travel disasters

My dear friend H has recently started a new section to his mammoth travel blog/ web page on travel disasters.
my little blog here is no where near to being as comprehensive as H's, but i was inspired by his idea to add a few dodgy memories of my own. so reviving my old passion for lists, here we go:

1. Srpsko Sarajevo, 2003
it all happened in broad daylight, just outside the bus station where you get the buses to Serbia. i was talking to C on the phone and was preoccupied by the story she was telling me, so that i didnt see the fist flying into my face. by the time my head was upright again, there was already a knife at my neck. blood was everywhere, but fortunately i later realised it was coming from my nose. in the end it was a simple robbery- they took my phone, my money, and whatever else the could grab. fortunately i was paranoid enough that my passport and bus ticket out of the country were in a secret pouch near my ankle. so i got on the bus back to belgrade, shaking and covered in blood. no one sat near me, although it was pretty crowded. back in Belgrade i had no money to get to Novi Sad, no phone to call my friends. so i walked to the Russian embassy where i knew people who knew people. they gave me some money, and the officer shook his head "it is those damn Muslims" he moaned. I, somewhat surprised, pointed out i had been in SRPSKO Sarajevo. the illustrious diplomat answered: "yes, i know, but you see those Muslims, they dress up like Serbs and beat up people to make our Serbian brothers look bad in front of foreigners." i am not sure which part of this anecdote is the worst.

2/a. Vukovar, June 2002
nothing bad happened to me here, as ever horror had already struck. the buildings were shattered. every street was destroyed. H and I wandered into an empty house, and on the shot out wall across from us, totally riddled with bullet holes, was a half blown up picture of Jason Donovan, the last sign of humanity left.
2/b Abhazia, July 1999
Russia might claim to have fought a war for this in 2008, but it was already functioning as a russian puppet state in the 1990s. I bribed my way across the boarder and wandered what had once been a beautiful resort town...but war had cleansed it of 80% of the original population. by 1999, it was full of the elderly, combined with Russian soldiers and prostitutes.

3. Dorval Airport, US side, December 1999
Flying from Canada to the US, you have to cross the boarder whilst still in the Canadian airport. it was thus fortunate that i was still sort of inside Canada, when the pile of Cuban stamps were found in my passport, and it somehow surfaced i had been giving, um....interviews, on Cuban TV. my right to do so, but the guards disagreed.....after several hours of questioning, i bolted back to the civilised side of the airport...enough said on that one.......

4. Rio de Janeiro, April, 2008
one of the ladies my dad was travelling with dies on the trip. unfortunately she died on a Saturday morning and hours are spent trying to navigate the Brazilian bureaucracy- at the weekend. A doctor had to come to certify she was dead, then a coroner had to show up, then embassy staff and so on, with the hotel staff fluttering about incessantly and complicating things further. Some one had to sit with the body the whole time, as we were constantly afraid one of the officials would try to steal her jewelry or cash (she had a lot of both)
i think my lasting memory of Rio will be trying to maintain a straight face, whilst attempting to speak portuguese and corpse sitting.

5. some autoroute in Western Europe, Easter Break, 1992
I am famous for my week bladder. but the time i was on a school trip, on a bus with no toilets, stands out. i really had to go, and ended up doing so on the side of the road, with my entire class watching and taking photos. this incident has repeated itself in other geographies, and i am sure most people who know me will have some similar story, but happening in the company of cruel teenagers was the worst.

6.Cambridge, June, 1999
on a walk with my parents in nearby Granchester, we are forced surreally to make polite conversation with Jeffrey Archer and Margaret Thatcher. it doesnt get worse than that.


7. Aberdeen, April 2010
Icelandic volcanic ash leaves me stranded in Aberdeen, where it SNOWS. i try desperately to get tickets on the overnight train, bu there are none. i end up eventually taking the scenic route back via edinburgh, but not before i get force fed enough deep fried pizza and fried mars bars to make me feel like death. mainly i was alone and bored...for days.

8. Paris- Cambridge, September 2005
I made this trip with my unhappy cat. the key low moment was trying to clean vomit off her fur in Dover's port, with English louts wandering past shouting "nice pussy." she had been sea sick.

