posted
I thought you might be amused by some of the missteps that we made during our trip back to the US from the UK.
First of all, in order to have a place for our day care provider to stay and look after the children we stayed in the house we were renting until the day before our flight. This could have worked out just fine. As it turned out there was a terrible fog that morning. Both the packers and the people coming to take back the furniture we had borrowed from the military didn't show up until 4 PM. Now we only had a few things left, so everybody and all of the stuff was gone by 6PM. However, we would really have preferred to have more time to organize for the next day's trip.
We hadn't done a great job of sorting out what we'd be carrying on the airplane. Our final tally of baggage was 8 large suitcases, 4 medium size carry-ons, 2 car seats and a stroller. We were taking a military charter flight from the UK, and were able to check the bags the night before. That meant that we were able to show at the terminal a bit later the next day. However, in the hurry to get everything out of the house we'd managed to forget to put a few necessities in our overnight bag. You know, stuff like shoes, belts, and clean underwear. OK, not optimum, but certainly not a big deal.
So they call our flight, we say all of our goodbyes, and as we walk through the door the gate clerk says, "I'm afraid that your carry-on luggage is too large. Overhead space is extremely limited on this flight, so I'll have to ask you to check most of those things." So I took the 2 children, their toys and car seats onto the airplane while my wife unpacked the carry-on luggage, decided what had to be on the airplane with us, and put the rest back into bags to be checked. She joined us on board in about 10 minutes with 2 small bags! Why we couldn't have gotten that organized until 10 minutes prior to boarding I'll never know.
So we're rolling down the runway and I look over at my lovely wife and thank her once more for taking care of the carry-on bag fiasco.
"By the way", I said, "Where did you end up putting the passports?"
"Ummm, I'm not sure," she says.
You've got to be kidding me! I'm a bit panicked, but there is nothing I can do to check because we're on climbout and the bags are in the overhead compartment. Once we level off I check and sure enough, the passports aren't in the bags.
I could just picture it, standing in front of the immigration officer at Baltimore Washington International Airport:
"I'm promise sir, I really am a US citizen. My passport is in a bag just through that door. If you'd only let me go through I could show you."
"No way mister. You look a lot like a terrorist and I'm not letting you out of my sight!"
Well, cooler minds prevailed. The flight was scheduled to stop in Lajes Field, Azores. We begged and pleaded with the flight crew and they said they would have someone go into the hold and retrieve our passports during the layover. Well we were about to board for the second leg of the flight and still hadn't heard if they had located our passports. In fact, one of the passengers told us that they had seen someone with a fist full of passports, checkbooks, and credit cards asking questions about who to give them to. This is a bit disconcerting because the last thing I want is to take off for Baltimore with the passports still at Lajes. It turned out that they had given the documents back to the flight crew and they had them for us as we boarded.
posted
Sounds like something my hubby and I would do. That's what it looks like at our house whenever we are about to go somewhere. Usually we end up whereever we're supposed to be without something we intended to bring, like say, diapers.
Glad it turned out okay!
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
This is why important things stay on my body at all times and I have to run an alphabetical checklist each time I leave a room. Seriously.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I used to travel a LOT and my things are terrible about popping in and out of existence all around me if I don't keep them on a tight leash, so I got extremely methodical about stuff like that. Everything is in an exact place where it goes. I have to do stuff like pack and unpack in a set order. <laughs> Otherwise I would get to the jobsite with only about half what I needed and make the office overnight me a bunch of stuff while I went out and bought a whole lot more. And yes, itenerary and passports must go exactly in the spot they go.
But I would have nightmares about stuff like that happening.... about being stuck forever in limbo while traveling due to something that was entirely my fault. <laughs>
One time I woke up in a hotel room and didn't remember what city I was in or what was the mill or the job I was there for... then I looked up and there were strangers staying in my room. I didn't know if I'd accidentally come to the wrong room or if the front desk had messed up and sent them to MY room or what. It was the most horrible confused rootless feeling I've ever had. Then I woke up for real and I have never been so glad to find myself at home in my own bed! <laughs> I was traveling a bit too much back then, I think.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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