Cash!
The Netherlands isn't big on credit cards, and even less on American credit cards where you swipe your card somewhere and then sign a piece of paper. So I usually use a lot of cash when I come here.
But my ATM card was a bit the worse for wear - I should have replaced it before the trip, but that just isn't the sort of thing one thinks about. So I got a couple hundred euros out at the airport, and the card crinkled a bit, but worked fine. Second try, the card got stuck in the machine, which, according to good banking practice, seized it and destroyed it. So I have been trying to get cash ever since.
American Express gave me an emergency, one-use-only PIN for my AMEX card. That ATM machine would only give 200 Euros at a time, so that's what I've got for my remaining 9 days.
I went out to eat with my work colleagues on Thursday night - great! I'll pay with a credit card, and they can give me cash. Except the restaurant didn't take credit cards. None at all, of any kind. So I paid cash.
My bank says that I can go into any banking center, with two forms of ID, and get a cash advance from a credit card. Except that Dutch banks no longer have cashiers; everything happens through ATM machines. So not in a Dutch bank. The Postbank has cashiers, but they aren't a bank.
So let's try Western Union. I tried to wire myself money over the web. But the security questions they ask involved transactions that happened in some cases seven years and two household moves ago - I don't remember the details. I also think they might have had one of them wrong. Once you miss the security questions, you have to walk into a Western Union branch (in the US, of course), to establish your identity.
AMEX can still help me; they can get emergency cash to one of their centers. The nearest one is somewhere out past Oosterpark. Not so very far away, but a trek that I don't want to have to do.
I'll see just how far these 200 will take me. Maybe I'll take to buying things from shops and selling them to passers-by for cash.
But my ATM card was a bit the worse for wear - I should have replaced it before the trip, but that just isn't the sort of thing one thinks about. So I got a couple hundred euros out at the airport, and the card crinkled a bit, but worked fine. Second try, the card got stuck in the machine, which, according to good banking practice, seized it and destroyed it. So I have been trying to get cash ever since.
American Express gave me an emergency, one-use-only PIN for my AMEX card. That ATM machine would only give 200 Euros at a time, so that's what I've got for my remaining 9 days.
I went out to eat with my work colleagues on Thursday night - great! I'll pay with a credit card, and they can give me cash. Except the restaurant didn't take credit cards. None at all, of any kind. So I paid cash.
My bank says that I can go into any banking center, with two forms of ID, and get a cash advance from a credit card. Except that Dutch banks no longer have cashiers; everything happens through ATM machines. So not in a Dutch bank. The Postbank has cashiers, but they aren't a bank.
So let's try Western Union. I tried to wire myself money over the web. But the security questions they ask involved transactions that happened in some cases seven years and two household moves ago - I don't remember the details. I also think they might have had one of them wrong. Once you miss the security questions, you have to walk into a Western Union branch (in the US, of course), to establish your identity.
AMEX can still help me; they can get emergency cash to one of their centers. The nearest one is somewhere out past Oosterpark. Not so very far away, but a trek that I don't want to have to do.
I'll see just how far these 200 will take me. Maybe I'll take to buying things from shops and selling them to passers-by for cash.