9. Glavna Bolnitsa Novog Sada, July 2004
my appendix explodes and i end up having emergency surgery in provincial Serbia. everyone has heard this story already, but it still ranks up there!

10. The Ice Storm, Montreal, January 1998
ice freezes everything and all of Montreal looses electricity, running water and heat. temperatures fall subzero and we all are forced to sleep with each other in the hallway of our building, wearing all our clothes. we cant go to the toilet, but then there is nothing for us to eat either. eventually the Canadian army shows up and brings us blankets and portions of poutine, Quebec's contribution to the world of culinary horror. the situation lasts for over a week.

11. Algonquin park, July, 1987
I am on an off-base 5 day excursion from summer camp meant to teach us wilderness survival skills when a bear steals all our food supplies. the "guides" meant to be leading us (who were about 17 or so) dont want to go back to the main camp and admit that it had been their foolishness that caused the problem. so we canoe over to a campsite where lots of tourists go to set up camp, and the guides send me to beg for food, because i am the youngest and smallest and they think i will get the most. for the next several days i feed everyone else on bread and peanut butter i get given by strangers. possibly the most humiliating moment of my life.

Gulliver's travels in Madrid

My trip to Madrid was logistics nightmare. For some reason, flights from London to Madrid are always overbooked and outrageously expensive. When I tried to book last week, in order to get to a meeting, the cheapest ticket on British Airways or Iberia was over 1500 pounds- I could have gone anywhere else in Europe for less. Or, the company travel agent said with reservation….i could go on Easyjet, for £400. the choice was mine.
I am not a huge Easyjet fan, but I used to travel it a lot as a student, and I hate wasting money stupidly. Furthermore, service on Iberia is never great, and lately it has been pretty mediocre on BA too, so I accepted the Easyjet ticket.
The moment I arrived at Gatwick I started to regret my decision. There was one queue for all Easyjet flights, and it was immense. It took over an hour to get through it, and it was filled with predictably scary people, mainly headed for the south of Spain. The girl in front of me was loudly munching crisps, whilst the girl behind me pondered whether she could get a real tan on top of her spray tan. I cringed and put on my ipod. Then I got to the front of the queue, with the same hand baggage I use for every overnight business trip- a small carry on bag and my computer briefcase. No airline- Iberia, BA, Lufthansa, Norwegian Air- has ever objected to this….but Easyjet insisted that I had too much luggage and would have to check the computer bag. I complained that I did not feel comfortable checking a computer. So eventually it was decided that I could carry the computer- but I still had to check the empty computer bag, for an extra cost of £10 pounds, which I did.
and the flight was 1.5 hours delayed, and when I arrived in Madrid, well after midnight, the briefcase was missing. So I went to the hotel, and later went to my meetings carrying my computer in my carry on luggage, feeling slightly ridiculous. I got a call in the middle of the day saying my bag had been found, and decided just to pick it up back at the airport on my way home.
So I got back to Barajas, picked up my bag, and was of course then informed that I would still have to pay another £10 pounds to check it empty again on the way back to London. And as the guy was checking me in, he noticed the flight was almost 2 hours delayed. At this point, even the Easyjet staff seemed a bit embarrassed for their horrible service, and decided to make a kind gesture. “we would like to give you a bear” the man told me. Since no one had said anything similar to me since I was about 10, I imagine I must have looked rather puzzled. But sure enough- they handed me a little brown bear, dressed in an Easyjet shirt, telling me his name was Gulliver, and that he would bring me luck on the trip back. At this point, I was just hoping to make it home in one piece, but I thanked the guy and accepted the bear.
It was, it seems, an excellent gift.
I got back to London Wednesday and told my colleagues, who seemed incredulous that an airline would offer a teddy bear as compensation to a grown woman in a suit.
So on Thursday, just to prove I was not crazy, I brought in the bear and put him on my desk. Within an hour, a deal I had been working on for over 6 weeks was accepted. The next day another came through and the bear was becoming an office celebrity.
He is now seated on my desk, and it has been concluded that he will now go everywhere with me. Thank you Easyjet, it seems Gulliver is indeed a lucky bear!