Isn't Being an Adult Fun?

Well, as the school year is winding down over here, Amanda and I have started looking for flights back to the homeland.  Let me tell you how fun THAT’S been… sense the sarcasm.  We’ve kind of had a hectic/stressful week that started with our refrigerator breaking two weeks ago on Sunday night.  Called our landlady on Monday, she said someone would be over to look at it on Wednesday.  Alright, whatever, our freezer still worked so we just froze all of our food, not a big deal.  Wednesday came and went, no one showed up so we waited a couple more days.  Turned out, it was definitely broken and that we would get a new one delivered to us the following Wednesday (now sans fridge for a week).  Perfect.  Well, yesterday (Friday) a fridge finally showed up and is usable.  Finally. 

            Aside from that hiccup, flight prices are not going down, so I bit the bullet and purchased a ticket to America, Des Moines, specifically, seeing that any way I slice the pie (Madrid, Chicago, etc-big airports) it’s not really cheaper once you factor in driving and such.  I fill out all my paperwork online, enter my Visa info only to click submit and have the Orbiz website tell me that the bank is denying my transaction.  Of course it is.  The message also says wait a few minutes, try again, or call your bank.  Waited, tried again, same message.  Yesterday, I called my bank, as there’s a pending transaction for a flight ticket on my statement but I haven’t gotten a confirmation email or anything stating that I’m actually on the flight.  Fun surprise when I called US Bank, turns out there are TWO charges on my card for TWO seats on the flight (bought a minute apart, according to the bank, must have been when I refreshed the page, damn Orbitz), but I’m not actually ON THE FLIGHT.  In either seat.  Oh, that’s fine then.  According to both parties (Orbitz and US Bank) neither can negate the charges, I have to call the national branch of US Bank.  Excellent.  Maybe I’ll just get a blow up raft and float myself back to the States.  Also got an email from the Embassy saying beware of ‘peaceful protests happening in big cities due to the upcoming elections’.  And, according to America, the world is supposed to end tonight.  If it does, do the charges on my Visa automatically disappear?