On to Adelaide!
So on the night of day two we all picked up some liquor at the store. We then made some dinner and then sat down to drink and chat. This hostel in the Grampians had a television so people were fixated on it because most hadn’t seen one in a while. A few of us made the suggestion to shut it off and you would be amazed at the great conversation and laughs that ensued. One guy, named Brian, who is from Canada decided to drink almost a whole bottle of whiskey. He was one of the first guys i met on the tour and is really cool. He got so hammered that he decided to do his impression of the giant emu that we saw on the video that day. It was absolutely hilarilous. I guess you had to be there but we had some good laughs about it yesterday as one guy recorded it on his camera.
So i’ll catch you up on something that happened last week. Kind of a long story but i’ll make it short. Before you travel overseas you have to notify your bank that you will be traveling, sounds easy enough. I made sure i spoke to whoever i needed to speak to before i left. I was assured by Washington Mutual that it would not be a problem. Well sure enough, as i pretty much knew it would, my cards were shut off. Because i was going on this tour which provided some food and accomodation i figured i would just take care of it when i got to Adelaide because it’s a big city and getting to a phone would be easier. Luckily i had a credit card which i used for a few purchases to hold me over. So when we arrived in Adelaide last night i made a bee line for the phone to see what i could accomplish. As i didn’t have a dime to my name i tried to call collect because that’s what it says to do on the back of the card. So i got to the pay phone and figured that to get an operator to make a collect call i needed to dial zero. So i hit zero…nothing happened. I hit zero again…nothing happened. I hit zero one more time and at last success, it rang.
The line picked up and said…
“Adelaide fire and rescue, what is your emergency?”
“Aaaaah….aaaaah…my debit card got turned off?” (I didn’t really say that)
“I’m sorry sir, this is an emergency line, what is your emergency?”
So, ok, now i know that, 000, is our equivalent to 911. I explained to the lady what i was trying to do and she gave me the number to dail to get an operator for a collect call.
So i made the collect call to Washington Mutual and for some reason it didn’t go through. So i rang up the operator again and finnally got through…keep in mind this was about after 30 minutes of fumbling around. I finnally got a lady on the phone and explained to her what happened to my card. After she explained to me she couldnt’ help i decided to yell at her at which point she hung up the phone on me. So i rung up again and got a guy on the phone at WAMU. He couldn’t figure out what was happening and was being really helpful. He told me was gonna try a few things and said to hold the phone. Wouldn’t you know but guess what music was playing on the line…”Oooh oooh Child….things are gonna get eaiser…oooh oooh child things will get brighter…” I guess that was a sign that things were gonna be ok, but not right away. So he finnally got me some answers and that i needed to speak to a specific department to get it turned back on but he didn’t know why they would have shut it off. He also said there was no record of me notifying them that i was traveling…great…just great! So he said i needed to ring back in an hour and a half when the california office opened to get someone on the line. So after waiting an hour and a half i walked back across the street from the hostel feeling extremely confident i was going to get this resolved. I felt good that i knew how to ring up the operator to make a collect call and that wouldn’t be a problem. So i rang up the operator again and she said,
“I’m sorry sir we don’t do collect calls to 1-800 numbers.”
“I just called and made one mam, yes you do.”
Well after we argued back and forth over this for a few minutes she eventually won and i had to go borrow some change and use my phone card to make the call, unbelieveble. I got a lady on the line and got my card turned on, what a hassle. I tell you, being in a foreign country without any money is not very fun. The night turned out to be good as some of the older people from the tour were buying drinks for everyone and i was able to get a few slices of pizza for dinner so it worked out well. I felt pretty good about myself. I was really angry that it was turned off but there wasn’t much i could do. Screaming at someone on the phone felt good but didnt’ work. I was so temped to use the skills i learned at the “Jim Gagnon school of Rage” but knew that ultimately that wouldn’t pay off.
Serenity now…Serenity now!!!
Tags: Adelaide, Australia, Banking
Gagnonius
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