Another week, another continent. As I write this (on my trusty iPad) we are blasting across Europe. The Fiesta World Tour 2010 has left The New World behind and is heading deep into the Old World. The Middle East is on the horizon and Asia is not far off.

The last week in the U.S. and Canada was nothing but gadget hassle. The once-wonderful Virgin MiFi became a liability for all of us when it refused to do the one job it was designed to do and had, up to then, been doing brilliantly: Be a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot in our Ford Fiesta.

Sleep is a luxury on a global drive so I did not enjoy wasting an hour to the useless Virgin Mobile help desk, only to be told their server was down. The advice from the same desk the next morning was to reboot the device using a paperclip. Not easy at 70mph on I-95.

But for the last day of the U.S. leg the MiFi finally started working and found me (via my iPad) a great place for breakfast between Boston and NYC: the Cosmic Omelet in Manchester CT. Then it helped guide us (when the TomTom and in-car satellite navigation system did not) to the spot I had found on GoogleEarth from which to film our arrival in The Big Apple.

The SPOT tracker uses GPS and satellite signals to let you track our location wherever we go.

The second technical hiccup came when I gave up trying to ignite my Spot Satellite Messenger for you guys to follow our progress. I called FindMeSpot’s 800 number, only to be told the one I had bought from BestBuy in LA was a recalled unit. The Spot public relations people FedExed one to me in time for me to get it going for the last few miles of the U.S. trip. It is now well up and running and you can see where we have been at. But I will turn it off when we are in more sensitive areas.

Leg 2 started in Ireland, on the far side of The Pond, at the Lisdoonvarna matchmaking festival. (Don’t ask.) I’d hoped for a Guinness gadget of some kind from Dublin but only when we got across to Wales did the gadgets start ramping up.

Welsh is a revived language, and it’s thriving so well that there is even a Welsh version of Scrabble. There are no Z’s, but you get maximum points if you can use the A. We played it on the railway station of the town with what I believe is the longest URL the world.

In England we stopped by our headquarters in the Inc office where gadgets galore were stacked for our next leg.

• Iridium satellite phone
• Camping Gaz car cool box
• Eigenharp computer instrument
• Handpresso pump action espresso maker
• Car kettle (a hand espresso machine needs hot water)
• European TomTom app for the iPhone
• Apple wireless keyboard for the iPad
• 2 Lifeventure first aid kits

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Authors: Jeremy Hart

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