Wednesday 20 March 2013
7:31 AM
My Room, Dalkeith House
I woke up this morning feelin’ fine. I had
something special on my mind. Cuz today I’m gunna travel around the world… ohh yeah…
ooh something tells me I’m into something good.
Despite my anxiety from my upcoming trip
giving me a small head cold, I really was feeling pretty good about myself. I
headed down breakfast, had some toast and tea. Then I groggily made my way to
the shower. After a few refreshing minutes under the low pressure hot water, I
returned to my room to get the last of my packing done before class began at
9:50.
I was largely done packing from the night
before. So all I needed now was some charger cables, toiletries, and my
passport… wait where’s my passport. Now
stop reading for a moment and analyse how you feel about that last sentence.
Magnify that by about a billion and you might have an inkling of how I was feeling.
There is a feeling that I only get when
I’m having a nightmare. This is a feeling of utter hopelessness because
something so unimaginably bad has happened so quickly that I am completely
powerless to do anything about it. The blood drains from my head and
extremities and all mu muscles begin to feel tense. If I could see myself, I’d
probably be as white as a ghost.
I had that feeling, but this wasn’t a
dream. This couldn’t be happening. I was leaving the country today. “No! No!
No!” I whined to myself, along with several nasty swear words. My passport had
to be somewhere, I just wasn’t looking hard enough.
I tore through my room, searching through
every paper I owned – under the bed, dressers, and wardrobe – through every
drawer, suite case, bag, pocket and my safe. Nothing. No passport anywhere to
be seen.
My heart was pounding in my chest but for
some reason none of the blood was going to my head. I felt nauseous and as if I
were about to faint all at the same time. I needed to enlist help. So I ran downstairs
to Nikki’s office to see if she or Patty would be there. The office was closed,
locked and empty. I next went to the faculty lounge to the same result. I ran
to Patty’s flat, knocking on the door frantically. No one answered. So I
continued on through the Centre hall, through the Marble hall and into the
Conference room where I began to frantically knock on the door to Stewart’s
flat.
“Come in!” he hollered casually.
“So big trouble,” I said as I rushed into
his living room. “I can’t find my passport.”
“Anthony, take a deep breath,” Stewart
said trying to calm me down. “This sort of thing has happened before. Worst
case scenario, we’ll get you a replacement passport.”
“I leave for Istanbul today. I need to be
at Waverly Station at 12:11,” I explained further.
“Ohh, well then let’s go get Patty,” he
said as we rushed out of his flat and back to Patty’s door.
Stewart rang a doorbell that I hadn’t seen
the first time, and in a matter of moments Angus began to bark. Patty soon
answered the door and we explained everything. I was beginning to feel like
Henny Penny, only for me the sky really was falling, as our little group
marched up to my room for a more thorough search.
Patty and Stewart moved dressers and the
bed, searched through every drawer nook cranny and folder I owned. Nothing,
Zip, Zero, NaDa. Putting it mildly, I was screwed and not in the good way.
Patty and Stewart went down stairs to look
into my replacement options, while I combed the house in search for Amber and
Jess, hoping against hope that one of them would at least be able to provide a
clue to where my passport was.
After much searching, and the involvement
of almost literally everyone I met up with, there was no finding this thing.
Amber tore apart my room a third time, while I began to give up hope. I was out
easily $500 on this trip, and god knows how much for a replacement passport. My
ship was sunk and I knew it.
I think the adrenaline rush caused by the
debacle was the only thing that kept me going. I found myself running around
the house without a real destination in mind, all the while racking my brain
for any clue as to where my passport would be.
When I barged into the Centre hall, Nikki was on the phone, and said, “He just walked into the centre hall… Yep, I’ll tell him.” She hung up the phone
and then looked at me saying, “Go get your things. Patty is going to drive you
to the US embassy. We don’t know if we’ll be able to get you a replacement in
time, but we’re going to try.”
So I ran upstairs, snagging my coat, hat,
rucksack, and shoulder bag. If I was forgetting anything I’d have to live
without it. When I got downstairs Patty was ready to go, and so we marched out
of the front steps and into her car.
I’d never taken anything but a bus to or
from Edinburgh, and under happier circumstances I might have been rather
thrilled to find what truly was the fastest route to the city. I was not able
to focus on the route, but I must say, all things considered, I was remarkably
calm. Once we reached the city centre, we took a wrong turn, but thanks to a
roundabout we were able to quickly correct it, arriving at the US Embassy at
half ten.
Even though the security guard was
Scottish, there was something homey about walking into the US Embassy. However,
I really dislike going through security. Do I really look like a threat to the
security of any nation? Really people? It’s a bloody waste of time, and it
severely irked me given my tremendous time crunch.
