Living Only With a Smartphone. No Tablet. A reminder from the hotel.

July 5, 2024. I woke up at 8:00 AM because of a strong knocking on the balcony door. It was Matilda.

"Matilda, what are you doing here? You can't be here, don't you understand that?"

"I just wanted to tell you, if you want to be with Lena, then please delete all my stuff. The photos and also my mother's number."

"If you want me to, I'll do it," I said and grabbed my phone from the living room.

I deleted the number of her caretaker, her mother's number, and also her old number. I also deleted the photos of Matilda.

I made it clear once again that I can't imagine being with her. She was angry and then left immediately. Luckily. If my mother had seen her, there would have been a direct argument with me.

Unfortunately, Matilda left traces, so my mother noticed her. When she went out onto the balcony, I watched her closely to see if she would discover anything that might indicate Matilda's presence.

There was another argument with my mother because she discovered some papers in folders under the balcony that were partially buried.

I couldn't hesitate for long and had to dispose of the papers, otherwise our argument would have escalated even more. So I went out onto the balcony, jumped down, and looked at the documents more closely.

There were apparently improperly disposed documents from a gas station containing bank details, names, and addresses. Matilda probably retrieved these documents from a foreign paper recycling bin and brought them to us.

My sleeping bag, which was hanging outside on the stairs to the basement to dry, has disappeared. Matilda is driving me up the wall! At that moment, I wished she would finally leave me alone.

Around 11:00 AM, someone rang the doorbell. It was probably Matilda. I didn't answer because my mother would accuse me of wanting to maintain contact with her. I actually have nothing against Matilda, only when she shows up unannounced in Borsum and does weird things. If she keeps it up, I don't even want to be friends with her.

My mother opened the door, but no one was there. It must have been Matilda.

About a minute passed. "I'm going to kill her," I hear my mother yelling from Laura's room.

I go into the living room and look at her. She points her finger at the balcony.

I go out onto the balcony and see that there is a bouquet of flowers on the chair. I look left and right, and there's no one in sight. I had to dispose of the flowers; otherwise, my mother would have escalated further.

When the situation calmed down a bit, I had breakfast. I didn’t take any bread but cut up some fruits and a tomato.

Meanwhile, I thought about activating the dictation function on my smartphone and trying to create a diary entry on my phone. Surprisingly, the dictation function works even better on the phone because it is lighter and more compact, and dictating feels much more comfortable.

What if I only wrote my diary entries on my phone and did everything else? That would be fantastic if that were possible. Then I would have everything on a single device that fits in my pocket: digitizing documents, taking photos, writing diary entries, updating my website, writing emails, and doing online banking. To achieve this, I definitely need to learn to use my iPhone very effectively. I really like this idea. By the way, I created this diary entry by dictating on the iPhone. And it goes almost as fast as I speak. It's unimaginable that I could have typed the diary entry on the small keyboard in that time.

My mother was at the mailbox. There was a package addressed to Laura. At least the packaging. The contents of the package were missing.

The letters apparently were not taken. Two of them were intended for me. One was from TÜV Nord for the registration for the driving test, and the other letter was a reminder from the City Hotel with an amount that I must transfer within three days, specifically €400.

I called the hotel, and they told me that the mattress was damaged and could not be cleaned. It was completely wet and had honey on it. I told the manager at the hotel that I would transfer the amount right away and asked if she could send me photos of the damages so that I could use them as evidence for a report to the police. The money from the sale of the laptop, which was actually meant for the rental deposit of the new apartment, I have now had to partially use for the damages caused by Matilda.

If I were to get an apartment on short notice now, I wouldn't have enough money for the rental deposit and any potential furniture transfer. My mother couldn't lend me any money anyway because she herself is completely broke and in debt.

I was so angry at that moment with Matilda that I immediately decided to completely cut off contact with her. I don't want to take any more calls from her and will call the police directly if she knocks on the balcony.

I thought about a solution, and then an idea came to me. I decided to sell the tablet I bought. This way, I have the money for the deposit and furniture acquisition when I get the apartment, and at the same time, I learn to get by with just the smartphone.

I took a picture of the tablet, listed it on eBay, and packed it up. This reduces the weight of my backpack by about half a kilogram.

When I reinstalled the apps on my iPhone, I noticed that Apple’s Maps app now supports offline maps. I therefore deleted Google Maps and instead installed Apple Maps. What I like about Apple Maps is that the maps are very minimalistic.

In the evening, Germany played against Spain. Mom baked baguette, and I fried vegan sausages in the pan. We then watched the football match together while eating. Or rather, I watched the Euro match, while my mother was either on her phone or doing other household chores.

During halftime, I discovered an interesting feature on the iPhone. If you hold down the spacebar, you can use the keyboard surface as a trackpad. This is a tremendous relief when composing texts.

Also useful: selecting multiple files by swiping over the files with two fingers.