Bank of America Collect

After my experience with the Bank of America collect phone numbers a few days ago, I went right to Jajah to make the call to find out why my PIN is not working. Not only can you not make toll-free calls from Europe, Jajah would not accept them either. Call the regular number, get through, get put on hold, wait, wait, wait, "Your call is important to us, please stay on the line." If my call is so important, why don't you have someone answering it sooner? Even if Jajah is cheap, I don't like using all of my credit on one call while on hold. Just as I am about to hang up, I get a person asking for my credit card number. I am not calling about a credit card, but an ATM card. "Which bank?" Duh!! I called the number on the back of my Bank of America card, that should be a no brainer. Bank of America!! "I will have to transfer you to someone in the ATM division. Click, music, hold. Wait, wait, wait. Ten minutes pass. Getting ready to hang up again, "Hello, my name is Sherry, how can I help you?" I tell Sherry about the new card, the assurances that nothing has changed and now I cannot access my money. "I am so sorry to hear that, we will fix that right away." Well Sherry, I sorry to make you sorry. I hope you are not going to lose sleep over this tonight. Sherry is working away and I can hear her typing, then beep, beep, beep. I lost Sherry and her sympathy; we were disconnected. I call back, the same hold time, I get a person who is in credit, not ATMs. I am wondering whatever happened to cross-training. Does one need separate degrees in credit cards and ATMs where they cannot all do the same job? She transfers me, the wait time is shorter, but I get a phone tree. "If you want to know your account balance, press one. For other options, press two." Press two. "If you want to know the last check that has cleared your account, press three...." No choices for a live person. "For more options, press nine." Press nine. No good, no live person. I press 0, hoping to get an operator. "I am sorry, that function is not operational." Hang up on mechanical Joe. I call again. Tell the first person I am calling from Europe, I am paying for the call, and I don't want a phone tree that is not going to offer me the option I want without wasting my time and money. "I am so sorry for your inconvenience." Really, well then reimburse me for these calls. Transfer. Phone tree, mechanical Joe again. Hang up. I try once more. Get the credit division, tell her calmly that I am going to close our accounts due to the poor service; I get the same scripted sympathy yet again and then transferred. I speak with a live person. I tell her the whole story, unabridged. I want serious concern now, not the phony crap I had been getting. She sounded like she really wanted to take me for a drink to make up for the hassles and share her own customer service nightmares. We hit it off; she is going to help me. At last I have had success. She is asking me questions, I am answering them. She tells me this can be resolved over the beep, beep, beep. We get disconnected. I scream, pull out a few hairs, rant, rave, cry for a few minutes and then log onto Bank of America's web site. Contact us. Lost or stolen cards, call us collect at ##### 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call collect. The AT&T robot does not recognize the B of A robot that is stating clearly how much they love collect calls and will accept the charges. AT&T robot says "Your party is not answering, please try your call again later." Click. Call the AT&T operator who always sound pleasant when you reach the recorded voice, but when they answer for real, they sound disgusted that you could not place this call without annoying them. She places the call and connects me. "Welcome to Bank of America. Our hours are Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm and weekends from 10am-5pm. Our office is closed now. Please call back again between office hours." So I guess if you lose or have your card stolen, it should only be within their office hours or you are out of luck. Make sure you check the time zone differences too, so plan your loss or thefts accordingly.

Pin It Now!

F**king ATM

I went to use my new ATM for the first time since calling in and verifying the information. I have had the same PIN code for 15 years. I punch it in. This pin number is not correct, try again. ****, this number is not correct, try again. ****, this number is not correct, you are pressing your luck of ever seeing this card again. Cancel transaction. Insert card again. Select language. German. Do I speak German? No, but perhaps I will be luckier. ****, I am guessing the message was the same since I didn't get currency choices. Cancel. Go home. Fume.

Pin It Now!

Reality Check

It did not take long after returning from vacation to have the reality set in of a writing deadline to hit. When so many hotels have complained about the drop in occupancy this year, over last year, one would think that would welcome a chance to put their property in a travel guide, where it doesn't cost them a thing. Yet, I have had to charm and persuade many to give me a tour. Strangely, for the poor occupancy, they seem to be too fully booked to show me a room or worse yet to offer me a complimentary night. I am done with those, they were exhausting.

Pin It Now!

