*hugs Sappho*
hope you'll be ok...
Thanks. I was starting to think I posted in the wrong thread... Actually, just before I read this, I called them again. They did find the suitcase and it should be delivered tonight or tomorrow. Huge sigh of relief. My trip from hell is finally coming to an end, and I can get back to freaking out about normal things, like my appointment with the foreigner police on Tuesday, the big work meeting on Thursday, and how I'm going to pay all my bills after missing 3 weeks of work!
Actually, while I'm in this thread, there's something I realized while I was visiting my sister that really upset me. Well, there were a lot of things I could rage about, but this one in particular is on my mind at the moment. I have a very tiny apartment (20 sq m) in a very nice area of Prague. It has everything I need and I'm very happy here, but my sister and her new husband (and their 2-year-old daughter) live in a HUGE house. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, an office, a huge living room, and a gigantic kitchen. They told me their mortgage payment rate, and it's not much higher than what I pay in rent each month. They also have an obscene amount of *stuff.* New furniture, appliances, a closet full of towels, many cupboards full of various types of pots and pans and dishes and kitchen accessories, walk-in closets full of clothes, three computers, three huge flat screen HD TVs, full high speed internet and cable service, rooms full of toys for the little one, just... It was mind-boggling. I couldn't understand how anyone could possibly need or want so much stuff, let alone afford all of it! I could probably list every single thing I own on a single piece of paper, and I don't even have any savings (largely thanks to having to travel to America all the time for visits). My sister is a preschool teacher and her husband is a cop - not exactly hugely high-income jobs.
Then one morning I overheard my sister and her husband discussing their bills. They were choosing which bills they would pay that month, and which credit cards to pay them with. They have something like 4 or 5 credit cards and they don't pay everything they owe each month. That's when I remembered the culture of debt in America. I had genuinely forgotten about it. Where I live now, if you can't afford something, you just don't buy it. I don't think I know anyone who has a credit card here, at least not one they regularly use. If you want to buy a house or apartment, you get a mortgage, but you have to have a huge chunk of the cost ready right from the start or the bank won't even give you a loan. University is paid for by the state (through taxes), and people don't move out of their parents' houses until there's a reason to, like moving to another city or getting married. Just about everyone pays for everything in cash. It would never even occur to me to buy something I didn't already have the cash for. I still pay student loans every month (just a few more years!), but since leaving university I haven't acquired any more debt, and I plan to keep it that way.
I hated my trip to America, but I do like this sister, and my niece is wonderful. It really upsets me to think of them being in debt for the rest of their lives. Especially since they don't need to be in debt. They don't need all that STUFF. But it seems to be a basic part of American culture, that you buy the stuff you want, when you want it, and never think twice about debt. I can easily see my niece inheriting my sister's debt, many years from now (I hope) when she dies. Retirement is never going to happen. It's absolutely insane.