Isn’t the Internet an amazing thing?

Another week has gone by and the trip is ever closer, including today there are only eleven days of work left, I have Friday off and am planning to hit the various embassies to ask for permission to enter their countries and I am going to get my ass in gear and sort out my vaccinations this week, honest ;-).

After the success of our first OzBus drinking session the next one is already in the pipeline for this Thursday and I am sure it will not be the last before we head off. The fact that so many of us from the bus have managed to get in touch through something as simple as a social networking site is a true testament to the evolution on the internet, I still remember when the only computer I had was a BBCB 32k which had slightly less computing power than a calculator with low battery! I did not even get my first PC till just before I left home to go to university.

Looking back I remember being impressed with the Internet straight away, emails, websites, search engines, it was all new and shiny and somewhat of a novelty to start with, mind you I still remember when mobile phones first came on to the social scene and no-one was convinced they would take off! Now it is hard to imagine a world without these technological accessories. When I was a kid I would head off to play with my friends and my parents were happy as long as I was home when I said I would be, nowadays the mobile phone acts like a beacon and parents feel the need to be constantly updated on their children’s whereabouts. Meeting up for a drink has gone from “I will be in this pub at this time” to “I will be somewhere in the West End near Oxford Circus, call me when you get off the tube” and reconnecting with old friends can be as simple as typing their name into a search engine.

Many of us still remember life before emails, the Internet and mobile phones but can any of us truly imagine what we would do without them in the future?