Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Trips are never dull in the C. family

Well, here I am in brisk, but sunny Glasgow. It's actually quite a nice little city. I can walk from my hotel to our office here, mostly along pedestrian shopping malls with great industrial-age architecture. The weather is lovely today, and it isn't half as cold as I expected.

There are also a lot of great shopping bargains, thanks to the tanked economy. The bad news is that I don't have a way to shop. My husband, genius that he is, lost his wallet in Colombia. He canceled the credit and ATM cards, but since our mailing address is in the US, they went to my sister's house in Seattle. Yes it's our own fault for not having her mail them to us months ago, but it just didn't seem important at the time.

We do have two credit cards that still work, so we each took one - the American Express for me, and the Visa for him. I also brought some dollars to exchange. Then we asked my dad to Express mail me the ATM cards. Jorge was going to bring more cash as a backup. Seemed like a solid plan, right? Well...
  • Most of the shops here don't take American Express
  • Jorge wrote yesterday from the airport to say he FORGOT his wallet at home. Meaning no extra cash and no Visa. There's no way to express how deep in doo-doo he is going to be when I see him today.
  • Dad sent the ATM cards, but the PIN numbers haven't come in the mail. Cross your fingers they come soon. At the least I guess we can use them as debit cards.

So....we may be setting up Milo's travel cot (assuming I'm even able to buy one today) and sleeping in train stations for this vacation. Why can't we ever, ever have a stress-free, easy vacation? (OK, don't say it's because we're total airheads. That is not the answer I am looking for. Sympathy and support, people, sympathy and support...)

6 comments:

Miriam said...

I can wire you money if worse comes to worse. I can't believe you blocked my opportunity to call you an airhead. The list of things I can tease you about is getting way too long. Let me know if you need money.

Jesse said...

I love and support you. Perhaps because I myself am known for forgetting my own wallet odd places when it is needed most... Hope you guys have an awesome time Visa card or no!

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing by now that you've realised the sun isn't a common feature in Glasgow as the typical, Scottish weather has taken over once again! hope you guys are having a great time, despite the localized flooding!

Joy said...

I do have to say, Gwyn, you're not the airhead in this one - Jorge is!

If you call the bank and give them enough identifying facts about yourself, maybe they'll give you the pin numbers? Or they should be able to express you some new visa cards to you there in Europe, just like if you lost your cards while traveling.

CFox said...

Wow is really all I can say. Maybe one day you'll have an opportunity for stress-free travel. :)

Unknown said...

OMG!!!!!!!!! How do you forget your wallet when you are going on vacation?? You guys need to create travel lists!! Thankfully he didn't forget the kid!