| 3/12/2008 Remember I said a couple of months ago that I would go to Peterskirche for Advent? Well I decided to sod that. For the first Sunday in Advent, I went to the Bibel-Freundschaft, as is routine on a Sunday, that and I'm now a fully integrated member of their congregation. It's a smaller congregation than most, so everyone's extra friendly :). I liked the Advent service, some of the hymns that day happened to be my favourites. The only thing missing was the Advent Ring. From what Grace could tell me, it seemed no one thought to just go out and buy one. Seriously, what's Advent without an Advent Ring? In Church? Despite what these entries may mislead you to believe, my time here hasn't been completely peachy. I'm not referring to the Studium here, even though some of the classes I go to are nothing but boring (God I hope Dannica gets ill one of these weeks and forces the Tutorial to cancel, just once would be nice!). What I'm referring to is that my account here in Germany doesn't seem to like receiving foreign transfers. Or something. I'm not sure what the problem is, just that I tried to transfer a lot of money from one account, but then it wouldn't reach the other. So I had all but run out of money by the time my trip to Venice approached (and I already owed Grace €50 since I didn't have enough cash to pay for the conference we went to). At this point I was so glad to have German relatives, especially ones living so close. Reinhard was kind enough to give me a cash loan. I asked for €100 but he insisted on giving me €200, especially since I was going to Venice. Good thing he insisted. I planned to use my debit card to pay the youth hostel but they don't accept debit cards. Good thing I had a €50 note to spare. By the next week (or had 2 weeks passed?), the problem still hadn't sorted out. It turned out that I had mistyped the name of the German account holder (Hueneke instead of Huneke) so I asked them to try again. In the meantime, I had no money for food. Or a haircut. But I thought it unfair to ask for more cash for a haircut (not the most urgent of necessities). So I asked Grace for another €20 for the week. By last Friday I mentally hit myself over the head for realising there was another, longer way round for getting my money: Dad's account with Sparkasse. (I think he's with Sparkasse.) So I've asked my bank to do a "recall": stop the transaction and refund the money into my account. It was only yesterday they got back to me to say they were going ahead with it. But in order to make sure I had enough cash for the next 3 weeks (when I go home!!!) I needed another cash loan from Reinhard. There seems to be a pattern with this guy: this time I asked for €200 (I figured out a strict budget) but he insisted on giving me €300 just so I wouldn't need to worry. This annoyed me somewhat, I mean, now I owe Reinhard €500 instead of €400 and the amount I got Dad to transfer covered what I thought I would owe him plus one month's rent. So now I can't pay him back in full so soon. But I decided to make use of this extra money and paid Grace back the €70 I owed last Sunday. So everything's once again alright, I'm just now playing the waiting game with money...again. Just the other way this time. But what astonished me was the speed that Dad could make an international transaction...using Paypal. I suppose it makes sense, it's not an institution bound to the laws of one country, it has an international setup (transnational is the technical word used by political thinkers). But anyway, a transaction took just 2 days. I'll have to see about getting my own Paypal account, although I have the nagging feeling I already have one... Never had a use for it before ya see. |