i got to my hostel and went to a pay with my debit card when i realized that it wasn't in my wallet. 'shit' i said 'i think i've been robbed'. i always keep my card in the same place but i took a moment to look through my bag to see if i had just misplaced it, but to no avail. i don't really know how it happened to be honest. i'm really careful about where i put my wallet, but i've come to 2 conclusions.
- i think its either been stolen from me while i was sleeping by someone else that was sleeping in my dorm
- or i've left it in an ATM while i was taking money out.
oh well, there was nothing i could do about it now, i just have to fix it. Lucie, the woman that worked at the hostel was really helpful and showed me where the nearest exchange shop was so i could change all the money i had accumulated from different countries, into pound. all up i had a little over £30 and some ear plug that i found at the bottom of my bag, which i guess would come in handy to block out the traffic if i had to sleep on the street. then Lucie let me use the phone to cancel my card and the internet to get in contact with people i knew in london so i could crash on someones floor/bath/car/balcony for a couple of nights.
- i think its either been stolen from me while i was sleeping by someone else that was sleeping in my dorm
- or i've left it in an ATM while i was taking money out.
oh well, there was nothing i could do about it now, i just have to fix it. Lucie, the woman that worked at the hostel was really helpful and showed me where the nearest exchange shop was so i could change all the money i had accumulated from different countries, into pound. all up i had a little over £30 and some ear plug that i found at the bottom of my bag, which i guess would come in handy to block out the traffic if i had to sleep on the street. then Lucie let me use the phone to cancel my card and the internet to get in contact with people i knew in london so i could crash on someones floor/bath/car/balcony for a couple of nights.
after that i went for a walk to clear my head, and think about what i was going to do next. i kind of surprised myself at how calm i was about the whole situation. here i am in London, one of the worlds most expensive cities in the world with only £30, that is expected to last me for 3-4 working days until my card was delivered.
when i came back from my walk, i check my email. luckily my old work mate, Jess, had replied to one of the emails and helped me out in my hour of need by letting me crash on her couch for a couple of days. since i caught up with Jess last, she has moved house right next to Warwick Avenue Tube (yes, the one from the Duffy song) and is now living in a very swanky part of town with some A-List celebrities as neighbours. too bad to couldn't really enjoy staying in such a nice spot. the next couple of days i spent in a call shop, in a tug of war with my bank to get emergency money until my card arrived. at first they said that i couldn't get money, then when i said something around the lines of 'christ! its my money why can't i have it? i've got £30 to last me 4 fecking days in freaking London and i'm about to eat my shoe because i haven't eaten in days' i might have exaggerated a bit, but suddenly they came around and said they would wire me some money. anyway, after a couple of days i finally got some cold hard cash. the second thing i wanted the bank to help me out with was get me the tracking number of the package with my card inside so i knew which day it was going i was going to recieve it and make i was there to sign for it. sounds like a pretty simple task, but there must be some fine print that states that when you join a bank they will do everything possible to make banking the most annoying experience life has to offer. i swear, they couldn't organise a piss up at a pub. the whole task took them forever! i lost count of how many times i called up to find out the number. after about 6 days my card arrived, then the next day i got an email from my bank telling me the number i needed to know - which would've been great about 4 days earlier.
because my card was stolen they had to send me out my new PIN number seperately. i was getting pretty desperate at this point because i was running out of the money that was wired to me and living hand to mouth. i hung around waiting for my PIN to turn up for a couple of days. 'how hard could it be?' i was thinking 'they sent me the card, all they have to do is send the PIN to the same address'. but i forgot i was dealing with a bank here, nothing is that simple. no, they decided to write the wrong postcode on the envelope didn't they. it was just lucky that i was walking passed a DHL (the courier company) that i thought i would check where my package was. it was then that they informed me of the blunder. as the old saying 'if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself' i told them i would go and pick up the parcel.
when i finally got my card i worked out that it took a little more than 3-4 working days. infact it was closer to 8 days! leaving me with one day to fully enjoy London. the scary thing about this whole drama is, i can't get over how much my life revolves around a piece of plastic and what a nightmare it is to get a new one. i'm seriously thinking about changing banks when i get home, but the more i think about it, the more i think that they're all the same.
while i was waiting for my card i had plenty of quality TV time. apart from watching some quality soaps, i managed to fit in some news, which is where i learnt about a group called 'ZipCar' that operate a car-sharing scheme. its early days yet so they are only set up in some councils but the cars have designated parking spots in the neighbourhood that people can use with a swipe of a card (similar to an Oyster card). they interviewed one of the people that use the 'ZipCar' system and they were saying that they save so much money, going on to say that it costs less than half it would to own and run a car. i think its such a brilliant idea!
even though i was without a card, London this time wasnt a total write off. i still managed to see a few things around london, like go to Portobello and Spitalfields markets, kicked around Covent Garden and i went to a pub called the 'Dublin Castle' in Camden which is where Blur, Amy Winehouse, Travis and a few other big names got a name for themselves. i also heard it was a local haunt of the drug addled Pete Doherty so i wasn't so surprised when i saw about 8 signs in the toilet saying 'it is illegal to take drugs on the premises' and 'these toilets are patrolled regularly', but don't get the wrong idea about the place, it was pretty harmless. i saw some bads which were quite good too.
