- The per-hour charges for computers are usually pretty steep, so write your email before you go, or at least organize your thoughts before starting the meter.

- If you’ve never done a remote email grab while away from your home computer, you might want to try doing one while across town in your home city before you head to Europe. If you have any problems, you can find out why in your home country/language.

- If you don’t have an email account that you can check while away, it’s easy enough to get a free one from any Internet provider such as Yahoo!, Microsoft (which is Hotmail), Excite - really anywhere. Before you leave, log on to one of these websites (®www.yahoo .com, ® www.hotmail.com, ® www. excite, com) and follow the basic steps, which include choosing a user name and a password. Remember to jot your password down somewhere safe - it’s amazing how fast you can forget it. Once you’ve set up an account you can retrieve and send messages to and from anywhere in the world - for free.

- A surprising number of cafes I’ve visited, especially in Britain, have had AOL. However, if a cafe does not have AOL you can still . retrieve your email account by logging on to ®www,aol.com and clicking on “email retrieval.” It’s easy enough to follow the steps from there. Still, it’s not a bad idea to open a free account (as discussed above) as a backup system.

- European keyboards have been the source of massive amounts of profanity by those from other countries. You’ll understand when you use one. A word of advice; use control-alt-9 to get an “@” symbol, or cut and paste from an email.