Holds on Credit Cards are NO Fun!

Quick Summary:
- Booked a ticket to Greece! Staying from Oct. 31-Nov. 4 with Makenna!
- Went on a random shopping trip - for a gnome!
- Cooked dinner with my Italian roommate. Pasta with potatoes and suasage, yummy but a little too heavy for me!
- Found out that my debit card was rejected by the company I booked with.
- Then found out that Bank of America had put a hold on my card because of unusual activity.
- Lots of unnecessary stress to try and figure everything out with the bank!

Sleeping in without setting an alarm felt SO great today! I woke up around 11, ate some Special K, answered emails and played around on my computer. As soon as I signed on to Instant Messenger, I got a message from Makenna! She wanted to know if I had any idea about when I wanted to go to Greece. This past summer we chose somewhere we both really wanted to go and decided that we’d go there sometime this semester. Greece was our choice! So we looked at dates and decided on October 31-November 4 since we don’t have school on All Saint’s Day. Her friend in Rome just got back from Greece and said that he stayed at a nice youth hostel in Athens that wasn’t too expensive and that his flight was relatively cheap as well. So that began the insane flight search! We looked at a bunch of websites and it took FOREVER because my Internet was being incredibly slow. She booked her ticket first and then I did so awhile after! It was crazy though because the prices would change every 10 minutes Decisions had to be made very quickly!

Someone also knocked on our front door this morning. It was a girl looking for her room. She wanted me to tell her where her room was, but I had no clue! She had a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers on it, but I didn’t even know where to begin. She said she thought it was on the fourth floor, so I told her to go up the stairs until she got there. For some weird reason, it seemed like she didn’t get that. It was just a weird situation and I don’t think I really helped her at all.

While I was still working on booking my ticket I heard a knock at my window. Through the curtains I could see two people there and wondered if it was actually someone I knew this time! Of course, it was Heidi! But this time Katie Wolfe was with her. They were on their way to PennyMarkt and wanted to know if I wanted to join them. Since I wanted to book my ticket, I decided not to go. That and the fact that I really didn’t need anything! But Katie wanted to go to this other store later today so we decided to meet up again in my room around 2. Herr Doerr was offering an optional hour and a half course about the oral test given by the university later this week. You only have to take that test if you scored really well on the DSH from Friday. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, but I really don’t think I did well enough to where I’ll have to take the test. I felt sort of bad about not going, but I just didn’t want to go!

Instead, Katie came back over and we talked for a little while. Heidi and her talked about how easy it would be to jump through my window (instead of me going outside to open the gate for them) so Katie tried it out. She made it through! We didn’t realize that the other window opened too, but she managed to squeeze in! She had bought a plant the other day and wanted to buy a garden gnome as well. Never would I ever have thought of buying one of those, but she was really excited about it. We hopped on a bus that took us to Bismarckplatz and then ran to get on a train that would take us to Eppelheim. We had never been there before so it was a nice little adventure. We were also unsure about which stop we needed to get off at, but when we saw this huge garden store we figured it had to be the place! It was pretty much Home Depot, but German style. We found the gnomes and a pot for her plant. The gnome was kind of big, but it was so cute! We didn’t buy a bag, so Katie stuck the gnome in her purse and just the tip of his head was sticking out. I took a really cute picture of Katie with it while we were waiting for the train to come back.

We decided to walk back to my place instead of taking the bus. Of course we stopped and got ice cream for our walk home. I’m boring and got MANGO again! I just love love love that flavor! We stopped at a few stores on our way, but the ice cream was our only purchase. I had told Julia that I would cook with her tonight, so after I got home we headed back out to buy the groceries. We walked to the grocery store that’s all the way at the other end of the Hauptstrasse (by Bismarckplatz where I had JUST come from!) I had no clue what to cook, but she suggested a pasta dish that also included potatoes. Never have I heard of combining the two, but I figured that since it was an Italian recipe, it had to be good! She also said we should add some sausage to it. I was pretty much down for any of her suggestions! I got a few more things while we were at the store. I think I’m set for the next week as far as food goes. I’m pretty excited to see how long I can make it all last!

We peeled the potatoes and talked for a bit after we got home. She told me a lot about her boyfriend and the cultural differences she saw between Germany and Italy. She said that when she looks at Germans who have children they look like they aren’t stressed at all. Apparently she sees Italians who have children as being very stressed out about it. Some days she tells me that she thinks she doesn’t want to live in Germany after she finishes school, but today it sounded like all she wanted was to live her and raise a family.

Our dinner took quite awhile to make. When we were almost done cooking, the girl who asked me to show her where her room was knocked on the door again. Apparently Julia had helped her this morning and she was coming back to talk. I found out that she is from Slovenia. She is really hard to read and I don’t think I will be hanging out with her. She has this helpless personality and I’m just really confused by her. I do know how she feels though because she just moved in and doesn’t really know what’s going on. But it just seems like she missed a memo about living here or something. She ate with us, even though she made it seem like she didn’t want to, and it was just strange.

The Internet was still going really slowly so a little while after dinner I headed over to AJY because I knew it would be much better. Heidi was there when I got there along with a few other students. I was checking my email and noticed that the flight I had booked this morning did not go through because my card was denied. Then I checked another email I have and I had a message from Bank of America saying that they had noticed unusual activity and that my card was stopped. GREAT. This turned into a HUGE problem. The email gave a phone number that I was supposed to call immediately after receiving it. In order to use the phone at AJY you have to put money in it. I did that and then calling but it cost a lot to make a 1-800 call since those are in the US. Then I tried calling with a calling card, but you had to put money in the phone in order for it to work! Makes sense, but TOTALLY ridiculous! I was starting to stress out because I needed to pay for a conference that I’m going to in a few weeks with Makenna. I also wanted to see if I could book another flight to Greece. Absolutely NOTHING was working!

One of the guys in my program, John, was really nice and tried to help me solve my problem. He went as far as using all of the minutes on his cell phone to call Bank of America. Unfortunately, his phone ran out of money when they put him on hold. How sweet of him to put so much effort into it! He would have done anything to help get me on the phone with the bank. I told him that I would get it all worked out and that I needed to talk to my parents about it anyway. But it was so nice to see how much he cared.

I had tried to email my parents today, but they hadn’t responded and weren’t on SKYPE when I got home. Then I had the brilliant idea of emailing Pearl to see if she could call my mom! She did and then my mom was able to email me back. She called Bank of America but they told her that in order for them to grant access again, they had to talk to me to make sure there was no fraudulent activity. How annoying! But by the end of it I got to talk to my dad for a few minutes on SKYPE. After that didn’t work so well, we instant messaged. It was his first time doing that, which I’m sure was pretty exciting. He did great of course! I learned that Derek shaved his head for something at school. I can’t wait to see pictures. I was also able to pay for the conference since Dad gave me his credit card information. He forgot the expiration date, and Jessica was online, so she gave him a call and asked for me! How funny! Jessica and I talked for awhile and I looked into Greece tickets a little more. Tomorrow I have to buy a phone card so I can call Bank of America and get everything worked out. Wish me luck!