O Canada!

After Allan was hired his company told him that he needed to be trained on a specific computer program ASAP. The closest trainings were being offered in Canada. So, a couple of weeks after we moved he headed to Canada for 3 days.

All went well at first. He met his flights on time, his luggage didn't get lost, and he got through customs just fine. Then he tried to call me. He had checked on the internet to see if his phone would work in Canada, and it appeared that it would. However, when he tried to call it wouldn't work. So he searched for a phone card because he thought he could use it at a pay phone to call me. He couldn't find one, so he decided to just go ahead and get the car rental taken care of. The guy at the car rental told him where he could find a phone card, he paid for his car with our credit card, and left. He went and got the phone card, which he paid for with our credit card, and went to call me. The pay phone wouldn't take a phone card it just wanted a credit card, so he paid for that with our credit card as well. When he called we were having family prayer with his family, so I didn't answer. I assumed he was calling from the hotel or something, and he'd call back in a few minutes. But he didn't.

Later he told me that he tried to call his families home phone after that but the call wouldn't go through. It was late at night so he decided that he would just go to the hotel and call me then.

He got a little lost on the way to the hotel, it was pouring down rain. Then he couldn't find the hotel parking, so he parked in the road hoping that he wouldn't get a ticket. The woman at the hotel assured him he could park in front of the hotel for a short time with no problem and told him that the hotel parking was a couple blocks away. So, he then tried to pay for the hotel, but the card kept saying it was declined. After trying a few times the woman asked if he had notified our bank that he would be traveling. He said no, he didn't think he needed to.

Because he was out of the country the bank assumed that the card was stolen and froze it. (Great protection, we just didn't know that they did that. Rough way to find out.) So, he was in a foreign country with no money and no phone! Poor guy. Allan says that just shows how little he knows about traveling. At least he still had a valid passport.

The woman let him use the hotel phone, and he called the bank. He told them all the information they needed except he couldn't remember my social. He called me and explained the situation (by this time it was after 11:00pm), I told him my social and he called the bank back. This time he had all the information, but then they discovered that I am the primary person on the account. Since he wasn't the primary person they couldn't do anything to help him. He called me back. I called the bank and after literally 30 seconds of talking to them our card was no longer frozen. I couldn't call him so I had to wait for him to call me back. When he finally did we were both SO relieved! He got the room paid for, drove the two blocks to the parking garage, walked back in the pouring rain at midnight, and was finally able to settle down for the night.

The three days of his training went by fairly uneventfully. He did wander into a bad part of town and get offered drugs twice, but other than that all was well.

Then he tried to go home, lol! He got to the parking garage, and his car was dead because he left the interior lights on. While he was getting things taken care of to have the rental company send a tow truck he locked his keys in the car. Thankfully the rental company will jump the car and get the keys out at no charge. Since his phone didn't work and the clock in the car was off he had no idea what time it was. He rushed to the airport, checked his car in and ran. The signs said to go one way for international flights, and he walked for awhile before being told that he needed to go all the way back to where he started and go right instead of left (even though the signs to the right said domestic flights). He got through customs and finally arrived at the right spot only to find that he still had an hour wait! Poor guy. All that stress for nothing, and he couldn't call me to tell me about it. :(

He got home just fine, and has no desire to go out of the country anytime soon!