Karla phone home

So this is the part of international living that rarely gets talked about: phone cards.

When I was in France, we used a lovely calling service which costed $0.06 to call overseas. Unfortunately, that same service charges $0.39 per minute to Romania, so Mom and I have been using calling cards.

I really want to speak to my mother. Normally, I use a pretty basic calling card.

Said calling card wasn't available this morning from the shop. As it's Sunday, I have limited resources available. Do you realise how hard it is trying to describe a calling card with code in another language?

I was tired, depressed and in no means of a long, drawn-out description of what I wanted. They showed me a card with the microchip.

"Nu, fara asta" (*points to chip*)
*confused look from sales associate* "Orange? Connex?"
"Nu...cartele pentru Canada"
"Connex? Orange?"
"Nu...cartele cu...code?"
*more confused looks*

I went to the shop around the corner and saw a sign for calling cards on the wall. The man behind the counter seemed to delight in taking advantage of my limited Romanian skills. I was the only one in the shop, but he kept telling me to wait a few minutes before he would sell me the card. Two customers came and went before he told me it was 200,000 lei. At least he didn't try to rip me off.

The card is from Swissfone. The fact that "Phone" is spelled wrong should have been a tip-off.

I tried calling the free Timisoara number. I got a message in Romanian basically telling me the number doesn't exist. I'm on the website and nothing is helping. Maybe it's because...oh...everything is in Romanian?

My Romanian is good enough that I can read and get the gist of the meaning of something. When I call, I can figure out that the number can't be found and I should call the service centre for more information.

This is pissing me off. I tried a different phone. I tied all the different access numbers. Still nothing.

@&*&@#%^@%#&^%#@&^