Two Phones?!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you broke your phone while traveling abroad? Well, that's exactly what I did. Twelve days into my move to Sagres, Portugal I dropped my phone and broke half of the screen. My parents would say this is unsurprising but I would disagree. This is the first new phone that I have actually bought with my own money so I planned on keeping it forever and ever. To say I was sad would be an understatement :( But anyways back to the phone. When someone says they broke their iphone’s screen I’m sure you immediately imagine a cracked and dark screen. That was not the reality of my phone’s screen. The screen was completely unscratched and the touch screen still worked like it always had. The only problem was the bottom third of the touch screen was fluorescent white. Literally glowing and sometimes even blinking. Using my phone at night looked like I was trying to create my own personal rave.

The phone dilemma began on my walk home from working all day. I don’t know how many of you are aware of the weather situation going on currently in Sagres and I think most of Portugal, but all it does is rain with a sprinkle of severe wind. I have only experienced two nice days with hardly any rain since arriving but everyone keeps telling me this is unusual and the weather will get better so fingers crossed. Anyways, on my walk home I was fighting with the wind because it was blowing my rain jacket's hood off while also holding my phone in my hand. It was raining so I'm very aware my phone should have been tucked safely in my backpack, but I had it out to change the music I was jamming too since we always listen to the same boring playlist at Picnic (my job). As I was fixing my hood against the wind and rain my phone slipped out of my hands and hit the ground face side up so I figured it was fine because the exterior was untouched. I was wrong. When I turned on the phone and saw the damage I immediately went into denial. How could this be happening to me? Where would I buy a phone? What if the rest of the phone screen went blank before I could get a new one? Could I get the screen fixed quickly or was I going to have to buy an entire new phone? Thankfully I have made some very amazing friends while living here so I took my sad self to my friend Leonor’s house.

After researching my options there were two different plans I could act on. One was driving 50 minutes to Faro to have my phone screen fixed at an istore for 450 euros. This plan would be difficult because one I do not have a car to drive there, the wait time could be multiple days and with a job and no car this was very inconvenient, the quality of the screen might not be great, and the cost was very high for just a screen. The second option was to purchase a refurbished phone off of a website called Swappie for 580 euros that could be delivered within 3 days and the option to sell my old phone for a decent amount of money. I decided on this option because the price difference was about the same and I would be guaranteed to have a properly working phone. Three days went by and I said goodbye to the 580 euros I did not think I was going to have to spend and hello to my new iphone. This is when I thought all my problems were solved. Wrong again. 

Transferring the data from my old phone to my new phone was easy peasy lemon squeezy. The hard part came when I had to login into all of my credit card and banking apps that I desperately need while living far away from home. Little fun backstory for you. I have had the same phone number since 6th grade when my parents bought me my very first cell phone, an off brand blackberry that I was obsessed with. ;) At my previous job one of the perks of working there was to be on the company phone plan. When I decided to leave my job of 4 years I needed to change phone plans, which was expected and obviously completely normal. The fun began when I was not granted a transfer pin after asking multiple times from my employers (A pin the T Mobile employees said was required)  to move my phone number to my own plan, a phone number that I had wayyyyy before working there. So not only was I moving to a new country, I was also getting a new phone number that no one knew right before moving. Just some more stress to add to my plate. 😀 You are probably wondering; why does any of this matter? It matters because in order to login to all of these important accounts on a new device you have to receive a code by text. All of my accounts were still connected to my old phone number. One that no longer existed thanks to my past job. On top of that, I am currently only using whatsapp to text and call people because having an American phone plan abroad is veryyyyy expensive. All of this posed a huge problem for me. Thankfully, I have some of the best friends and family a person could ask for and they helped me when I really needed it. Shoutout to my mom and Carson, you guys are the best! I am currently still locked out of my accounts but thankfully they can pay off my credit card from calling at home by pretending to be me. Problems solved hopefully.

Moral of the story. I am very thankful to have good friends and family in times when I need help AND this is a good reminder to be prepared for anything while traveling and to try and have as many backup plans as possible lol. Now, let's hope for zero phone problems for a very long time. 

Until, next blog! ✌️