cash is the new plastic

Funny story:

So Casey and I stopped by the Namesti Miru Christmas market Sunday (i.e. last) night after coming back from a day trip to Kutna Hora. They are selling hot honey wine and Czech candied almonds. We indulge in both, congratulating ourselves on making good life decisions.

On our walk back to the dorm, I stop by the Bankomat (the European version of the ATM) to withdraw some cash. Buzzed, I insert in my card. I punch in my PIN number. An error message pops up telling me it's the wrong code. I concentrate harder and punch the PIN number in again. The same message pops up. The same message pops up three more times.

Then a new message pops up telling me that my card has been "detained" and to contact my bank for more information.

Confused and still buzzed, I go through the pouch I carry my cards in to see if there is a number I can call and realize that I've stupidly inserted in my credit card instead of my debit card. No wonder the PIN number wasn't working. I turn to the lady standing behind me waiting to get to the Bankomat to seek help. She speaks no English.

Finally, I figure out that I'm supposed to call the Euronet number listed on the Bankomat. The Czech guy on the phone tells me in a heavy accent that a technician service man (?) is going to come pick up my card, which will then be sent to my home bank. "IN AMERICA?!?!" I ask. In America, he says.

He assures me that my card is safe inside the machine, but that it will stay very much inside the machine, thanks to my bank tagging it for "security reasons." Couldn't they just ask me a couple questions to make sure that I'm me? I have awful images of hundreds of tagged and detained credit cards lumped together inside the metal stomach of this greedy Bankomat I now despise. I call my parents to have them cancel my credit card, just in case, and in the meantime realize that that was the first time I've heard my mother's voice since leaving the States in August.

And so here I am, once again abroad without a credit card.
I'm never drinking on a Sunday night ever again.

hot chocolate, prosim

The sun officially sets now around 4 pm every day and it's really ridiculously, mind-numbingly cold outside, but that's all become magically okay because...

IT'S SNOWING!

To celebrate the first snow of the year, Casey, Becca, and I watched "Love Actually" after our mandatory first-snow snowball fight. The Christmas market at Namesti Miru has opened up, the tree is being lighted in Old Town Square on the 29th, NYU has a student-organized, catered Thanksgiving feast planned for this coming Thursday that has a guest list of 170 people, and it's all beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

I love the holidays.

yes we can

Since I've last updated this blog, I've been to Cesky Krumlov (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), London, Krakow, Bari, Rome, the Vatican, Florence, Pisa, and Venice. But watching the crowds cheer in Chicago last night was the first time I was really homesick for America.

It really happened:
PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA!

I absolutely cannot believe it. We spent the entire night at a Sports Bar that was hosting an American viewing party, shouting and cheering every time a CNN projection popped up on screen. Around 4:45 in the morning, the place was closing down, Dom, Casey and I were crashing, and they still hadn't called it. We booked it in the cold to the nearest night tram, and then all of a sudden Dom got a text from his dad back in CA telling us that Fox News had called it. Then there was another saying CNN had called it. It was all over.

We were literally screaming on the tram, hugging ecstatic fellow Americans heading home from watching TV in the bars, fist pumping and skipping down the street. We got back to our dorm and ran down to the basement to watch CNN, getting there just in time to see John McCain give his concession speech. I crawled into bed at 6 am -- or midnight EST, depending on how you look at it. I didn't get to see Obama give his victory speech, since my head was throbbing from lack of sleep and dried out contacts, but it's all good because I just YouTubed it. Who watches TV on TV anymore anyway? (...5 points if you get the reference.)