Trouble in a trip

 You can’t travel for a month without money, and you certainly can’t withdraw cash from ATMs if something goes wrong. I kept wondering how anyone could get through a situation like that.

 My daughter left for Europe alone at the beginning of this month. I’d been worried from the start because she doesn’t speak any English. Trouble happened immediately on the first day. She tried to withdraw money from an ATM at Heathrow Airport and failed. Then she flew to Malta and tried again, but the ATM there didn’t work either. For six days she wasn’t able to withdraw any money at all.

 Yesterday afternoon she called me on Skype, crying. Her debit card had become invalid because she entered the wrong PIN several times. She called the bank that issued the card, but their response was cold: “The only solution is to reissue the card.”

 I called the bank myself. My call was transferred three times, and in the end they simply gave me the phone number of a specific department and told me that my daughter had to call them directly. Their attitude was just as cold. I emailed her the number.

 I didn’t know how to send money overseas. Her next destination was Vienna, and then a strange idea came to me: maybe I could send my credit card to the Japanese Embassy in Vienna so she could pick it up there. I called the embassy right away. The woman who answered?probably in her thirties?was very polite and kind. She explained how to send money abroad and how my daughter could receive it. Thanks to her, I learned about an international money wiring service that works anywhere in the world. I finally found a way to send her money.

A little later, my daughter called me again on Skype and said the bank had made her card valid “one more time”?though I still don’t know what “one more time” really means. But at least both of us felt relieved.


Late that night she sent me a photo of a rabbit dish she had in Malta.

 

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