WESTERN EUROPE
CALLING HOME FROM WESTERN EUROPE. A calling card is probably cheapest. Calls are billed collect or to your account. Let’s Go has recently partnered with ekit.com to provide a calling card that offers a number of services, including email and voice messaging. Before purchasing a calling card, be sure to compare rates, and make sure it serves your needs; for instance, a local phonecard is generally better for local calls. For more info, visit www.letsgo.ekit.com. You can also pur chase cards from your national telecommunications companies. Keep in mind that phone cards can be problematic in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Slovenia dou- ble-check with your provider before setting out. You can often make direct interna tional calls from pay phones, but without a calling card, you may need to continually add more change. Where available, prepaid phone cards and occasion ally major credit cards can be used for direct international calls, but they are still less cost-efficient. Placing a collect call through an international operator is a more expensive alternative.
CALLING WITHIN WESTERN EUROPE. Many travelers are opting to buy mobile phones for placing calls within Europe. (For more info, see Cell Phones in Europe below.) Beyond that, perhaps the easiest way to call within a country is to use a coin-operated phone. However, much of Europe has switched to a prepaid phone card system, and in some countries you may have a hard time finding any coin operated phones at all. Prepaid phone cards (available at newspaper kiosks and tobacco stores) carry a certain amount of phone time depending on the card’s denomination. The computerized phone will tell you how much time, in units, you have left on your card. Another kind of prepaid telephone card comes with a Per sonal Identification Number (PIN) and a toll-free access number. Instead of insert ing the card into the phone, you call the access number and follow the directions on the card. These cards can be used to make international as well as domestic calls. Phone rates tend to be highest in the morning, lower in the evening, and low est on Sunday and late at night.
1693 The College of William and Mary is founded. 1696 Belgium Metro Map Sloane publishes Catalog of Plants of the Island of Jamaica in Latin. Its usefulness is enhanced by Belgium Metro Map cross-references to other works of Caribbean botany. 1701 A new school, later to become Yale College, is founded at Saybrook, Connecticut. 1705 The French monk and government agent Charles Plumier publishes the eight-volume Country Botany. 1708 Thomas Robie of Harvard begins publishing an almanac series, An Ephemeris of the Coelestial Motions. Several volumes will include discussions of scientific topics, disseminating Newtonian physics to a popular audience. The Philadelphia physician Christopher Witt establishes a botanical garden at Germantown, Pennsylvania.