I HATE Bank of America

We received two new ATM cards in the mail from Bank of America. As with credit cards, you have to call the toll free number to confirm your details and get it activated. The toll free number does not work from Europe, so I called the International collect number. It would not go through. I called another International collect number and the same thing. After trying four different numbers provided by the bank's web site, I finally called the AT&T operator. I gave her each number one by one and was told they had all been blocked for collect calls. BUT they all say call collect when outside of the U.S. or Canada. I went to Jajah and called from that to save money since I was now footing the phone bill. After waiting on hold for 15 minutes, I was connected with a live person. My first complaint was the collect calls. She said she would report it to management. It is irritating when they say, "your business is important to us", when you know damn well they don't mean it otherwise they would not keep you on hold for long periods of time, have long voice menus where you can punch numbers for days without finding one for your needs, and then after celebrating your next birthday, you finally get connected to a real person. After my rant, I verified the information and was told that my card was good to go. I asked if this changed anything for my online log on or my PIN. No, sir, nothing has changed. Great, here is my partner, he just received a new card also. Yes, this is Ron, blah, blah, blah, yes, that is correct. Oh, and I don't have a PIN number for the card or rather, I have not used it in so long, I don't remember it. Yes, if you could send me another one that would be great. Thank you, good-bye. That is how we left it.

Pin It Now!

Mark and Chris

Well after many false starts, Mark and Chris are REALLY leaving to go back to the U.S. We had heard this story so many times, we never thought it would happen. They will leave this coming Friday. We will both miss their company, but it will be a great loss for Ron. He really enjoyed having the buddy in Mark to hang around with. We are going to dinner with them tonight.

Pin It Now!

Last Edits

I was up by 7:00 am and finished the editing of the chapter. What tough work it is going over and over the thing, cutting words, replacing words, hoping you will cut pages in the process. By 1:30 pm our time, I sent it off to the editor. I still have the full book to work on, but my eyes cannot take any more computer today.

Pin It Now!

Oversleeping

I set two alarms on my phone to get up at 2:45 and 3:00 am. We slept through both of them. We had arranged for a taxi to arrive at 3:10, but missed it when Ron woke at 4:00 am in a panic. We jumped into clothes and ran out and very luckily hailed a taxi on the street. We did not have time to take the bus, so the taxi took us to the airport. He was fast and not as expensive as it would have been had there been traffic. We went from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, then on to Budapest. As soon as we got home, I started editing my chapter. I fell asleep doing it.

Pin It Now!

Last Day

As usual, time flies when you are having a relaxing time away. In some ways, I went into re-entry mode itching to get home again. In other ways, I would like to stay longer. However, it is SO expensive here and with the pound = $2.03, it is outrageously expensive.

We were not going to see any more shows, but with a day on our hands, Ron wanted to see "Truth in Translation" about South Africa. 17.50 and 9.50 pounds for the tickets, but hey, we are on vacation. Ron loved it. I thought it was too disjointed with too many interrupted stories going on at one time with too many multi-media things happening to make sense to me. Obviously, others loved it too, they received a standing ovation from half the audience.

By the end of the day, we were getting antsy about leaving, but having an evening with nothing to do. We decided to go to "Stef's Sidesplitting Hypnosis". Actually, we bought tickets for it when we bought the tickets for the Truth show. Stef was walking around in a Speedo swimsuit talking up his show to people standing in line. Everyone else was wearing layers of clothes and he is in a swimsuit.

Well his show was not sidesplitting, but he had a crappy group to work with. Some young guys who volunteered did everything in their power to resist being hypnotized, so they weren't. Part of the show was good.

We got back to the hotel at midnight and have to be up at 3:00 am to get a taxi to the bus to get to the airport for a 6:00 am flight.

Pin It Now!

Military Tattoo Day

This has been such a relaxing vacation and I can truly call it a vacation. Right before we left, I had sent in my chapter for the Frommer's Europe by Rail book. I knew it was a few pages longer than what was wanted, but my editor said we had a few pages to play with. Well, her Word and my Word are at cross purposes. My version showed 35 pages, hers showed 39. She decided on 29, so much for the pages to play with and sent me an e-mail. Enjoy your vacation, but as soon as you get home, I need this back cut down to 29 pages. Oh, boy! In spite of this, I was able to maintain my Zen feeling much to my surprise. Normally, I would be spastic until it was done and approved of. Tonight was the Military Tattoo. We had to book our seats in December 2006 as they are sold out by December 31st. It was really spectacular. Different countries perform with music, marching, and sometimes antics, like the Russians. They were really great. Some of the guys at our hotel return yearly for this and the Fringe. For us, seeing the Tattoo once was great, but we don't need to repeat it.

