Tracy has an iPad 2. It has been invaluable to assist with our journey. Google Earth and Google Translate have worked well. Tracy showed the young girl at the hotel front desk the aerial view of the neighborhood to locate the Catholic church. The directions we had previously received were incorrect and the few minutes spent with the young lady with an interactuve picture made the difference.
We also loaded Skype onto the iPad before we left. Skype has allowed us to stay in touch with friends and family - inexpensively. We just have to have an internet connection which is no longer a problem. It's been nice seeing our grandsons through video chat. My mother-in-law has really got a kick out of her webcam and video chats with Tracy.
We're also using Facebook, Blogger.com, digital photos and my laptop to chronicle and share our experiences as well as stay in touch with news, sports and weather back home. It was a pleasure to see the Blues advance in the playoffs and the Red Wings eliminated. The Cardinals are off to a good start.
MapQuest has work to do to be relevant outside of the US. We struggled to navigate their website to the correct cities and corresponding maps. Specifically, in and around Sao Paulo were not very helpful. We actually used two GPS systems in tandem to navigate our way to Campos do Jordao. One was a TomTom that spoke English and the other was standard in the Honda Accord. The Honda version does not have an English language file so the voice is Portuguese only. The verdict - neither one delivered us to our destination without incident. The Honda system locked up about 10 miles from our destination when we needed it most and the TomTom was not quite up-to-date. Both systems would get us close but we had to use our instincts, a couple of maps and local landmarks to reach our final destinations.
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