A Viber Kind of Week

Although I have an iPhone, and a lot of my friends back home have iPhones, it's a bit risky sometimes to text them using iMessage - you accidentally wander into a 3G deadspot and suddenly you're paying for international texting. So I really like any app that will guarantee to send via the internet, or not at all AND free texting/talking to non-iphones. I have constant chit chat going back and forth (usually first thing in the morning or last thing at night because of the time difference) with a couple of people (which involves different skills than I've developed before - constant contact with home means more chance not to fully integrate here, but I think I'm balancing it right. But maybe I'll post on that some other time.) The other day Erica and I were having a text conversation over viber when she spontaneously rang me. She was walking to work, and it was lovely just to chat knowing all it was costing her was some data allowance and me nothing because I was on wifi. Today Bridget rang me just to catch up, which was wonderful - I was waiting for a house trip to the pub, so it was nice to spend those 15 minutes chatting rather than pretending to work. All my housemates also then got to listen to one half of the conversation and were quite bemused about why she was on the phone outside a swimming pool. I've just talked to my sister too. She's coming over next week for two week visit, so we had some details to arrange.

Brilliant!!