. Some of the headsets have a mechanism that starts the translation of the various videos that are shown when you walk within a certain distance of the video screen. My husband’s headset worked like this, while mine did not, so it is very hit or miss on that.
Once finished with the exhibit, we headed out to walk the trail that would take us over to the main highway street, the stadium, and the parade street at Zeppelin Field. This is a very pretty, paved walkway that follows along the outer edges of a man-made lake. At each point of interest there is a large information board/sign that breaks down what you are seeing and where you are at on the route in both German and English.
Our day ended with starting to watch the sunset on the lake, which is always a beautiful sight to see. There are a couple of restaurants and places to stop and eat nearby, but we decided to head back to the hotel as we had two very tired little boys that were reaching the end of their ropes.
Tuesday: This morning we got our first dose of spring weather and playgroup so comfy and easy was what was needed. I was able to pull out one of my favorite tees (also in honor of Karl Lagerfeld’s death the past week).
Wednesday was a smidge cooler, so I picked up a light sweater (the back is semi sheer) and boots. Any excuse to wear boots.
Friday has quickly become our sweats day. It is the only day of the week that we just stay in the hotel and relax.
Tip #5: Car seat Carrier.If you have young children, you know all about the fun that is car seats. Now, you can certainly carry the car seat on the plane and have your children strapped into it (that is the safer thing to do), but we did not do that. We gate checked our car seats and the children each had their own seat on the plane. This worked for us, but even before gate checking, we were concerned about the damage that could be done to our car seats. The last time we gate checked baby gear it was broken in transit and with us needing the car seats shortly after landing I was especially concerned that they not be damaged. Enter a car seat carrier. We purchased two and spent I think about $70-$80 total and they were more than worth that price. They had some points where the bag was dirty and the bottom of one showed a decent amount of wear & tear, but it was the bag, not the car seat itself. They both arrived completely intact with no damage. It also made it boat loads easier to transport the car seats both to the first ticket counter and from baggage claim to the second ticket counter.
Second flight was an overnight flight, which I honestly think saved us. The boys slept for about 80% of the flight and we tried to sleep as best we could. Once we landed it was time to go through paperwork. They were fairly well organized where we flew in and once we were through the initial passport and customs section, we were taken to a hotel to stay the night in. This was our first night in Germany.
Early (ish) the next morning we were up and ready to get a bus ride to our final area. I think out of all of them, the bus ride was the hardest part of the entire journey. It wasn’t long (~5 hrs), but it felt much much longer, but we made it, checked into our hotel and just took a minute to breathe. It was such a relief to finally make it to our hotel and be able to not have to worry about being up at a certain time, what the next round of travel is, or even how we were going to manage all the suitcases.
A Cuppa Cosy 