One of my sisters-in-law and a cousin-in-law (yes, I know that’s not a real title…) have been on holiday in the USA. Weird enough, since we were meant to go with them*, but also because of how different this world is now.
When I first arrived in New Zealand in 1995, hardly anyone I knew had an email address. So, the only way to keep in touch with folks in the USA was through expensive International Long Distance phone calls, or posted letters. It took up to a week for a letter to get from the USA to me, and up to two weeks for a letter to get from me to an address in the USA. All of which means that communication was either slow or expensive.
Now, things are very different.
I’ve played “Words with Friends” with our travellers while they’ve been away, and I’ve kept up with their adventures on Facebook. It’s almost as if they were in another part of New Zealand, Australia at the farthest.
This week, we spoke with my sister-in-law via Facetime (and she showed us her hotel room in Las Vegas, where she was at the time). Several family members were at our house that night, and we all said hello. I couldn’t have imagined such things 18+ years ago.
When our travellers went to their last stop in San Francisco, the first thing I thought of was how many people I know who live there, or in the greater Bay area or, at least, not all that far away from there. But all those people I know? I’ve never met any of them in real life. Welcome to the modern world.
So, members of my New Zealand family went to my native land, but we connected as if they were in NZ, and they went to places where I know people, only I’ve never actually met those people in real life. That pretty much sums up the world many of us now live in.
I love the world we live in.
*We'd planned on going with them, but our airfare is in my mouth, so to speak. Longtime readers will know what I'm referring to, others may want to look through the blog archives…
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