Monday, June 26, 2006

Just say hello.

Hello everybody,

I learned that everybodies trip/holiday was okay, so was mine.

Every vacation you learn new things. (which you might have been forgotten before the next holiday, or when you need that experience)

So this vacation I learned that the French police isn't very polite when you want to register loss of a wallet with bankcard and creditcard and you don't have any money at all. So I learned to divide passes and money over my luggage.
The way to get money when you don't have any isn't easy.

Asking fellow Dutchmen for some money (I got to drink, eat) learns how life can be when there is no trust. After a night at a campsite without food, € 10,= was all a family would give. I'll pay back as soon as I can. € 20,=, with thanks for the trust.
A Dutch woman in the Office du Tourisme of Le Treport would let me phone with the Dutch Embassy. The embassy could give me some phonenumbers to call to block the passes.

It took me a visit to again the police, practically all peasants.
(who speak no other language than french. The younger generation in their 30's have a better understanding of foreing languages)

The Ville de Marie had a better idea of the problem and I could phone again with the Dutch Embassy. The could tell me now that I could easily get money by a Western Union moneytranfer from a postoffice in Holland to a local La Poste in France. With a code which I got from the sender in Holland I got money from the postoffice in France.

This is the best possible way to get money. Sending an ERC card by Mastercard was a fiasco. I gave them the number of the hotel where I could be called. But mastercard thought that the number was incorrect, when they didn't get me immediately. What a bug organization is mastercard anyway.

Later I learned that Mastercard tried to reach me at the French hotel but the hotel employee would not give any information about guests.

I got money thanks to Western Union.

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