No Signal

I was in Budapest from Monday to Wednesday this week and just as my train had crossed the HU border, the display of my mobile phone said "No SIM. Emergency Calls Only" so for the whole 2.5 days I only had internet or call (via Skype, outbound) connection when in WiFi. I had to repeatedly remind people (I was there with my team and we were coordinating evening activities, etc.) that I suspected my SIM was dead and needed to wait until I was back in Austria and could have it replaced, but some still asked me several times why I wasn't picking up my phone. It seems that in this day and age not being online/available 24/7 is such an alien concept that people don't "get" it. I'm not lying...I also found it a bit weird to be so "cut off", most of all, when everybody else was playing with their phones and I couldn't participate in the rudeness. 

We also passed an old-school phone booth and one of my (much younger) colleagues pointed it out and said "Wow, they still have one of these!" while I didn't find it so weird at all and remembered the times when I used to walk to the phone-booth in my parents' neighbourhood to call my ex-boyfriend abroad with either a little tower of coins or a call-card in order to avoid my parents complaining about the costs or me talking forever even if it wasn't charged to their phone-bill. Going to certain pains in order to hear your loved one's voice, such as having to walk to the nearest pay-phone or having to wait until the arranged time when he or she is available makes a conversation so much more valuable than just being able to talk or text any time.

Nevertheless, my first errand after getting off the train was to go to the shop to have my SIM card replaced. Order restored.