The bank melted my ice cream

One quickly learns the places to avoid when one moves into a new country. In Hungary the list is threefold - the Post Office, the bank and public hospitals.

Sadly in my case I can only avoid the first one thanks to the power of modern technology and the wonderful services of Moonpig.com. And hopefully the hospital trips may tail off now we have a decent contract with a clinic that will actually treat children on days other than Thursdays.

The bank, however, is turning out to be a necessary evil given that cash is still the normal way of paying for most items here. You can get a debit card with a chip and pin and many stores have the keypad at the till. But don't be fooled - you'll only get to use the 'OK' button to confirm they typed in the right amount, you still have to sign the receipt by hand. And there's no guarantee that your particular bank card will be accepted. The Post Office, where utility bills are paid, only accepts its own debit card, which is why the queue is always full of people with huge wadges of cash to pay for their gas and electric.

Which is why I found myself at the bank yesterday on my way back from Tesco in order to withdraw 620 euro to part-pay for our ski trip, 11,200 forints (about 35 euro) to pay for accident insurance and 19,600 forints (almost 80 euro) for piano lessons. Given that the cashpoints only dispense in multiples of 5000 forints searching for the correct change is a national past-time. But I thought I'd enlist the help of the cashier at my bank to make the process simpler.

Oh what a bad idea.

You know when you're standing in front of a glass screen and the other person is click, click, clicking away on their computer, ostensibly dealing with you request while you gradually lose the feeling in your legs and your face switches to screen saver during the wait... I am convinced this guy yesterday was either playing Solitaire or harvesting his crops in Farmville. Yes, I'm judging him by my own standards but seriously, how many boxes did he have to tick over the space of five minutes to then turn round to me and say 'computer says 'no''??

Here's how it went.

'Can I have 620 euros from my account please?'
'Sure, do you know your account number?'
'No, but here is my bank card.'
'Please fill out this form. Can I see your ID?'
'Here is my passport, here is your form.'

Click, click, click, 'A lonely brown cow has turned up on your farm, would you like to help him?' click, click, click, 'Your neighbours have fertilised your crops, would you like to return the favour?' click click click.

'I can't find your passport number in the computer.'
'Oh. Is that a problem? I have withdrawn money like this before.'
'Yes, I can't find your passport number in the computer.'
'Oh. Maybe I gave my driving license as ID last time. But I don't have it with me.'
'I can't give you money if I can't find your passport number in the computer.'
'So what shall we do?'
'Go to my colleague over there and she will put your passport number into the computer. Then come back and I will be able to find your passport number in the computer and give you the money.'

So I found myself at another glass screen with another bank worker clicking away at their computer, possibly even a farming neighbour of the first one and volunteering to adopt the stray cow...? Who knows. But after much clicking I was finally told the passport was now in the system.

Back I go to the first window and.... he's called another customer, who appears to be withdrawing the Gross National Product of Luxembourg - in cash. It is seriously unbelievable that people are expected to wander around with hundreds of euros worth of banknotes stuffed in their pockets in order to pay for their electric or buy a sofa. Yes, a sofa: I once went to a furniture shop to buy a lamp, handed over my debit card to be told 'Oh no, Madam. We only deal in cash. You're in Hungary.' We were surrounded by expensive leather couches for which they would only accept cash??!!

Anyway, I eventually made it back to the front of the queue, waited while he finished the paperwork for the previous customer, waited while he fished out the form I had already filled in, waited while he planted a few potatoes and bought a new fence on his Farmville and finally received 620 euros.

Next I asked for the 11,200 forints for the insurance bill, assuming it would be a mighty sight quicker now all the right numbers were in the right boxes.
But I was wrong.
Apparently to withdraw the money from the cashier would incur a charge. But if I went to the cashpoint and withdrew an appropriate amount the cashier could change it to different denominations for free.

So I trotted round to the cashpoint, trotted back, mercifully no-one else had taken up my place in front of the cashier window, and started the whole waiting game once more as he tried to work out how to convert two 10,000 forint notes into 11,200 in change.

All in all I think I was in the bank for forty minutes whilst my shopping languished in plastic bags in the boot of my car.

And that is how my bank melted by ice cream.