the telephone was a tin can on a string

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When I first moved to New York just nine years ago, I actually went to an internet cafe to check my email (I didn't have a laptop for school yet). I didn't google "internet cafe" to find one, I just sort of walked around until I did (luckily there was one pretty close, I wonder if it's still there?). There was something sweet about paying for 30 minutes of precious internet time, reading and responding to emails that made me feel less alone.

I didn't have a cell phone until I moved away from home, and even then, I think it was a hand-me-down flip phone and number from my sister who had just moved overseas. I really only talked on the phone after 9pm because I had a limited amount of "daytime" minutes, and I don't think I started texting for at least another year. 
All of this makes me feel old. But it really is something to remember what New York was like before I had a smartphone. I remember painstakingly writing out detailed directions on a post it note to take with me so I wouldn't get lost when I left my apartment. But of course I still got lost. And I thought I was in Brooklyn when I was only downtown.  If I didn't know exactly where I was going, I wouldn't get there. I had a map--an actual paper map!--that I pulled out occasionally. I didn't want to look like a tourist, although that's mostly how it felt that first year. But mostly those first few days, in an internet cafe, checking my email.