The Car

So getting the car turned out to be much more of a hassle than it should have been. Everything was going great, right up until they tried to charge me for the actual rental (they had already authorized a AU$2000 bond). My credit card was denied. So, it being a VISA card, I called the VISA Australia 800 number, but they couldn't do anything about it (they answered after about three minutes), so they transferred me to Capital One Customer Service. The first person who answered there (after about five minutes) couldn't do anything about it, so I was transferred to the fraud division. The person who answered from fraud (after about 45 minutes) couldn't do anything about it, and transferred me to the person responsible for approving questionable charges. Finally, the person who answered (after about 20 more minutes) was able to sort the whole thing out. It was made more complicated by the fact that the call quality seemed to degrade with each successive transfer, and thank my lucky stars my cellphone has amazing battery life and that Traveller's Auto Barn was located in an area with good reception.

After that was all sorted out, I drove across the street and bought a big tub of peanut butter, a squirt-tube of honey, bread, a can of wasabi peas, some paper towels, garbage bags, ziplock bags, and a giant cooler-bottle of water (just in case).