My little disaster in Pula

I arrived in Pula exhausted and soaked with perspiration after getting up at 5 am for the long ride to Stanstead Aiport and packed RyanAir jet to Croatia. Carrying one’s luggage on one’s back in a damp climate, to, from, and around congested airports is a sure recipe for generating steam between one’s skin and underwear.

The French-Brazilian guy who sat in my row on the plane offered to share/split a cab ride. We thought it would be 10 Euros, but it ended up being 26. I wasn’t in a position to argue at that point.

I already knew the place I’d booked through Hostelworld.com was being repaired and the woman who owned the house was putting me somewhere else. What I didn’t know was that it was quite a bit further out, that it was just a private apartment rather than a pensione, that there would not be anyone there (or even close by) who could speak English, and that Hostelworld only took the deposit by credit card, with the balance being due in cash.

Cash being in limited supply I asked the woman who owned the place I had booked to stop at a bank on the way over to the place I was going to stay. When I got to the bank I found that I was unable to just get a cash advance on my Amex or Visa cards or even just buy foreign currency. I could only use the cards in the ATM machine, and for this I needed to have PINs activated for the cards, which I did not.

On previous trips abroad I had never run into this problem. I just went to a local bank, Amex office, or currency exchange and used my cards to buy the foreign currency I required. In Pula, this was not possible. I tried three different banks, all with the same result.

This was a disturbing sitation. Although I had about $500 in dollars which I could convert, this was not enough to feel secure about spending any time in a country where I did not have access to any more cash. I needed to make addressing this situation my first priority before making any further plans for exploring Croatia.

After unpacking at my place of lodging, I immediately headed to the central marina to see if I might be able to get some help from the French guy, who had a cell phone and computer. My plan was to get online and try to establish and activate PINs for my two cards, and if that was not successful find the closest Amex office and enlist their assistance.

After locating his boat I climbed aboard and, overcoming my natural shyness, woke him up and explained the situation. Normally I would be loath to impose upon friends, much less a relative stranger, but I was desperate. After helping him stow one of his spare sails, we dug out his laptop and tried to connect to the internet. Supposedly the marina was a hot spot, but it wasn’t working, so we proceeded with plan 2.

On the back of my American Express card is a number to call, if calling from outside of the US. Using the borrowed cell phone I dialed that number. On connecting I was presented with a recorded message telling me I had reached the Amex help number for assistance outside of the US and to speak the name of the country I was calling from into the phone in order to get an appropriate number to call. I spoke the word “Croatia” and got a voice confirmation of it which I in turn confirmed. A voice message then was given which provided instructions: call this number [whatever the number was] and when prompted give this second number [whatever that number was]. I carefully wrote down the instructions and proceeded to follow them.

After dialing the first number I was connected to an ATT operator who asked me for the second number. After giving her that number she replied “I am sorry but that number is not available from Croatia”. I explained to her how I had obtained the number and that it was supposed to specifically be for persons calling from Croatia, but she said that she was sorry but there was nothing she could do.

I tried calling the Amex number again, going through the whole voice message rigmarole, on the chance that I might have transcribed an incorrect number for Croatia, but got the exact same result.

With the failure of this attempt to resolve the situation, my yachting friend suggested we go to an internet access point on the seafront boulevard. After paying the equivalent of $6.00 for an hour’s access I connected to American Express online. Searching throughout the site I could find nothing relating to setting up a PIN for my credit card. Next I tried to get into my online access to my Visa card, but kept getting error messages about having an incorrect password. I tried the link to get my password emailed to me, but just got another error messages.

Although he did his best not to show it, I could tell that my new friend was becoming impatient and/or bored with my crisis. Nevertheless he took me down the street to a yacht charter service where he knew the owner and asked her if she might try help me out with her phone or fax machine.

The first thing we tried was calling the American Express office in Zagreb, the only one in Croatia. The person she spoke to there told her that they could only provide emergency assistance to holders of Amex cards issued in Croatia and that I should call the “bank” that issued my card. I relayed though her that my card was issued by Amex and that there was no reference to any bank on my card; and since I could not reach Amex from Croatia with the number I got through the number on the back of my card, would they please at least provide me with a number I could use to reach the main Amex offices from Croatia.

They gave her a number and we called it. The result was the same as before – “this number is not available from Croatia”.
The woman assisting me at the yacht charter called them back two more times, asking to speak with different people each time. On both occasions she was given yet a different number to call. Calling each gave the same result as the other calls.
Getting nowhere with your Zagreb office, my would-be rescuer remembered that she was acquainted with someone who worked for Amex in Germany. She called her friend and put him on the line with me. Finally I got, from him, a non-toll-free USA number for Amex customer service, which we were able to connect to from Croatia.

I called that number, explained my situation, and after some security related questions was given a “temporary PIN”, good for one time only and a maximum of $500. This would be enough to get me by until I could go to an Amex office in an EU country.

Unfortunately I screwed up. I immediately went down the street and put my Amex card into an ATM machine to withdraw my $500 worth of local currency. The machine’s menu gave me a number of options for withdrawal, none of which was more than about $100, so I selected (or so I thought) the option “other amount”. Much to my dismay I found that the on-screen menus were misaligned with the selection buttons on the machine and I had withdrawn $500 Kuna (equal to around $100). That was it. I had no chance for any more money in Croatia, and possibly for the rest of my vacation.

Immediately I got on the Internet to see where the nearest Amex office in an EU country was located. Navigating the Amex site was an exercise in wild goose chases to one self-referencing dead link after another. Finally, I found a page which showed that there was an Amex office in Venice. This page indicated it would be open from 9 to 12:30 on Saturdays.

Someone had told me there were boats going from Pula to Venice in the summer, so I started making inquiries to see if any were still running in early October. I found one that left from Porec, about 50 km up the coast. Space was available for early Saturday morning, so I booked a seat even though I had already paid for lodging in Pula for Saturday night.
Saturday morning I rose early and walked the 1/2 km in the early morning darkness to the place where I would catch my ride to the ferry in Porec. Luckily I left early, because the van arrived early.

Dawn had just broken when we arrived in Porec. After presenting the proper papers I boarded the large catamaran and we set out for Venice. It was a rough voyage, reminding me of the PBS documentaries about crab-fishing in Alaska. The ferry bobbed like a cork on huge swells, as some passengers’ belongings rolled about in the aisle and others spewed their breakfasts into barf bags.

Finally, approaching Venice we got into calmer waters. The tour guide on the boat was kind enough to exchange my Kuna for Euro and lead me to the Amex office in Venice. It was 11:45 am Saturday, so I would be there in time to make contact, or so I thought.

Not so!! Contrary to what was shown on the Amex website, the Venice office was not open on Saturday – at all.
I was angry, disappointed, hot, sweaty, and tired. I had no place to stay, and not very much money. I was carrying my suitcase on my back in a place I was unfamiliar with and which was one of the most difficult cities in the world to find one’s way around. This was not good.

Setting off in search of some sort of tourist information kiosk or travel agency I passed one of those ubiquitous change/cambio/wechsel agencies so common to the most popular European tourist spots. Having nothing to lose I decided to see if I could just buy some Euros with my credit card – the old fashioned way, a regular cash advance without having to use a PIN. To my surprise and relief, I was able to get money. Coatia was just an anomaly, and my vacation would not be totally ruined after all.

With a pocket full of cash, I set off to the tourist info kiosk, where the staff was totally unhelpful aside from directing me to another kiosk across town at the train station. After another long and sweaty trek, I finally found the train station, booked myself into a closet-sized room about 500 m from San Marco for $180/night, purchased a 3 day vaporetto ticket, and set off to my lodgings. A more enjoyable and anxiety free chapter of my vacation was finally about to begin, no thanks to Amex.