Pin It Now!

Nieces Leave

The ladies leave Edinburgh today for Dublin. Their luggage arrived this morning and both of their bags were soaking wet inside and out. All of their dry clean clothes were ruined and some color ran, so white shorts were now tie-died. Writing this in retrospect, I have no idea what we did today, though I do remember hanging out at the hostel with them while they ran the rest of their clothes in the dryer. They wanted food, and Pizza Hut food was the order of the day. They finally took off for the airport at 2:00 pm and we did something. When I download the pictures, I might be able to say what it was.

Pin It Now!

Fringe With the Nieces

We had a dance performance today called "Danceforms: The 37th International Choreographers' Showcase". We paid 9 pounds each on a 2 for 1, but went last year and loved it. The show was 2 hours. There were about 12 different performers, solos and small groups. There were a couple of excellent pieces, one in particular was the Black Eagle, a solo woman in tons of black chiffon or netting.

Ron and I went down to the 1/2 price ticket office to see what was offered. I spotted a guy giving away free tickets and sent Ron over. He returned with four, but we needed to buy another. I strolled around and then honed in on the guy and requested a ticket. He said "Aren't you with that guy over there?" Without looking at where he pointed, I said "No, I am with someone else." He was so confused, he gave me a free ticket.

When we went to round up the girls, like herding cats, Nicole was not feeling well and begged off. I lied for a free ticket for nothing, but I would have been really upset if we have paid for it. The show was "Just So!" based on Kipling's book of the same name. I was a little concerned that these college graduates would think it was lame, but they loved it and told Nicole what a good show she missed out on.

We went to grab something to eat and then decided we all wanted to see "Puppetry of the Penis". It is amazing that these guys have been doing this show for seven years and are still packing them in. They are earning money for things that most boys experiment with during their youthful years. Wow!

The show ended after 11:30 pm, so we headed home to catch the last bus. They stayed for another show.

Pin It Now!

Back to Fringe

Ron's niece Elise and her friends Nicole and Katie met up with us here in Edinburgh. Elise and Nicole are on a whirlwind tour of Europe, having just graduated from college. They arrived here today and we arranged to meet them at the hostel at 8:00 pm. We took a day trip to Cramond. When I see the pictures, I will remember what we saw. : ) When we did meet up with them, they were already surrounded by seven Italian young men, only one of whom spoke English. It was apparent we were in the way, though the young ladies did ask us to join them and their new friends. I don't think so. Katie and Nicole's luggage was lost by the airline. They were not happy campers.

Pin It Now!

Rosslyn Chapel

We took a day off to see Rosslyn Chapel, famous before The Da Vinci Code, but more famous since. We were able to take a local bus from Edinburgh. We initially took bus 5, but realized it was wrong, we needed the 15.We got off of the bus at a little village called Morningside. It was a lovely mistake and we had a coffee and walk around the town. Waiting for the 15 was a hassle though, it
took 45 minutes to arrive.

Rosslyn Chapel has increased tourism from 35,000 a year to 170,000 a year after the book. It was built in 1446 by William St. Clair, the last Prince of Orkney. It holds many mysteries long before Dan Brown.

Pin It Now!

Fringe Day 5

Monday, August 6, 2007

1:00 pm The Man Who Planted Trees – Paid 3.75 each on a 2 for 1 sale. This was a puppet show, but excellent. The puppetry was superb and the story was heartwarming. The adults loved it as much as the children, or more so.

2:30 pm Faith Brown and Her Boys in the Buff – Paid 5.50 each for these as we heard so many good reviews. Faith Brown is a well know comic in England. The show was a comedy musical and hysterical. YES, boys were all in the buff by the end. Worth seeing and paying for.

7:00 pm Flamenco con Fusion – 4.50 each on a 2 for 1 sale. We arrived late having gone to the wrong place. Flamenco dancing, music and interesting costumes. Good memories of Argentina.

10:30 Amsterdam Comedy Collective – Paid 4.25 each on a 2 for 1 sale. These Dutch guys are funny, but they are learning the cultural differences of humor. What works at home doesn’t always work abroad just because you translate it. A couple commented "This would have gotten more laughs in Holland." No, these are not the guys that were actually in the show. They had a multitude of different and outrageous flyers.

