Reflections - Part II

Journal Entry from 3 September 2004 -

We woke up early Friday morning with a full agenda. Brian, Charles, and I went for a run down into city centre. We then took showers (learning how to turn on the electric shower and heat the water before getting in – a painful process during the learning phase I might add), ate bean burritos (once again) and headed for the bank.

We arrived promptly at 9 am (opening time) with great anticipation that we were only hours away from having a British bank account. Little did we know…

Charles and I spent an hour filling out paperwork with the bank associate. After going through tedious details and still fighting off jet lag, we headed to the teller to draw on our cash advance which we set up in advance with our US bank. The teller very curtly spoke to us and went over to the machine and ran our card. She then proceeded back to the teller window, which was the middle window between two other teller windows with no privacy blockers and a line of about 6-8 people waiting and loudly declared that our card was denied.

Very frustrated and slightly embarrassed, Charles and I left the teller station and began to think of a game strategy to get this mess cleaned up. We decided that we needed to call the US Bank so we headed back to the flat and waited for the bank to open. Charles spoke with the US Bank and they ensured us that our account was open and approved for the agreed upon amount of money (mind you, we had to wait until 2 pm Cambridge time for the bank to open in the US). After doing this, Charles and I headed back up to HSBC and stood in the same ‘no-privacy’ line again. Thankfully, we got a different teller than the first time (although we stood nervously in line guessing which teller we would be assigned as we got closer and closer to the front). Once again we explained to the teller what we were wanting, and she left to go swipe our card. She came back and more politely than the first told us, again in front of an array of people, that our card had been declined. A lot more frustrated and slightly more embarrassed we left the teller line.

Again we discussed how to fix this problem. Brian did not come with us this time so we were pound-less and phonecard-less in Cambridge city centre, so there was no other option left except sending Charles back home again to call the US bank. Charles left the bank running in nice street clothes towards our apartment (about a mile trip one way).

A sweaty Charles returned 35 minutes later frantically proclaiming that we needed to wire the money. We were at the bank until closing time trying to figure out what and how to do this. We had two bank associates helping us which was pretty impressive considering the bank was so crowded (and overall British customer service reputations). We left with the right information, went back to the apartment and called the US bank with routing information for the NY branch of the bank, which the money had to go through. We spent Friday night waiting for a call from the US bank confirming that the money had successfully transferred. No such phone call arrived. At approximately, 11 pm (5 pm US time) Charles called and was told that the money had left and had not been returned. So we went to bed Friday night wondering whether the money would successfully show up in Cambridge the next day and whether we had just been robbed....

Reflections Now

I don't know whether to laugh or to groan when I read this entry. How foreign everything felt when we first arrived! It seemed like normal things took some much longer than they should have. For example, I remember coming home from work the first couple of months and just being exhausted (much more so than in Chicago). About a month into moving to England, I read a helpful book on cultural transitions that indicated that feeling more tired doing normal everyday activities was a very normal cultural adjustment. It was nice to be somewhat validated in my feelings - but it didn't make the tiredness go away. Right before we went home for Christmas (so 3 months after arriving), I remember talking to my immediate boss on one of my jobs; I was just now feeling that we had built some rapport, and that he was starting to respect the quality of my work. I confided in him how hard I had found things when I first arrived and how I could barely understand what he was saying most of the time (meaning in contrast to how much better I felt I was doing now that I had been there three months). He smiled and said 'yeah I remember, we just all thought you were really slow...'. I think he was joking, but even to this day I am still not sure (British humour at its best - the less you understand the funnier they think it is!).

A specific reflection I have on the above story is that Charles and I have vowed to never ever shut our British bank account. I think we will do the best we can to keep this account open even when we move back to the US because we worked so hard to get it open and would hate to ever think of having to do it again!