On Nov 28, 2004, at 18:21, Margot Walker wrote:
Perhaps I should move this to Chat, but since we're talking about getting money to spend at lace fairs
Also, we have no idea if the original poster gets Chat; many people do not.
My bank account allows me to buy travellers' cheques at no charge.
Mine doesn't, an hour's drive will take me to Roanoke, where I can get free travelers cheques from AAA. The round trip takes less than a third of a tank of gas, so it's still less than my bank is likely to charge. But the pain doesn't stop there... :)
AAA offers cheques in a limited range of currencies; I can get them in British sterling (for a fee), but not in Polish zloty, so I get them in US dollars (free). Then I land in Poland, and have to find a *bank* which will exchange them - all the little (and plentiful) currency exchange "stations" won't touch travelers cheques with a barge pole. "Bankers hours" have become a part of the English language for a good reason, and they're as scant in Poland as anywhere else :) Then, to compensate for the short working week, they charge me a fee for the exchange, on top of giving me the worst possible exchange rate... Ah, bah!
1999 was the last time I took them with me; in 2001 I got me a "check-card"; ATMs never sleep <g>... I've not had a *single* problem with it, either in '01 (Denmark and Poland) or this year (Poland and the Czech Republic), and I used machines all over the place. Perhaps American check-cards are better than the Canadian ones; I do remember some Germans having problems similiar to yours at *some* (but not all) machines in the Tonder area in Denmark.
--- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
- To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
