“Thursday Two” in English doesn’t have the same ring as combining a bit of German (Donnerstag) and Italian (due), even though it means the same thing. So it’s thanks to Chris for this alliterative title for today’s post, which first came about because we realized this morning that we’ve been in Melbourne now for 2 weeks, and the U.S. for 2 months.  2 major milestones of a sort.

The best part of this period has been the opportunity to visit relatives in various places here in the U.S.. However, the last 2 months have also been a bit of a blur of activity, as we have tried to figure out what we need to do to get settled into the nomadic lifestyle of our Plan G.  We spent a lot of time initially sorting and downsizing our stuff, but we didn’t make much headway on other items on our “To Do” list in the first 6 weeks. However, in the last 2 weeks we’ve focused on major errands and necessary purchases,  like getting the car, and also — as of today — getting an American cell phone.

And it’s the cellphone  where the real complications of the Donnerstag Due come into play for this post.

Now, we never tried to buy a car in Italy or Germany, so I don’t know how that process compares to the U.S. However, the cell phone stuff here in the U.S. is complicated and expensive, compared to what we had in Germany. I never remember all the acronyms involved — Chris does and that’s enough —  but suffice to say that our European phones are not compatible with most cell phone companies here in the U.S.    To be compatible requires going with one of two possible carriers. Those places would have allowed us to keep our current phones, but would have required us to pay a lot for the monthly service plans. So rather than commit to anything like that right now, we went with a different provider that had a cheaper plan, the catch being that our old cell phones weren’t compatible with that provider. That meant that we then had to buy a cheap phone to go along with it.

It took 3 visits to the store to get stuff sorted out, but we are now the proud owners of a LG Cosmos 3 phone:

LG Cosmos 3 phone with keyboard showing

On the up side, the new phone has a real keyboard on it that slides out on the side- yay! I love real keyboards on handheld devices, even if the keys are tiny. I’m not a fan of the on-screen virtual keyboard. I have loved the little “thumb-type” keyboards ever since my first handheld organizer, the Sharp Y0-600.  See, I even remember the model number after all these years, I liked it so much.  So having the keyboard on the phone is fun – it was completely by accident, though, that we wound up with it, as this was the cheapest phone they had available for this phone plan.  Although both Chris and I will share the phone number and the phone, Chris has already predicted that I will use it more because of that keyboard.

The LG Cosmos 3 phone does not have a very good camera, however. My old, incompatible-with-this-new-provider  “smartphone” style phone does have a great camera, of course.  This means the for the next little while I’ll be carrying 2 phones:  the new basic phone that will allow me to make U.S. calls and send U.S. text messages (using that keyboard-yay!) and the old fancier one with the great camera that I can use for taking photos, but not for making phone calls.  So, that means 2 phones in my purse for much of the day, something I haven’t needed to do in Europe for over a year.  And yes, I could have gotten away with one phone here in the U.S. but for a lot more money, as the plans here for what we need from a cell phone are just a lot more money than they were in Europe.

BTW, in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that Chris has already been carrying mulitple phones in his pockets ever since we’ve been in the U.S. We arrived with a phone that has both U.S. and UK numbers (a dual-number on a single SIMM card that we call the “Anglo” phone.) Chris usually carries this one.

This is not to be confused with the dual SIMM card phone he had been carrying in Europe, with one card for his German number and one for his Italian number. While he carried it around at first when we arrived in the U.S., he now leaves it at home.

But he also has a European “smart phone” that he can use in the U.S. for everything except phone calls. He carries that with him all the time in addition to the Anglo phone.

Plus, while I’m driving, he will now need to add our new U.S. phone to his pocket, just in case the new one rings while we’re in the car.

Complicated enough for you?

At least enough for a Donnerstag Due, I dare say.