i also caught up with my friend Halley. we used to work together at a part time job i had while studying at university. shes just been to LA and New York and gave me a travellers guide to New York which will come in handy. the reason Halley is over here, apart from travel is because shes a comedian and she's going to do a show at the Edinburgh comedy festival this year. she's just come off doing a well recieved show at the Melbourne comedy festival and even did some work with Fiona O'Laughlin, which is a pretty big deal, so i hope the Edinburgh fest goes just as well for her.
oneday to kill some time i went to the flicks and saw the new Charlie Kaufman film 'Synecdoche, New York'. in my opinion whatever Kaufman does generally turns to gold, i love just about every one of his films: 'Being John Malkovich', 'Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind', 'Human Nature', they're all so clever, a bit trippy, yet still manage to be very insightful. 'Synecdoche, New York' is kind of hard to explain, so much so i might have to watch it again to fully get my head around it, until then i wont even try to explain it, but i recommend seeing it if you get the chance. i really liked the score done by Jon Brion, his stuff is generally pretty good too. heres a song from the film called 'Little Person' that i liked.
i guess that concludes my time in europe, well for now anyway. i'm off to a city that never sleeps (i imagine everyone has insomnia) and fruit are on steroids (from what i can gather, there apples are meant to be a really big!) i'm kind of looking forward to a change to be honest. even though i've really enjoyed my time in europe and i would love to come back here again some day, i think a change might be a good thing. more when i hit the US of A.
because my card was stolen they had to send me out my new PIN number seperately. i was getting pretty desperate at this point because i was running out of the money that was wired to me and living hand to mouth. i hung around waiting for my PIN to turn up for a couple of days. 'how hard could it be?' i was thinking 'they sent me the card, all they have to do is send the PIN to the same address'. but i forgot i was dealing with a bank here, nothing is that simple. no, they decided to write the wrong postcode on the envelope didn't they. it was just lucky that i was walking passed a DHL (the courier company) that i thought i would check where my package was. it was then that they informed me of the blunder. as the old saying 'if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself' i told them i would go and pick up the parcel.
when i finally got my card i worked out that it took a little more than 3-4 working days. infact it was closer to 8 days! leaving me with one day to fully enjoy London. the scary thing about this whole drama is, i can't get over how much my life revolves around a piece of plastic and what a nightmare it is to get a new one. i'm seriously thinking about changing banks when i get home, but the more i think about it, the more i think that they're all the same.
while i was waiting for my card i had plenty of quality TV time. apart from watching some quality soaps, i managed to fit in some news, which is where i learnt about a group called 'ZipCar' that operate a car-sharing scheme. its early days yet so they are only set up in some councils but the cars have designated parking spots in the neighbourhood that people can use with a swipe of a card (similar to an Oyster card). they interviewed one of the people that use the 'ZipCar' system and they were saying that they save so much money, going on to say that it costs less than half it would to own and run a car. i think its such a brilliant idea!
even though i was without a card, London this time wasnt a total write off. i still managed to see a few things around london, like go to Portobello and Spitalfields markets, kicked around Covent Garden and i went to a pub called the 'Dublin Castle' in Camden which is where Blur, Amy Winehouse, Travis and a few other big names got a name for themselves. i also heard it was a local haunt of the drug addled Pete Doherty so i wasn't so surprised when i saw about 8 signs in the toilet saying 'it is illegal to take drugs on the premises' and 'these toilets are patrolled regularly', but don't get the wrong idea about the place, it was pretty harmless. i saw some bads which were quite good too.
i also caught up with my friend Halley. we used to work together at a part time job i had while studying at university. shes just been to LA and New York and gave me a travellers guide to New York which will come in handy. the reason Halley is over here, apart from travel is because shes a comedian and she's going to do a show at the Edinburgh comedy festival this year. she's just come off doing a well recieved show at the Melbourne comedy festival and even did some work with Fiona O'Laughlin, which is a pretty big deal, so i hope the Edinburgh fest goes just as well for her.
oneday to kill some time i went to the flicks and saw the new Charlie Kaufman film 'Synecdoche, New York'. in my opinion whatever Kaufman does generally turns to gold, i love just about every one of his films: 'Being John Malkovich', 'Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind', 'Human Nature', they're all so clever, a bit trippy, yet still manage to be very insightful. 'Synecdoche, New York' is kind of hard to explain, so much so i might have to watch it again to fully get my head around it, until then i wont even try to explain it, but i recommend seeing it if you get the chance. i really liked the score done by Jon Brion, his stuff is generally pretty good too. heres a song from the film called 'Little Person' that i liked.
i guess that concludes my time in europe, well for now anyway. i'm off to a city that never sleeps (i imagine everyone has insomnia) and fruit are on steroids (from what i can gather, there apples are meant to be a really big!) i'm kind of looking forward to a change to be honest. even though i've really enjoyed my time in europe and i would love to come back here again some day, i think a change might be a good thing. more when i hit the US of A.
Oh to live where money matters not a jot and where you can live regally on the lint scooped from your navel. The less reliant on cash, the more time you have to experience true freedom and appreciation for community bonds.
ReplyDeleteI'm loving hearing about your trip, seeing your fluctuating haircut length and observing your fantastic array of sunglasses.\ forte