My Crisis

Yesterday I left my house at noon to meet Cory in Stephansplatz to help him buy new shoes. He really needed new shoes, my God. I realized I probably had ought to buy my public transportatoin pass, since AFS reimburses us for this anyway. I stopped by an ATM and put in my card and code and money order, and everything was normal. It said it was processing my money order when a red box jumped up and said, "Money order cancelled. Card is being retained."
I stood there in shock for a couple of minutes, walked up and down the street a few times, but then decided to stay at the ATM in case it decided to spit out my card at any second. But it didn't. I called my host brother stumbling over German trying to explain what was happening, but I noticed I was starting to panic and that half the words I was saying were in English. He happened to be out on his moped on the same street as I was, and saw me, and came to me. He understood then what happened and told me not to worry, that it wasn't really a big deal. He called the number on the ATM and I thought, good, maybe it was just a bug, and they can get it back to me.
After he hung up, he told me my credit card number had been put on an international "black list" and that I was going to have to call VISA in the USA to figure out what had happened.
I got home and started to get all worked up. I've noticed any tendency I had towards overreacting is magnified 100x here. I am guessing because all my energy every moment is pushed towards the edge working on understanding and communicating, and then something happens and it all gets pushed over. I called VISA and realized I didn't actually know the number on my card because it wasn't the same as my bank account number. She apologized to me for losing my card in a foreign country and wished me the best and connected me to Bank of America, where the hotlines were still closed.
I got in contact with my parents, calling them for the first time since I've been here. I ended up taking away their Saturday morning with sorting everything out for me. Thank you again guys, I would have never figured out any of that myself.

The problem was that my ATM card was only a temporary and was only valid for 30 days. I've been using it from the end of August to yesterday, with my problem only being yesterday. I'm guessing VISA decided to block the number learning that it was invalid, but being a big company and everything, was sort of late. A new card had arrived for me a month ago in the States, and my Dad is going to send it rushed here.

I still have to go to the Bank on monday and ask for my card back. I am hoping someone there can speak English, because it seems risky for me to talk about say, my identity and my money, when there is still such a high level of misunderstanding in simple day to day life.

Anyway, I survived. I went to see La Traviata last night, which was wonderful, and I am leaving for my vacation in Kärnten on Tuesday still. That's all, take care.