Phones, Banking, and Birmingham

The saga of trying to open a bank account concludes.

To refresh, I tried to open an account at NatWest already, and was told that I needed more documentation (specifically, proof of UK address). Apparently, the British government is terribly concerned about money laundering, and insists on having detailed records of everything related to banking. This is all well and good, until the records go missing, as UK government records have been known to do.

After trying several banks (NatWest, Alliance & Leicester, Abbey’s, Barclays, etc), I finally managed to open an account at Lloyds TSB. It was a mercifully simple process, once they agreed to let me open an account. Meanwhile, Amanda visited every cell phone provider in town (Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile, and O2) and collected information about getting cell phones. After we had both completed our tasks for the morning, we had lunch at Bella Italia (mostly because it was on the way back to the train station), and took a train from Exeter Central to Exeter St. Davids (where we had left our bags this morning), and got on the train to head to Birmingham (the one in England, not Alabama, pronounced "bur-ming-um") for Link Weekend.

We don't have our new cell phones yet (I suppose I should be properly British and refer to them as "mobiles," pronounced with a hard "i"), but we plan to get them either in Birmingham this weekend, or at the beginning of next week.

Catch-22

Today, we looked at apartments and tried to open a bank account. We accomplished one.

Unfortunately, the one was accomplished was looking at apartments. We saw several we liked, but we haven't reached a decision yet. As far as the bank account goes, apparently, there is great concern about money laundering, so we have to be able to prove to the bank where they can find us. At NatWest, they told us that we needed a letter from the University to our UK address, which I requested this afternoon. I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow, and, hopefully, use it as proof of address to open a bank account.

Banking is so much easier to deal with in the US, and even in Germany! Never thought I'd be longing for the ease of dealing with Deutsche Bank . . .

Tonight, we bought our train tickets to Birmingham so we can attend the Rotary Link Weekend. It sounds like it will be great fun. We'll be staying with a couple of local Rotarians, which should be an interesting experience. Also, it will be nice to see several of my friends from orientation again, and make some new friends with the Rotary scholars in my part of the UK.