Face Off

By Andrea Mc Veigh

Yesterday, I threw a sheep at a friend who lives in Australia, bought a round of drinks for pals in Dublin and Toronto and showed my recent holiday photos to mates across Northern Ireland, all at the same time and I didn’t even have to leave my house.

Of course, I didn't physically do all those things. I did them virtually, through Facebook, which I'm now addicted to, since signing up last December. Not a day goes by when I don’t itch to check out what my online friends are doing, what daft quizzes they've taken and what virtual gifts they've given me. I love reading their witty 'status updates', finding out who is on holiday, who is hung-over and who is glued to their computer screen like me!

For those who left technology behind circa the introduction of the pocket calculator, Facebook is a social networking site. For those au fait with the MySpace generation, Facebook is like Bebo (the cyberspace hangout of choice for many teens), but for older people. It's a generation thing - my nephew and niece, at ages 21 and 18, would be lost without Bebo but don’t see the appeal of Facebook at all, probably because on Facebook you'll find correctly spelled words and proper sentences!

But be warned, it's easy to spend a whole morning updating your profile and writing to friends before realising you haven’t actually done any work/taken in the washing/fed the baby and that your boss is ready to fire you/your washing has got soaked in the rain/your baby is not happy! I'm old enough to remember the days when there were no mobile phones, no e-mails, no texting and, if you wanted to meet a friend, you had to make an arrangements in advance and stick with them, or else leave them standing in the rain outside your chosen destination while you rushed to catch the last bus into town. I much prefer today's way of doing things!

I'd also be lost without the Internet. I'm not long back from a trip to Lithuania, and before I went I was able to check my hotel bookings, source restaurants, look for shops and see if there were any concerts on worth going to over there, leaving me free to really hit the ground running once I got there. Lithuania itself was a revelation. It's not a place I'd really thought much about before, but it's gaining a reputation as a destination for medical tourists and spa fans. In fact, there a whole city, Druskininkai (which I wasn't able to pronounce no matter how hard I tried!), which is filled with spas and health resorts.

Some of them are former sanatoriums, which were used when the country was part of the USSR (it gained independence in 1990) and it's also famous for its health-promoting mineral water and therapeutic mud. Needless to say, I came back relaxed and refreshed after several lovely treatments. But home in cold, rainy Belfast, with the phone ringing and lots of emails to reply to (modern technology does have its downsides!) it didn’t take long before my stress levels started to rise again!

But I always like to have a holiday to look forward to - I wouldn't be able to get through the day without a wee day-dream about foreign shores - so I can't wait until I go to Cairo next week. I'll be writing a feature on this fascinating city, home of the pyramids, for Ulster Tatler magazine on my return - so keep your eyes peeled for that. I think I may pass on the camel-riding opportunities at Giza though. I've never really got on with camels - they scare me for one thing, and if you get up close, they don’t always smell that good! But, in the interests of investigative journalism, I may be willing to give them a second chance. Wish me luck!