Good News from Bank

Friday, Sept. 14, 2007 (Continued) and Saturday, Sept. 15, 2007--Tartu, Estonia

I had photocopies of my credit cards in my suitcase. They were old ones that had been made of previous cards rather than my present ones. American Express wanted to cancel their card and send me a new one, but I didn´t plan on using it anyway due to the fact that they place an added fee of about 3% on foreign transactions. The same (with a slightly lower extra fee) is true of Chase MasterCard, so they put it on hold. My two main cards I use are VISA cards from a credit union in Corpus Christi. As usual, they came through for me. I use their cards because they do not add an extra fee for foreign transactions (which is the rightful thing to do since VISA already charges a 1% fee for making the foreign exchange on each transaction). Anyway, I got an e-mail from the lady at the credit union this (Saturday) morning saying she had put a hold on transactions that are keyed into a machine by a second party using the 4-digit authorization code on the back of the card (like companies do when one calls to make a purchase long-distance using a card), but she left the actual cards active so I can use them to make direct withdrawals and purchases. What a relief! That saves me a lot of worry. Although I have some U.S. cash and some travelerś checques on me, it is difficult to find foreign exchange offices in anything but the largest cities today.

An interesting side post related to contacting the credit card companies is the trouble I had trying to get them via their phone numbers printed on the backs of the cards. American Express worked perfectly. I called their number collect. Although they had an automated answering service, the first thing it said was, `We accept collect calls.´ The ATT operated let it continue. The VISA collect number was okay for making a collect call, but their automated response system was taking too long before saying they would accept collect calls, and ATT cut them off. I wrote an e-mail to the nice lady who helps me with those cards at the credit union, and she provided the PERFECT service I outlined in the above paragraph. The Chase number it said to call collect was an 800 number. Well, 800 numbers cannot be called collect and do not work from outside the U.S. Doesn´t Chase know this? Doesn´t someone check. I ended up writing my sister and asking her to call them for me from her home.

I faced two immediate problems on Friday: Problem 1) I couldn´t try to use the credit cards to get cash, so I had to plan to live on the Estonian money I currently had in my pocket (due to the fact that this is a small town without currency exchange desks). Fortunately, that looked okay, but I quickly planned a budget based on what I knew I would need for paying for my room and for my bus to Latvia on Monday. What was left was what I had for buying necessities and eating. Problem 2) I was planning to take the bus from here to Valmeira in Latvia on Monday morning. That is also a small town that likely has only ATM machines and not an exchange service, and I would need money immediately to purchase an onward bus ticket to Cesis. If my cards didn´t remain active, I would probably have to go all the way to Riga by bus, exchange cash there, and then backtrack to Cesis by bus. (My room in Riga is already reserved for the 19th-24th, so I would need to backtrack immediately. Those two problems kept dwelling on my mind as I waited until I could read my mail today (Saturday). Fortunately, all is well now that I can use my card at an ATM in Valmeira on Monday and can even use it here if I need more cash now!

I started listing the items that were in my suitcase. I then went to the police station to file a loss statement with them. It was a strange experience. The main police station was locked, so I had to go to the jail further down the road. No one there spoke English, but they understood what I wanted to do. When I filled out the paperwork, they didn´t have a copy machine there, so I had to do it again to have a copy for myself. Among the lost items were my camera battery charger, a camera battery, 4 camera memory chips (fortunately unused on this trip since I have been putting all my photos on my new 1 GB chip I bought in Alaska), binoculars, a flashlight, a bicycle chain and lock for locking down my suitcase, a travel alarm clock, a Swiss army knife, haircutting scissors, electricity adaptor-converter kit, clothes, toiletries, emergency medical supplies, novels, etc. The replacement value for all of it will be between $1500-2000.

Yesterday (Friday), I ate lunch at a student cafe which had a buffet. Everything is sold by the weight. I got meatballs, rice with vegetables, and a salad. The meatballs were great. The rice was rather tasteless. The salad was fine. I drank apple juice.

In the evening, I went to the market and bought brown bread, cheese, meat, yogurt, peanuts, and a beer for dinner. Because I didn´t know for sure how tight money would become (still waiting to hear if I could use my credit card for more cash), I ate only 1/3 of what I bought so that it would last me for two more nights. Today, I can splurge a little!

Knowing I needed to keep my mind of things and also needed something to keep me occupied at night or during bad weather until Monday when I will leave here, I stopped at a used book store and bought two classics. One, Pilgrimś Progress by John Bunyon, I probably read when I was in school, but that was long ago. The other, Dubliners by James Joyce, is one I have not read and will be the first book by him that I have read. I started reading it last night and am thoroughly enjoying it.

Although yesterday was sunny all day, today there are clouds and some drizzle. I will find a place for lunch and will go back to my room for part of the afternoon to read, I think. I´ve seen a bit of Tartu as I have gone from place to place, but it is hard to concentrate on enjoying it. It is an old university town with lots of young people. It would probably be a very enjoyable place if I could just relax and get my mind off the stolen suitcase.