The Adventure Begins
This is the first of many entries that are the story of my adventures overseas in Ireland and the UK. Tiffany and I took a little trip with a tour group from Charleston that traveled throughout the two countries in about ten days. Then we spent some time with my sister, brother-in-law and niece in Ireland, and we finally stayed just outside of London at a little bed and breakfast before heading back home. All in all, we were gone for almost three weeks. It was a great time, and I'm going to tell you all about it, and share some pictures with you. Of course, if you are so inclined, I'd gladly tell you about it all in person, too (with Tiffany gladly contributed) and show all of the eight hundred plus pictures we've taken.
All these posts are dated from the actual day the event occurred. I kept a pretty extensive travel journey while we were on the road, so hopefully my story telling won't be impaired by a poor memory. All of these posts will also have the label "2007 Vacation" and be easily identifiable by their fancy backgrounds.
Today (that is, June 7) I sat at the Newark International Airport, one of three such airports that are in New York City. I haven't been in New York for many many years. This was Tiffany's first time. We had already flown in from Charleston after staying there overnight with Carol, our tour leader (she designed the tour). The layover in Newark was about five hours. This early into the adventure, there has already been plenty of excitement.
For starters, Tiffany's passport only arrived a few days ago. We were, as Carol said, "breathing into a brown paper bag." Tiffany, much to her immense disappointment, needed to get a new passport because of the name change. So we sent the form in, and we were told four to six weeks according to the form, which would be plenty of time. And then the regulations for flights to Canada and the Caribbean changed, and suddenly everyone needed a passport. The wait increased to ten to twelve weeks.
With only two weeks before the flight and only one passport between the two of us, we were starting to panic. Calling the passport office gave us directions on setting up an appointment at a local office through an automated system, which was not very helpful. Tiffany had a much better idea, and called Senator DeMint's office. After explaining the situation to a member of his staff, she was told it would be taken care of.
And it was. About a day later, we were told the passport would be expedited and sent overnight. We got a tracking number, and I went to look it up on line the next day. It hadn't shipped yet. In fact, the message said it haven't even processed through the shipping company yet. I looked again the day after that, and it was the same message.
On Monday, Tiffany called DeMint's office back. They were given the wrong tracking number, and subsequently, so were we. They called me back and gave me a new tracking number. I checked online, and discovered that a delivery had already been attempted just a few hours ago. But since nobody was home and a signature was required, it went back into the delivery truck.
I called Tiffany at work where she was busy packing up her classroom and told her what had happened. Fortunately, the office for the delivery service was about ten minutes from her, so she drove out later that afternoon to pick up her passport.
Nothing much happened at the airport. Carol assigned everybody a buddy. And you can't have a spouse as a buddy. It has to be somebody else, because the whole purpose of the buddy was so that somebody else in the tour group could look around and wonder where you had gotten off to so that the bus wouldn't leave without you. My buddy was Jenny, an elementary school teacher from Charleston.
While at the airport, we walked around some. Newark is a very big airport. They had a Nathan's there, so we bought some delicious hot dogs with sauerkraut. We also stocked up on supplies, and bought some bottled Starbucks frappuccinos for the trip. Although there was a slight delay on our outgoing trip, the flight over to Ireland was pretty uneventful.
On a sidenote, does anyone know why the message not to take strange packages from random people is considered a special announcement when it's repeated every thirty minutes?
All these posts are dated from the actual day the event occurred. I kept a pretty extensive travel journey while we were on the road, so hopefully my story telling won't be impaired by a poor memory. All of these posts will also have the label "2007 Vacation" and be easily identifiable by their fancy backgrounds.
Today (that is, June 7) I sat at the Newark International Airport, one of three such airports that are in New York City. I haven't been in New York for many many years. This was Tiffany's first time. We had already flown in from Charleston after staying there overnight with Carol, our tour leader (she designed the tour). The layover in Newark was about five hours. This early into the adventure, there has already been plenty of excitement.
For starters, Tiffany's passport only arrived a few days ago. We were, as Carol said, "breathing into a brown paper bag." Tiffany, much to her immense disappointment, needed to get a new passport because of the name change. So we sent the form in, and we were told four to six weeks according to the form, which would be plenty of time. And then the regulations for flights to Canada and the Caribbean changed, and suddenly everyone needed a passport. The wait increased to ten to twelve weeks.
With only two weeks before the flight and only one passport between the two of us, we were starting to panic. Calling the passport office gave us directions on setting up an appointment at a local office through an automated system, which was not very helpful. Tiffany had a much better idea, and called Senator DeMint's office. After explaining the situation to a member of his staff, she was told it would be taken care of.
And it was. About a day later, we were told the passport would be expedited and sent overnight. We got a tracking number, and I went to look it up on line the next day. It hadn't shipped yet. In fact, the message said it haven't even processed through the shipping company yet. I looked again the day after that, and it was the same message.
On Monday, Tiffany called DeMint's office back. They were given the wrong tracking number, and subsequently, so were we. They called me back and gave me a new tracking number. I checked online, and discovered that a delivery had already been attempted just a few hours ago. But since nobody was home and a signature was required, it went back into the delivery truck.
I called Tiffany at work where she was busy packing up her classroom and told her what had happened. Fortunately, the office for the delivery service was about ten minutes from her, so she drove out later that afternoon to pick up her passport.
Nothing much happened at the airport. Carol assigned everybody a buddy. And you can't have a spouse as a buddy. It has to be somebody else, because the whole purpose of the buddy was so that somebody else in the tour group could look around and wonder where you had gotten off to so that the bus wouldn't leave without you. My buddy was Jenny, an elementary school teacher from Charleston.
While at the airport, we walked around some. Newark is a very big airport. They had a Nathan's there, so we bought some delicious hot dogs with sauerkraut. We also stocked up on supplies, and bought some bottled Starbucks frappuccinos for the trip. Although there was a slight delay on our outgoing trip, the flight over to Ireland was pretty uneventful.
On a sidenote, does anyone know why the message not to take strange packages from random people is considered a special announcement when it's repeated every thirty minutes?
Labels: 2007 Vacation, Ireland
posted by scanime at 8:56 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Brad just applied for his passport a week and a half ago, and we're supposed to go to London in early October. He was also told six weeks, but I ain't buying our tickets yet!
Oh, I have an answer to the question about special announcements. It's still special for the same reason we're still in an "elevated" terror threat level three years running with no further information what it is we're supposed to be elevated about.
Oh and... Ha ha ha ha ha!!! We've got a guy at the office right now who applied for his passport in January and we still don't have it! No, I mean, not ha ha ha ha ha. I mean, best of luck, Ayzair.
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