Dutch telephone information, available at XXXputnumberinXXX, is not like calling directory service in the US. Here in the US, information is available 24 hours a day, and the people are oriented towards customer service.

In Holland, you can only call information during the day. Maybe the operators are nicer to Dutch speakers, but my experience is that they feel they are doing you a favor by answering the phone, never mind that it costs money to call them. This is typical of Europe -- they have a less developed sense of customer service that Americans. Normally I would say this is one nice part of Europe, but when you really need help you want to find people who are helpful, not indifferent.

Once in Stuttgart, Germany, I stopped at the Telephone Information Office in the train station. Many European countries have these types of offices where you can, among other things, get telephone numbers. They are typically staffed by the US equivalent of "government workers." This is not to say that no one wants to be helpful, but they are hard to find.

All I wanted was an access number for Sprint in Germany. The person behind the desk seemed to have no idea who Sprint and AT&T are. He knew Deutsche Telecom, but for all other numbers he referred me to a library of phone numbers in books covering all of Germany. I never did find the number.

I refer to the European phone system as archaic and monolithic for a variety of reasons: lack of toll free numbers, no meaningful integration of phone systems across Europe, phone companies more like government workers than customer service people, and more.

Europe is ahead of us in one way -- they were early adopters of "smart cards." These cards look like this credit cards, and they contain a very thin chip which keep track of the card's value. Instead of dialing a prepaid calling card number, entering your specific card number, and deducting time used from a central computer, the European smart cards track the balance right on the card's chip.

All you do is put your card in a pay phone, dial the number, and the call is automatically deducted. In fact there are virtually no coin operated pay phones in Holland -- you really need to have a phone card.

WARNING: There are two different phone companies in Holland -- PTT Telecom and KPN. Each sells its' own calling cards which only work on their equipment. So one pay phone from KPN will not accept PTT smart cards, and vice versa.

If you pay enough money and pay with a credit card, your hotel will allow you to make international calls directly. If you like to spend money needlessly, then just pick up your hotel phone and direct dial your call to the US. The hotel loves this as they can set their profits to whatever they want, plus you pay the phone company. I do not recommend this method, but it's the easiest.

The best way to call home from Europe is to use a calling card from a US/International long distance company like Sprint, AT&T, or MCI. Some of the smaller long distance companies like Excel do not have calling cards that work in Europe. If your long distance on your home phone is one of the bigger companies, then call them to ask what their access numbers in Europe are.

It is important to note that telephone services are not the same across all of Europe -- in fact they are different everywhere. This will be remedied over the next 10 years, but for now it is fragmented.

YOUR LONG DISTANCE PROVIDER WILL PROBABLY HAVE A DIFFERENT ACCESS NUMBER for EACH COUNTRY you will visit. Get this number for each country. Typically an access number is a toll free number. You call it, it asks you for the number you want to call and then for the calling card number.

Typically to call the US you use the country code 1. First use a 0 to signify long distance, then 1 for US, the the 3 digit area code and the 7 digit number. For example, 012125551234. You may need an extra 0 in front of the number.

The best service (and the highest price) is provided by AT&T. If you don't have a calling card that works in Europe, but you do have a credit card, then you can call the AT&T access number and use your credit card to call home. AT&T is the priciest service available, but AT&T is really an international company who can help you more than other companies based in the US who offer European calling card access numbers.