Pin It Now!

Fringe Day 4

Sunday's shows were:

1:00 pm State of Matter – Paid 4 pounds each on a 2 for 1 sale. Eight young men do break dancing, acrobatics, and ballet to all different types of music. Excellent performances and amazing coordination and movements.

9:15 pm The Naked Comedy Showcase – Paid 4.50 pounds each for these on a 2 for 1 sale, but wish we hadn’t. Though we expected the comics to be naked, we also expected them to be funny. We were disappointed. Some members of the audience were taken aback. Duh! What did you think from the title of the show?

10:30 pm The Sound of Music Drag Show – Paid 4.75 on a 2 for 1 after speaking to the performers. They have been playing for 7 years on Melbourne and were invited to come here to perform. We loved the show. They were hilarious, clever, and terrific.

Pin It Now!

Fringe Day 3

What we saw today -

12:00pm Forgotten Voices – Free tickets – The stories of survivors of WWI. The characters were all Brits except one American. The lone female had an accent so cockney, we could not understand her. It was touching, but difficult to comprehend some of the accents.

5:25pm Sweet UFO – Free tickets- Thankfully, we did not pay for these. The premise is that this young girl has denied that her father has killed her mother and then disappeared. She believes he was abducted by aliens. Her two friends support this belief by pretending to do night watches with her and they develop a whole world for her fantasy until if all falls apart at the end.

11:00 pm Butch: A Queen’s Struggle to Become a King – One free ticket from the star of the show, but we had to buy one. It was a one man show about butching up his feminine side. Very funny and worth buying a ticket.

Pin It Now!

Fringe Day 2

Friday- Our events today

12:15 pm Sting for Nolte – Free tickets - An aspiring Professor of Philosophy ditches everything after his finance gives him tickets to a Sting concert. She did not know he hates Sting and he becomes obsessed with getting Sting to remake all of Nick Nolte’s films. Two person play, excellent performance.

2:45 pm As The Mother of a Brown Boy – Paid 4 pounds each. Based on a true story about a mixed race young man who was bright, top of his class, but mixed with the wrong crowd, got chased by the police and died in a car accident. Dance, multimedia, song. Excellent performance.

5:00 pm Break-Out – 5 pounds each on a 2 for 1 deal – A group of Korean comedy actors’ play about prisoners breaking out of a prison and the guards who try to catch them. Excellent dancing, action, and comedy.

8:30 pm Druthers Precarious – The young girls hawking this show made it sound great. It was 2 for 1 and only four pounds each, so we decided to chance it. This was really existential and otherwise weird. We would not have paid for knowing what we know now. It is about a guy in a dusty attic with suitcases who have never gone anywhere and neither has he. Different characters use overused quotes from philosophy to show him his options. Some good body work, but other wise thumbs down.

Pin It Now!

First Full Day in Edinburgh

Our first order of business today was to get our pre-paid tickets for the Fringe Festival. We know that many events are free the first days too, so we scored some freebies and bought others. Here is what we have seen today.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

1:00 pm Potted Potter – 5 pounds each as a 2-1 – Excellent comedy act about the first six of the Harry Potter books all in one hour. Two young men had the adults laughing harder than the children. Well worth the money, even at full price.

3:15 pm Touch – We were approached by the writer and director of this play while hanging out. He convinced us to pony up 5 pound each on a 2 for 1 deal for tickets. It was a great play about a woman who is presumably going to commit suicide and the man who saved her. The savior finds out what life is really about through the rescue. Two person play, great theater.

5:20 pm Extropia – Free tickets - I enjoyed it but Ron did not. Very Orwellian about a time in the future where there was no music. Workers are programmed. The sound effects were fantastic, but we had to leave the show before the end because we had another to go to and this one started late. They had technical difficulty.

6:40 pm God’s Pottery Saves the World – We paid 5 pounds each for this online before we left home. It sounded interesting, but it was a comedy act by two young men that was silly, a bit racist where it did not need to be and objectionable in other areas. We were not impressed.

Pin It Now!

Edinburgh, Scotland

We arrived in Edinburgh late tonight. The airport bus is a real bargain at 5 pounds with an open return. We took it to the train station, the end of the line, then a taxi to our B and B, Alva House. We have stayed here three times now, and really like the location and the owners.

Pin It Now!