Yet Another Travel Horror - Part 1

As much as I love to travel, it never happens without a stressful event in my life. It's like having medicine to cure your pain, but having a side effect! But somehow, for some strange reason, things work out at the last minute. Even though I don't believe in miracles, this is the only case when I accept the fact that miracles might happen (well, mainly because when I've to depend on 10 other people for something and things work out, it seems miracle to me :p).

So, here's to yet another travel horror, how all the angels saved me with their combined effort, and most importantly what I could have done (or what people should do) to avoid such horrific experience. (This time it really reminded me of the movie It's a Wonderful Life, where every single thing starts to go wrong with George Bailey, but eventually he was saved at the end!)

Before I start this story, I should mention some of my past travel horror stories-

• The first time I visited home from Japan during summer break, the night of my return flight I was totally convinced that my flight was the next day (it was after 12am). All my travel documents were with mom, and she almost went to bed. The driver was sent home early to get rest because he has to work late hours to take me to airport. Then for some reason I wanted to check my flight schedule, and asked mom to hand me the stuff before she goes to bed. And to my greatest surprise, my flight was in 3 hours or so! If it was a different time or situation either my family would be angry or sad, but I was leaving for another year, and most importantly I had to make it to the airport on time, so everybody just rushed to get me prepared. Luckily it takes about 30mins or less to the airport from home, so I was saved that time.

• The next story is about when I was coming to USA from Japan. I couldn't apply for visa earlier than 2 weeks before my travel date 'cause I was waiting for my graduate assistantship confirmation, and I-20 stuff. It was REALLY stressful to pack everything to leave a country for good without certainly knowing whether I'll get back my visa on time. Luckily it worked out too! I got back my visa 2 days before my travel date. But damn, that was tough!

• Next comes traveling from USA to UK last summer. I was being extra cautious this time, and applied for visa about a month early. But crap must happen with me! I paid for the return shipping for Air Waybill but the user interface was so crappy that it didn't let me print it, even though I could print the receipt. I tried every possible browser versions they mentioned but nothing worked. So I thought that's what they need, and they'll print the shipping label there. Then my visa decision was made but they couldn't send me back my travel documents because they needed the shipping label. They tried to contact me on phone, and since I usually don't pick up from unknown numbers, I totally ignored it. It took me at 8 correspondence back and forth with the consulate and the service that provides shipping service to get the shipping label, and actually get back my documents. Again, I received my documents probably 2-3 days before my travel date. 

• In case you're thinking this might be the end, then I'm sorry to tell you that it's not. The next travel horror happened when I went to Canada for conference last October. And it even has two parts! First part was pretty similar to UK story. The semester started, I was pretty stressed managing everything, and forgot to send them the money order for return shipping. Again they tried to call me and I didn't notice. I only figured that out once I started worry that I submitted my application so early, it was supposed to be with me soon. But luckily I was still early enough that I could make it to the conference. I made it safely to Vancouver, but it didn't end there though. I was so stressed and tired preparing for conference that I totally forgot to take my Holy documents bag with me that has everything for my life! And somehow it totally didn't occur to me that I'll need my I-20 to come back to USA from Canada. So, I had to go through special screening during immigration, and upon checking my background information and making sure that I've a valid active I-20, they let me pass. Phew! Though it sounds simple now, that was truly dangerous! So, lesson learnt - ALWAYS CARRY YOUR PASSPORT AND I-20 WITH YOU WHEN YOU TRAVEL INTERNATIONALLY. MAKE 20 COPIES OF THEM AND KEEP IN ALL POSSIBLE CHAMBERS OF LUGGAGE! 

• The last one (before the one I was actually going to write about) is from my North Carolina visit for interview and least dangerous of all, but was still stressful. I was trying to be extra careful again, and called the cab driver a day early to be on time. Then he completely forgot! I was waiting for 30mins after the due time, and then decided to call. He said that he was out of town! But eventually he came to pick me up with his private car and I arrived the airport just 30mins before by flight. Luckily it was an inter-state flight and Champaign airport is tiny, so was saved on that journey.

All those experiences were horrific but none of those can reach the epic level of the one that I just got luckily solved. It has multiple dimensions, and involved human interaction with the entire world >.< Because that's going to be super long, I'll write about it on my second post. Till then, Happy Friday! (^-^)/