Traveling 101

OK. I like to think of myself as a fairly experienced traveler. I've been places, done things. Hit my share of Third World -- and otherwise -- countries. But since I left, it's felt like a series of bonehead moves.

I went to extraordinary effort to make sure we had adapters, but I didn't bring an ATM card that works? What's up with that? Paul and I have credit union accounts, and we've known for a while that the ATM cards don't work outside the country. Fraud they said (and to that I say, so what's the point?) But we knew that when we signed up for it, and sort of had some contingency plans, but never got around to it.

I know, story of my life.

So anyway, I decided to use my French account. There's still some money in it, the exchange rate is good and the ATM works. As long as I remember the password, anyway, and I forgot it months ago. I don't know why; it's the same card/password I'd used for nearly 8 years. But I did. But Paul, too, had a French card on the same account. And I thought, without checking, that he had it with him. Because I remembered his password. But we get here and discover nope, wrong card.

Fortunately we came with a wad of cash, and we exchanged it at the bank the old-fashioned way. But who travels without a valid ATM card? And failing that, cash? Traveler's cheques (they're so old-school --I used to scoff at people who used them).

Guess the joke is on me.

And by the way -- the press center is set up for regular plugs. Good thing we spent $40 on adapters at Best Buy. We didn't want to have to "scramble" once we got here.

What's that about the forest for the trees?