Eventually I was let through, and praising
whatever deity you chose, there was no queue. The woman was very quick about
handing me three long forms. I snagged a clip board and quickly went to work.
In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever wrote my full name, address, social
security number, and phone number so many different times in such a short span
of time.
Patty came in when I was about half done
with filling them out. She waited there for about five more minutes while I
finished. When I was done, I handed the woman behind the counter the forms and
my driver’s license, and she handed me some instructions on how to get to a
passport photo place. Patty and I were out the door and down the road in no
time.
I got out at the curb almost before the
car had come to a stop and ran into the store. The man got up sensing my
urgency, as I said, “I need an American Passport photo as quickly as possible.”
He didn’t say anything but instead
instructed me to stand against the wall as he pulled out a small digital
camera. He took a few photos and then got to work on his computer. The whole
process took about fifteen minutes, which was about fifteen minutes longer than
I wanted it to take. However, he knew I was in a hurry and even ignored the
phone when it rang. The photos cost £5.95, but I handed him six quid and ran
out the door. Patty was reading something in her car when I opened the
passenger door, slightly startling her. She didn’t say anything of it and
instead started the engine and headed back down the road.
“Thank you,” I said infinitely grateful.
“You’re not out of the woods yet,” she replied.
She was right; it could still take another few hours to get the replacement. I
didn’t have a few hours.
“Thanks all the same,” I said brushing the
negative possibility out of my mind.
We arrived at the embassy a minute or so
later, and once again I was running. I left every and anything metal in Patty’s
car and so security simply waved me through this time. Entering the room, I
slipped my passport photos under the glass window along with my debit card. It
cost $135 for a replacement passport. They would give me an emergency one
today, and that would also cover the cost of the real one when I returned to
the states. I was then told to sit down and wait.
It was 11:20. I had 51 minutes before I
missed my train. So I waited, and then I waited some more, and for a little
change of pace… I waited… Pins and needles, mate, pins and needles.
It was about 11:35 when the woman called
me back up to the counter and made me swear an oath that I had given them
completely accurate information. I swore on my life and so it was time to
proceed. I was interrogated as to the circumstances of my missing passport,
family background, and personal questions. I was then lectured about the dire
error on my part for losing such an important document. That was a fact which I
was already acutely aware of. A fact which I was not aware of was that if I were
to lose another passport I could be put on a Passport ban list. No more travelling Beyond anything else that had happened today, that scared me. I was
then told to sit again. More waiting.
At 11:40 the woman returned to the
counter, having me fill a few more forms before handing me my emergency
replacement passport. I thanked her and ran out the door, past security, and
skipped down the front steps.
“Judging by the way you skipped, I’d say
you got it,” Patty said to me when I got in the car.
“I got it,” I said holding up the
passport. “What time is it?” I asked still paranoid beyond imagination.
“11:45,” she responded, reading off of her
phone. We were going to make it. I think I broke down into that hysterical
laughter that a person does on the brink of insanity. Sure I was relieved, but
for some reason happy wasn’t quite registering.
Eventually I said, “Well now you know for
next time, the minimum amount of time it takes to get a replacement passport is
an hour and fifteen minutes.”
“That was pretty quick. I had little
confidence that you’d be able to get the passport on time. If we were in
London, there’s no way you would have gotten it that fast,” Patty said smiling.
“I didn’t think I’d get it in time
either,” I agreed, “all the more reason to love Edinburgh.”
“I have to say this was a first,” Patty
admitted. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but it was largely negative.
“I’ve had students lose passports in other countries before, but I’ve never had
one lose their passport here.”
I sighed. I wanted to make my mark on
Wisconsin in Scotland history, but this really wasn’t the angle I was going
for. We were on Princes Street now; it was 11:52; I was going to make it.
We arrived in Waverly Station at 11:55. I
thanked Patty again, and asked her to tell Amber and Jess that I made it. Then
I ran. The first monitor I found said that my train was on time, departing for
Manchester Airport at 12:11PM from Platform 13.
Platform 13 was especially difficult to
find, because it and platform 12 were not in sequential order like all the rest
of the platforms. Even still I found the platform got on the train and still
had about five minutes before it slowly began to pull out of the station.
I let out a quieter version of my
hysterical laugh. I’d actually made it. I didn’t have to book a new train. I
was going to be able to keep my train, and my plane and I actually made it! Of
course by now I had gone through a mental check-list of everything I’d brought
realizing that I had forgotten both my phone that could play music and take
pictures, and my actual camera. I was going to Istanbul and would have no
pictures to show for it, but I was going to Istanbul, and that’s what counted.
