I know I have been on a lengthy blog hiatus lately and for
those of you that don’t know I have a new job which is entirely irrelevant to
this story. Suffice it to say, I took a
new position in March of this year at University of Washington (UW) at I-TECH (http://www.go2itech.org/). I am now the Research and Evaluation Advisor
supporting the Tanzania country program and I promise my next post will be much
more about my ew(ish) job and much less about the Great Travel Debacle of
2014.
I am writing this story for two reasons:
1. I cannot deny I
have always had a flair for the melodramatic.
At 38, I can finally admit to this to all of you. It is time.
2. I do not EVER want
this situation to happen to you and if I can save one (ok), two (better), 50
(feeling even better) or 1000 (maybe I will ever consider the phrase “maybe worth
it”) I will be really happy.
Let’s go back in Liz Blanton’s travel story so you can have
proper prospective before I launch in.
- In 2007, while in Nigeria, I decide to go on a weekend trip to Benin to get away from the sheer chaos of Lagos when I realize upon reentry to Nigeria that I only had a single-entry visa and was stamped out of Benin and not yet stamped into Nigeria and was in “no man’s land.” This required a few hours of (scary) interrogation from Nigerian officials and a call to a high up diplomat to bail me out.
- In April 2008 I contracted Dengue fever in Indonesia. This still remains to this day the greatest travel debacle of my career. After a painful illness I make a full recovery.
- Somewhere in 2009 I had an epic trip across West Africa traveling to East Africa due to a flight cancellation and rerouting that went ATL to Senegal (arriving at 2am, leaving at 7am), followed by a flight to Mali that sat on the runway for hours in over 100 degree heat, then to Kenya. During the sort-of overnight in Senegal I had the pleasure of sleeping in the airport hotel full of prostitutes and over-pushy West African dudes. The whole trip took 30 some-odd hours and I had to go straight to work when I arrived in Kenya at 8am.
The story I am about to tell falls somewhere between the
Nigeria and West African travel journey and is the story of the great travel debacle
of 2014.
Day 1 – Oct 18, 2014
I am unusually happy on the way to the airport 2.5 hours
before my flight from Seattle to Amsterdam.
I had a leisurely day packing the day before and felt ultra-prepared and
well rested. I even conceptualized the
perfect travel outfit, yoga pants and sneakers and one over-priced wool tunic
that would cover my ass from Athleta (http://www.athleta.com/). I made a special trip to U village (god I
hate that place) to purchase this tunic.
Had I known that I would literally live in said tunic for five straight
days I may have felt slightly less guilty making the purchase. I get to the airport and meet up with my new
beloved colleagues – boss Shelia and Lauren.
I am pretty excited to travel with both of
them. I not only get along with them really well but I have an immense amount
of respect for the type of heart and soul they pour into the work that we do. Lauren and I go to the lounge and run into
two of my previous coworkers from PATH; including an all-time favorite Dunia
and one of my old WASH colleagues, Andy, who will both unexpectedly be on my
flight to AMS from Seattle. So, there I
am on the flight surrounded by 4 or my current or previous coworkers and I feel
pretty happy and connected to my small global health world surrounded by good
people who do good work. I don’t sleep a
wink on that flight, but that is ok…..I am a pro, right?! We arrive Amsterdam around 8am.
Day 2- Oct 19, 2014
I say my goodbyes to Dunia and Andy and wish them luck on
their leg to South Africa then I split up from Lauren and Shelia and go to walk
around the airport for a bit. At
approximately 9am (one hour before my flight) I go to the gate and hand my
ticket to the KLM agent checking people in to the boarding area and I realize
he is holding my passport, counting on his hands, and deep in thought. Then he brings to my attention that my
passport expires on 02 Mar 2015, which means I am less than six months from it
expiring (~5.5 months), which means…..little did I fucking know….I cannot
travel on to Tanzania. Apparently
Tanzania and many other African countries require that you have at least six
months left on your passport to enter their country leaving me to wonder what
is the point of the expiration date.
