trip report: part 7

One last report posting….

Day Seven: February 21

The day dawned early, and I tried to intercept Dominik before he left for work in the morning. I failed miserably, but that’s OK.

Later in the morning, Pia (who was on her spring school holiday) took me CD shopping at the site of the former München-Riem airport. The area that was Munich’s main airport until 1991 is now a multi-use development, anchored by a large shopping mall. We went to Saturn, which is a bit like Best Buy, and I bought a lot of CDs that were tough to find in the States. I also bought a mix CD of hits that had some of the songs I’d heard at the Nachtgalerie – a good find.

We also stopped by a Hugendubel bookseller, where I ran into a bit of a pickle: they only take EuroCard cards. And even though the EuroCard consortium is a subset of MasterCard, they wouldn’t take my orange-and-yellow charge plate. It was most frustrating.

In fact, I noticed that a good many retailers in Germany were EuroCard only. No matter – I’d use the ATM, right?

Wrong.

You see, ATMs throughout the EU are calibrated to withdraw from savings accounts, and have no option to withdraw from another account. This is all well and good with many banks, but with my credit union, they set a cap on the number of withdrawals that can be done on a savings account: six. Per calendar year.

Most annoying.

At any rate, I headed back into downtown Munich to find some presents for mom’s friend who was cat-sitting for her felines. I figured that downtown Munich would have bookstores that accepted other cards (sadly, Hugendubel is the same at any location: only EuroCard or cash). I couldn’t find an ATM that would give me cash, so I did what any bank customer would and should do:

I called my bank.

Note that I’d called them the previous day and, when I couldn’t get their lower-ranking employee to answer my question, I was told to call back on the 21st and speak to the manager who, the worker assured me, would be in.

Reality: she wasn’t.

So I asked what they expected me to do: did they expect me to simply live without access to my money until the evening of the 22nd?

“Well, you can request that the money come from checking,” the credit union staffer said.

“No,” I replied, it was not possible, and could I please get an exception so I could withdraw my money. He said he would look into it and call me back. After ten minutes, and no return call, I had a voicemail from the credit union saying that there would be no exception, and ot have a nice day.

Livid, I called them back and let loose with a string of well-placed obscenities that would make a grizzled sailor blush. I dressed down this guy and the credit union, and said that they either need to realize that the world is more than just the U.S.A., or give up. I’m currently looking at moving my money to another credit union, or (shudder) a bank.

(In hindsight, I feel sorry for the guy I yelled at, but nobody at the credit union was the least bit helpful or understanding of my predicament. It was not the treatment I was accustomed to from them, but they’ve been in a free-fall for a while: an ATM that’s seldom stocked, a weird website, etc.)

But back to the situation: I had to pick up a gift for mom’s friend. Fortunately, a reader of this blog suggested Elly Seidl chocolates, and they were just the ticket: sublime chocolates, friendly staff, and they took all forms of plastic. Score!

Candy in hand, I snapped a few more pictures before heading back to the Rehles for dinner and dessert.

It was an early night, because our return travel started very early the next morning.

Day Eight: February 22

We woke up early, had breakfast with the Rehles (including Dominik and Pia, who woke up early to say goodbye), then hit the road for the “new” (to me, at least) Flughafen München. The drive took less than an hour, and the check-in to British Airways was really easy. After a tearful farewell, mom and I went through immigration, got our stamps, and waited for our flight.

British Airways really came across well. For a fare that was comparable to ThomsonFly, we had full service: a meal, a comfortable seat, etc., without being charged for every last detail. The view from the air was great, too, as we saw the German countryside whiz past.

We arrived in Heathrow without difficulty, claimed our bags and made our way through customs and immigration. After all, we had to catch a train! We hopped the Heathrow Express to London Paddington station, which was a comfortable (and short) ride into downtown London.

We then navigated the London Underground, as we had to go to Victoria Station to catch the Gatwick Express. I took control of the luggage, as mom’s hip was a bit of a liability in the labyrinthine stairwells of The Tube. We caught a Circle Line train (which almost didn’t make it all the way to Victoria), made our way to the ticket machine (via HMV – needed more CDs), and caught the express to Gatwick.

This ride was more scenic than the one from Heathrow, and mom marveled at the row houses and narrow streets of the London suburbs. I got to snap a shot of Battersea Power Station, which was really cool to see up close. Additionally, we got to experience the English rain – one of my favourite UK experiences.

The flights back to the U.S. were fairly uneventful. We checked in without any incident, made it to our gate in plenty of time, and made our connections in Newark quite easily.