I
think I feel asleep by this point, waking somewhere in northern England, a stop
south of Carlisle. There was a woman and a man sitting across the aisle from
me, and I heard the woman say something I had never expected to hear in the UK.
“So have you seen this show?” The woman
asked her companion.
“The one about the Dog?” the man asked?
“No that’s just his name,” the woman
replied.
“There’s a man named Dog and he’s a bounty
hunter?” the man said seeming somewhat confused.
“Are you talking about Dog the Bounty Hunter?”
I asked in disbelief, “Because that’s my mum’s favourite show.”
“You’ve seen it then?” the woman asked.
“A few times,” I admitted.
The woman and I then proceeded to explain
the show and back story and the strangely family orientated message behind the
famous bounty hunter, until the man said, “So this is real then? I thought it
was a cartoon or something.”
“No it’s real,” the woman said.
“Well as real as reality TV gets,” I
added.
That was about the end of that
conversation. I would spend the rest of the train ride journalling the day’s
events. I wanted that entry to be fresh, crisp, and full of details. However, I
still couldn’t believe they played Dog the Bounty Hunter in the United Kingdom.
Perhaps I need my priorities checked, but out of everything that had happened
so far, I think that blew me away the most. The reason, I think, is because
grown as I am, after the hell of that morning. I needed my mum something
fiercely, and in a small way I kind of got that.
As the train was pulling into Manchester,
there were some communication errors that forced us to wait about a half an
hour on the tracks. My flight didn’t depart for another three hours, and so
this didn’t put any pressure on my schedule. However, after everything all I
could think was Really? Why does this shit always happen to me?
I arrived in Manchester Airport rail
station (MIA) at 5:03 PM. I actually felt pretty good about this when I got off
the train. After all, I’d been here before. So with my luggage strapped on and
with confidence in my step, I swaggered up the stairs and into the lift that
led to the terminals. It’s always an ego boost when pretty girls make eye
contact and smile. Didn’t mean anything, but one of my crisis coping mechanisms
is to really focus hard to the positive things.
I found Swiss airlines, and again had to
wait a hefty amount of time before I was finally able to check in. From here I
waited in a series of incredibly long queues to make it through security. If
I’m good at anything when travelling, I’m good at following signs, reading maps,
and dealing with Airport Security.
When I made it through, I saw that the
gate for my flight for Zurich wasn’t going to be announced for another 50
minutes. So I wandered. We all know the United States is capitalist. However,
the United States could take a lesson on capitalism from Manchester
International Airport. In every other airport I’ve ever been in my life, once
you get through security you walk to your gate and pass a multitude of
overpriced shops filled with useful or tasty goodies. In Manchester, the do
that too for some of the shops, but for the rest of the shops you literally
have no choice but to walk through them in order to reach the waiting area.
Honestly this annoyed me, but it didn’t stop me from buying an overpriced
disposable camera and a package of cold medicine. With the remainder of my time
there, I worked on this post.
We would end up boarding the Plane 30
minutes behind schedule. Once we finally took off, I realized the second thing
I had forgotten, gum. The pressure difference killed me, I can go on a boat any
day. Give me the most turbulent weather imaginable. Give me pressure change
like that, and I’m down for the count. By the time we finally arrived in Zurich
at 10:03 local time, I was now both late and deaf. My ears wouldn’t fully
recover until the following morning, but after about half an hour I had most of
my hearing back. Being late however, proved to be rather worse. I had now lost
money, and was out of a place to stay. I booked a hostel from my over night in
Zurich, but their policy refuses to accept check ins after 10:00. Even still, I
had to try.
When I got to the customs desk, and had a
small amount of difficulty with my emergency passport. This difficulty was
partially caused by the fact that I couldn’t hear the man behind the counter.
Either way, by correctly guessing the
questions he was asking, I was able to get though customs and on to the tram. I
had to wait 13 minutes for the next tram, and it took an additional 36 minutes
for the tram to make it to Zurich city centre. There was no way I was getting
into my hostel now, but by this point I was just along for the ride. I was in
Switzerland; I might as well enjoy it a little.
The first thing I noticed was that the
electronic voice in the tram pronounced the city “Zoo-reech” rather than
“Zur-ick” as I had been told to pronounce it. I next realized, that I wasn’t
even sure what language I was listening to. It sounded German. Do they speak
German in Switzerland? Maybe, maybe not. If this language wasn’t German it was
very likely related. However, that was a largely moot point because whatever
language it was, I don’t speak it. Never before had only being able to speak
English and Spanish been completely useless.
Regardless of this, the maps were easy
enough to read, and I was soon able to understand the Tram system rather well.
It wasn’t all that different to the Edinburgh bus system, with one positive
caveat. It was free, my very favourite price.
I arrived in the city centre and tried to
follow my directions to the hostel. I was met with little luck. Instead I ended
up wandering about random streets, never exactly getting lost but all the while
keeping a vague idea as to where I had gotten off the tram.
I eventually decided to give up and head
back, and after a long amount of wandering I found a stand that was still open
and selling food. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the scent caught my
nose. This was a detour I couldn’t avoid. I ended up splurging, getting two
croissants filled with cream cheese that tasted like vanilla ice cream and a
berry yogurt thing that had some sort of cereal in it. Either way it was very
tasty and I was very full, as I continued to wander the Swiss streets to the
stop where I had gotten off the 10.
Going to the other side of the street, for
trams headed in the other direction, I got on the next 10, which for some
reason didn’t list the Airport as one of its eventual stops. It had taken me 36
minutes to get from the airport to Central, but the furthest stop this tram
would go to was only 16 minutes away.
This troubled me some, but in the car in
front of me I heard something that gave me some hope. There were a loud group
of people in the tram car in front of me that were speaking English. After a
few stops, I decided to ask them if they knew if this tram would go to the
airport.
They didn’t, but one of them could speak
German, and so he asked one of the locals. As it would turn out, yes this tram
does go to the airport, during the day. It stops going that far once flights
stop for the day.
I was now stranded in Zurich with nowhere
to stay until the morning. Time to start walking, I thought to myself as I
followed the 10 line north to the airport. I walked for about 45 minutes,
lugging all my bags. It was likely close to 1 in the morning, and every time I
made it to a tram stop, I would look at a route map. It was almost as if I
wasn’t moving at all, or as if the airport was moving further and further away.
My back was starting to hurt, and for the
first time since I arrived in Europe, I truly with every fibre of my being
simply wanted to go home. Even I am not invincible. It is seldom that I truly
hit a wall, but hit a wall I did. I buckled. I did the one thing I didn’t want
to do. I got a Taxi. The driver was a lovely woman from Croatia, who was very
pleasant to talk to. All that aside, I really didn’t want to spend 50 Swiss
francs. All and all for the hostel I paid for but didn’t get, the food I shouldn't have splurged on, and the Taxi I shouldn’t have needed in the first
place (because I should have never left the airport in the first place), I
think I spent close to 100 Swiss francs. When you add that number to the cost
of the passport I shouldn’t have needed to buy… I have a definite feeling of being “in the
hole.”
When I finally made it to the airport, I
wandered until I found a free bench and pulled out a few blankets from my bag.
At the very least I had come somewhat prepared. I put all my valuables in my
shoulder bag and locked it. I hid the keys in my inside my jacket pocket, and
then used my belt to tie the straps of both bags to my left arm as tightly as
possible. This wouldn’t prevent someone from stealing my stuff. However, I felt
it would make it difficult for them to do it without waking me.
Thursday 21 March 2013
7:00 AM
A random bench in Zurich Airport
The benches in Zurich airport aren’t very
comfortable. I slept very poorly waking up occasionally throughout the night.
When I finally decided to greet the day, people were buzzing about noisily, a
stark contrast to the ghost town of 1AM. I felt incredibly congested. I needed
tea.
I wandered around until I found a small
café. Do the Swiss to tea? Apparently so, well they do tea better than
Americans but not as well as the Britt’s. What they don’t do well is cost. In
no country, under any circumstance should a cup of tea cost 6.90 Swiss francs
(approximately $7.15). I bought it. I needed to clear my throat, and I needed
something in my stomach, but this was highway robbery (or rather runway robbery
since we’re at an airport).
There was a recorded live jazz concert
playing in the background. All I could do was to think of the irony of sipping
overpriced English breakfast tea in a Swiss airport while listening to a jazz
singer sing about New Orleans. Tiny cup, not enough sugar, not enough milk.
Switzerland you let me down. Normally I wouldn’t be quite so picky, but when I
spend that much, is it too much to ask to get a proper cup of tea?
So then I found a seat and looked for a
plug socket. Unlike in British airports, there were sockets everywhere! This
was one of the first good things to happen. The next thing that actually worked
to my sheer amazement, was that my converter plug worked too! It’s only 11:00,
so the day is still young, but thus far those are the highlights of my day. I
depart for Istanbul at 12:40. The instant the people get to the counter, I need
to go up to them and request a seat, because as an added bonus they have
overbooked the economy class. My hope is that if I’m first in line of the “I
don’t have a seat” group. I won’t have to worry. I have no idea what arriving
in Istanbul will be like, but the reason I’m sending this now is because I can.
I don’t know when I’ll have internet again.
Wish me luck. I certainly need it.
-Cheers!
Anth
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