Frozen

Feb 19, 2013 (continued)
When I got back to school, I had 20 minutes until Ivana was going to meet me. I went to one of the little cafés in the building for a snack. The lady working behind the counter didn’t speak English. I pointed at a pastry in the glass display and she smiled and put it on a plate for me.

It tasted fantastic. The pastry was light and crumbly, but it had chunks of banana in it that were sweet and delicious. I felt a little pathetic sitting in the stairwell eating it, but I didn’t know where else to go. I’ll admit, going to school in a foreign country is a lot harder than playing tourist. Navigating the city is fun. Navigating a new routine is exhausting.

After I finished it, I returned the plate to the woman at the counter. I don’t know if this is what we were supposed to do, but it was what made the most sense to me. Then I went to meet Ivana.

We met outside of the banking office in the school, which was just around the corner from the café. She asked me again to explain why I needed help and I told her that my US account isn’t set up to make online transfers to international accounts (I’d already tired this and went through the online FAQs before discovering it couldn’t work.) In order to pay my bill, my only other option was in person.

We waited in the bank talking about the past few days. “I think is good you went exploring to see things on your own,” she said. She also told me about her weekend (which included her birthday) and the ski trip she went on in Slovakia.

“You going to Nation2Nation party at club tonight?” she asked.

“I think I am,” I said.

“Me too!” she said. “But I am not going to drink.”

“I don’t think I will either,” I said. “I really don’t like the beer and the alcohol makes me feel all depressed.”

“Is ok,” she said. “But know that most exchange students just go to this party to get drunk.”

Ivana flagged down one of the bankers and showed her the letter from the university that explained my charges. The banker confirmed that I had to pay it in cash. Ivana and I went to the ATM and I put in my card. Typing in my pin and entering the amount of cash that I needed, I hit enter.

The receipt printed and my card was returned. All of a sudden an alarm blared and the ATM screen turned red. In big white letters it said “Transaction Cannot Be Complete. Sorry!”

“Is weird,” Ivana said. I put my card back in and tried again. The same thing happened.

“Your bank probably has limit you cannot take out,” she said. “Otherwise if someone had your card, they take all your money.”

I knew she was probably right, but I wasn’t sure what to do. Ivana asked the banker. They talked for a while in Czech and then Ivana explained that the ATM was having problems so another one might work.

“We could try online payment again,” Ivana said. “I know how to do it, so maybe I help you.”

We went to the computer lab to give it a try. I signed into my bank account and attempted to transfer the money. Again, I ran into the same problem that my account wasn’t authorized for offshore transfers.

“Maybe we try different TMA,” she said.

“ATM,” I corrected. She laughed. She had made this mistake a few times.

“I don’t know why this word is so hard,” she laughed.

Ivana had a class starting in 5 minutes so she couldn’t go with me to find the machine. She did walk with me to the main entrance of the school and pointed a few out—one in the parking lot, and one in a hotel across the way.  I thanked her.

“Message me if you have problems and let me know that it works,” she said.

I started with the machine in the parking lot. Once again it rejected. I was convinced that Ivana had been right. I was probably trying to take out more than my daily limit allowed. I went to the ATM in the hotel lobby and started with just 4000 crowns. It worked! When I tried to take out another 4000, it rejected. For me, this confirmed the dilemma was with my account. Between the 4000 crowns I now had, and the money I had taken out the day before for personal use, I was still 4000 short. I needed a new plan, which meant it was time to get a message back home.

I emailed my Mom from my ipod, cc’ing my Dad in case he was online too. Within minutes, Mom replied with a few ideas. We exchanged emails a few times, but unfortunately, I didn’t have the cards on me to try what she had offered and the bank would close before I could get to my dorm to retrieve them.

I decided that straightforward communication was the only way to solve this. While all I could say in Czech was “please, “thank you,” “English,” and “I don’t understand,” I decided I would try to explain my situation to the banker and see what she offered up.

When I walked back into the banking office, the older blonde woman that had been talking to Ivana called me over.

“Do you speak English?” I asked. I realized it was a little condescending, but I was getting desperate.

She frowned a little, and closed her eyes in a squinted up face. After hesitating a little, she said, “I do.”

I showed her my bill along with the koruna I had on me. She counted it and shook her head. “I’d like to put the rest on my card,” I said.

She shook her head and said, “but we do not take this card. Only our own card. Must be cash.”

Bummer! (That wasn’t the exact explicative that went through my mind, but for the purposes of this post, it will work.) I told her that I would have to come back tomorrow. She didn’t seem to understand, but told me “you’re welcome!”

I emailed back and forth with my Mom some more and decided I would try to talk with Katrina (the study abroad coordinator for the university) to see what my options might be. I asked someone for directions to her office, and found it within minutes. Unfortunately, she had left for the day.

This was the stress of travelling! I felt totally beaten down. Not only was there nothing I could really do to change the situation, there were very few people I could communicate with to explain my problem. I gave up and went to the tram. Texting Ivana that I would try again tomorrow, I rode back to the dorms feeling utterly defeated. At the same time, I consciously tried to change my thinking. I told myself, this is a good lesson that life is out of my control and worrying won’t change anything. It didn’t really help, but in some small way, by focusing on this idea, I knew that it was one of the many lessons I could learn from studying abroad that would help me when I got home.

Besides, tonight was the big party…I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse.