We went to bed last night and crashed pretty hard. I woke up a few times in the night, but managed to fall back asleep, and when Nathan woke me up in the morning it was already 8 am. We quickly showered and got ready, packed up a daypack, and set out for breakfast.
We chose a small coffee and sweets shop that also sold breakfast pastries, muesli and egg dishes. Nathan had the muesli and I had the ham and egg sandwich with coffees and a fresh pressed apple juice for me. Because why not?
Our hotel gave us a list of museums and such to do today, and on the way to the first one, I went by the ATM to pull some cash. We had no luck at the first ATM, didn’t think twice about it, and headed to the Tyrolean Regional Heritage Museum, where we proceeded to spend the next 3 hours.
The museum included rooms full of Tyrolean religious items, historical furniture and furnaces, parlour replicas, regional dress garments, and so much more.
Our ticket also included access to the Court Church or Hofkirche, where Maximilian I’s cenotaph is located.
After leaving the museum and church, we swung by a bakery for a sandwich, and then hit another ATM. Again, my card was declined, and so was Nathan’s. We decided to eat our sandwiches in a courtyard and to call Schwab. And that is where we discovered that both of our cash cards expired in April. (Insert expletive here) WTF, how did this happen? I don’t have a good answer for that yet, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Schwab sent new cards, which I activated, because so and so from Indianapolis kindly told me so, and WTF I did with them, no one knows. Did I shred the good cards instead of the bad? I don’t know.
Our solution is this. Pat and Andrew arrive from Malta and meet us in Lech tomorrow. I can easily transfer money to them if they can pull it from an ATM. We have American USD that we can change to Euros tomorrow, and I can send myself money via Western Union or Moneygram while we are in Innsbruck. Schwab is overnighting new cards to our Thursday hotel and provided that all works out, we are fine. Of course, the only time we get into trouble with money, there is a federal holiday to stand in the way. Normalment.
I handled it all like a champ. Cussing, yes, but no losing my cool, or excessive freaking out. The guy from Schwab was as helpful as possible, and you could tell if he could make it better, he would. Nathan called the Thursday hotel and sort of communicated that we were expecting an important package. He could tell that the message was not received 100% on their end, so I followed up with an email this afternoon.
So, if I remember, Wednesday, we can call for a tracking number. What day is it today? Less than 48 hours in and we’ve lost touch with reality. Rightly so, work has been a bear.
With our bakery lunch and housekeeping calls to Schwab under our belt, we bought tickets to our last two museums of the day. The first, an exhibit on Maximilian I, and the latter, a walk through the rooms of the Hofburg Imperial Palace.
After the museums, we walked around for a bit, before going back to our hotel to redeem our drink tickets for forgoing housekeeping in our room. At the hotel we regrouped, planned our next steps for tomorrow and I asked the man at the front desk 1,001 questions. About money, train and bus tickets, checkout, and more.
I think we’re feeling pretty good about tomorrow, and money and all, and as long as the cards arrive by Thursday, or even a day or two after, I think we are fine.
