Zurich - Preparing for my Travels

Zurich - Boats Closed!

My swan song at work is a trip to Japan to handover my job to the Japanese team. This might sound all very exciting, but it comes with its own problems (some self-inflicted, admittedly).

One problem is that the Japanese stint is pretty close to my departure date for Egypt, the handover of my Swiss flat, and all that goes with it.

Another problem was that my credit card expires at the end of March and I hadn’t received a replacement. Since my Japan trip runs into April and I have to pay my expenses on my card and then claim back, I needed the new card.

I emailed to request that they send me a replacement card to my Zurich address. To my surprise, they replied to say they had my address down as Egypt. I have a clear memory of changing my address to Zurich as I knew the card was due to be renewed while I was in Switzerland. However, I looked on the website and indeed my address was Egypt.I couldn’t argue with what was in front of my eyes.

I changed my address on my account (even though I will need to change it back again in 2 weeks’ time) and got them to agree to send it to me by express post (I have to say, they were very good in this respect).

Meanwhile, I tried to book my flight to Egypt and a hotel in Zurich for the two nights before my Egypt flight (as I can’t sleep in the flat once I’ve washed the sheets), but my payment was refused. Unknown to me, my current card had been cancelled in the mean time!

Then, of course, the new card was delivered while I was at work, and I had to sign for it, so I ended up collecting it from their offices in the middle of nowhere.

The next issue was that the Japan hotel would cost more than the credit I now had left on the card, so I had to arrange an interim payment to ensure the card would be accepted on my arrival in Japan (well, so I hope!).

The other organizational problem was my mobile phone (aarrrgh!!!). Because I hadn’t used it at all (surprise, surprise), it had got disconnected and was no longer working. It’s been reconnected now, but I am still eyeing it with intense suspicion.

All these problems, and I haven’t even considered the work-side of things!