Becoming a real person...

...here is not easy. I am lucky enough to have obtained a social security number back when I was a student so at least I didn't have to deal with that. I rented my apartment through Craigslist from the Italian lamdlady, where being European worked to my advantage for a change. Getting a credit card in this country though is a whole other story. I applied for one at Citibank with detailed information on my employment, including my ridiculously high salary. I got a standard letter from them stating that since I have no credit history they cannot give me credit, which, of course, is pretty silly because how does one build a credit history if one is not allowed to get credit based on other factors such as earnings and - god forbid - a stellar credit history from the United Kingdom. Well, evidently that all doesn't matter. I even got rejected for some stupid thousand-dollar overdraft protection on my checking account, which is truly ridiculous. Of course, Americans are born with a credit history so it is unfathomable for them that one (especially if, like me, that person doesn't sound foreign after a few sentences) should not have one.

Here comes the beautiful part of the story. After speaking to various people about this I got connected to some kind of "specialist." By that point I was highly irritated so without letting him say a word I went on a diatribe against banks in general, Citibank in particular and first and foremost Americans and their insular worldview and how outrageous I found it that my UK credit history is of no value here. The man listened to me politely and then said with a clearly distinguishable, but not incomprehensible Indian accent that he undrestood my frustration but that's just the way it was and then gave me some suggestions (all pretty lame) as to what I should do. At this point, I started blushing from embarrassment and we closed our discussions as follows:

ME: Where are you from?
MAN: India.
ME: And where are you now?
MAN: India.

I could not have felt any more ridiculous. Here I am, a Hungarian woman telling off an Indian man because an American bank doesn't give a shit about English credit card companies. Oh, the joys of globalization are many!