Ds awoke this morning with a new-found sense of urgency on all these matters. He’s been calling places and now realizes they needed 24-hour notice to come up with the required $250 dollar minimum worth of rupees they require. He leaves in less than 24 hours, so those places are not even an option now.
Gee, if he’d looked at all this earlier this week like I suggested, he’d have options. Now, not so much. I wish I could say this is a lesson learned, but his procrastinating nature is not likely to change at this point.
You are so right, Youdon’tsay. My experience with a procrastinator is painful at times - watching it can be hard. My ‘zen’ is not always so strong… The ATMs should work just fine for him. Wishes for a safe trip for your S.
OK, y’all. And this is one reason he will never change … because things always go his way. Turns out that an exchange company at our local airport has some extra rupees they will hold for him for tomorrow. And why do they have those extra rupees? Because the girl from our town who also is going on this trip actually thought ahead and had ordered some and then decided to not get as many.
And I know he’s thinking, See? It’s all good. I got this.
Of course my S would think exactly the same way. D, on the other hand, would have had those rupees a month ago. I think he owes this girl a cup of coffee.
Hugs. Baby kiddo has not seen either a tenge or a Swiss franc before leaving the US. She survived! Make sure he has a couple of crisp, new $100 bills as his emergency stash. He will be fine!
Many years ago, one of my parents’ good friends, also a teaching colleague of my dad’s, was scheduled to go to China right after a holiday or weekend (possibly both). My parents discovered that she had almost no money. As in no cash, either U.S. dollars or the Chinese currency. Possibly also no travelers’ checks. This was before the days of widespread ATMs. My parents gave her all the cash they had and asked other friends to pitch in. I think that people were able to come up with a total of a few hundred dollars out of their wallets for her to take along.
But as is his way, he’s now called a place in Newark and its exchange rate is 1.6 rupees better than the bird in the hand here so he’s going to wait until he gets to Newark. What could go wrong?
Thanks, rosered. I’m sure he will. He’s a pretty complicated guy – acts like it’s all cool but is really deep and thoughtful and empathetic. He is most concerned that his host family won’t be seeing the real him, because he’ll be conforming to local customs that are quite opposite of the way he usually operates. But he has charm to spare, and I’m sure they’ll love him no matter what. We have Googled where he’ll be staying, and it looks lovely – urban, crowded but nice. I do worry that I’ll never hear from him because he’ll be so wrapped up in what he’s doing, which is good. But he is not the kind of kid who ever posts things on FB, etc. Like with his older brother, I just have to hope he hangs with girls who will tag him in photos!
T - 13hours. He is almost packed. He is motivated because he wants to watch a movie tonight!
This won’t help OP (sorry). But I will post our recent experience for Euro.
We got debit cards from the credit union and used ATM, starting at our first airport layover. There were four of us, so it was easy to build up our stash, even with the ATM limits.
DH keep $200 euro at the end of trip. It was “seed money” for a young friend traveling. She returned it after the trip, grateful for having had this “safety net” if her debit card had not worked at first.
When I was in Bangalore in June, as others have stated, the best rate was at an ATM. The catch was that at several banks, they advised me not to use my card as it may be “swallowed”, and they didn’t have the access to return it immediately. I know of someone to whom this happened and it took her days to get it back at the bank headquarters somewhere else, so I didn’t risk putting my card in without checking with the bank staff. At one bank (Canara) that advertised that they accept cards from other banks, they had a swipe ATM, but it just rejected my transaction despite the claim about accepting other banks’ cards. I finally tried at HSBC and it worked without problems and the rate was good too.
I have one of those kids for whom everything works out, or people come to her aid, and she doesn’t understand why I panic. She’s leaving for college tomorrow, so at 10 pm tonight started doing laundry and found her cover for her student ID card but no ID. “Mom, did you take it?” Oh, of course i took it!?! Did she check her purse (hasn’t used it all summer)? Where is that Mom? Have you checked your backpack? There it was. All worked out.
(Does anyone wonder why she doesn’t get to take her passport to college?)
Ironically, her sister also couldn’t find her ID, yet had it when she moved out of the dorm. She got to pay $20 for a new one. I don’t pay fines.
He decided to go ahead and get some rupees here, going with the bird in the hand for some and then would get more in Jersey. Once he landed, he went to the place he called yesterday, and they added a $10 fee that made their rate much worse than the place in Austin. He walked out.