I would like to pause here for a moment and say two things:
1. The use of
explicit language is an absolute necessity the rest of this post. Mom and Dad, I am sorry but it is a must. I
was in a desperate situation that cannot be described justly without cussing
like a sailor.
2. I fully recognize
that a good number of global health folks are on my blog list. You know who you are. If you are thinking to yourself right now,
“OMG, of course, I can’t believe Liz didn’t know that?” I strongly urge you to
keep your mouth shut! Sorry, but it is a
sensitive topic and I have heard way too many similar sentiments over the last
few days that if I hear it again I may react violently and out of
character. If however, you are thinking
to yourself, “OMG, I had no idea either!” please feel free and at absolute
liberty to tell me that in your sympathetic reply to my blog post.
The astute mathematician KLM agent then proceeds to tell me
there is no way I can proceed to Tanzania and directs me to a similarly curt
check in agent lady thing that informs me that I will not be getting on the
flight and they will be offloading my bag immediately, as if I committed a
crime! I keep repeating in awe that I
had no idea of this rule and can they please page my boss Shelia so I can
inform her I won’t be on that flight?!
They page Shelia. She comes and
exclaims that she too had never heard of this rule (didn’t I say she is nice
and awesome) and we proceed to say our goodbyes. Shelia and Lauren board the flight and there
I am in the AMS airport with no clue what to do now. Curt agent lady thing directs me to the
transfer desk for assistance.
At the transfer desk, a somewhat nicer KLM lady actually
helps me (a little) and tells me I will need to go into Amsterdam and try to
work something out with the US consulate.
She prints out their address and business hours for me and tells me I
should go into AMS for the night and get a hotel close to the consulate and try
to visit when they open first thing in the morning. It is Sunday and they don’t open until Monday
at 8:30am. She says to go to the tourist
booth outside of baggage claim and they will help me fine the hotel. Her parting words are, “Honestly, there are
much worse places than Amsterdam to get stuck for the night.” I completely agree and at this point I feel a
false sense of hope that this can be easily worked out without too much stress.
I manage to collect my missing bag after 3 hours of them looking for it during
which time was the only time in the whole 72 hour experience I almost cried
staring blindly at an empty baggage carrousel for hours.
The nice tourist lady directs me to a 3-star, budget,
twin-bed room for 160 euros a night approximately 1.5 miles from the US
consulate. She tells me I can take a bus
197 for 5 Euros that is a straight shot into town and then a 10 minute walk to
the hotel. Super! I get on the bus and the driver tells me
there is not one but several marathons in town that day (like 5, um, who has 5 marathons in one day?) and he will need to
divert the route but is still going to the center of town. I decide to go for it and think to myself I
can get a taxi or some other form of transportation once I get there if
necessary. Mind you I am pulling two
roller bags of approximately 70 lbs. of luggage. When he gets to the stop in town I realize my
hotel is on the main road through town and that at least one of the marathons
is also on that road and it is completely block off to any through traffic. GPS at this point says I am 2.5 miles away
and I will have to literally pull the 70 lbs. of luggage through a festival
size swarm of people to reach the hotel.
No other options…gotta do it. And
then it starts raining. Did I bring rain
gear or cold weather gear? Nope sure
didn’t! Just the overpriced Athleta
tunic which thankfully is hooded. I get
soaked on the way to the hotel and so does my 70 lbs. luggage. And little to my knowledge, this is the first
of many soakings in the cold rain over the next 48 hours.
I check in to my room roughly the size of our bathroom in
Seattle and realize I have about 30 emails to write notifying people of my
situation at which point I start to feel the effects of not having slept in
about 40 hours. I take a hot shower and
treat myself to my first indulgent meal of Amsterdam at a high in crowded pasta
place called Pekelharring (http://www.pekelhaaring.nl/). I can’t lie, this place was fantastic
probably even for the non-delirious traveler.
I had the white bean ravioli with roasted pork shoulder and two glasses
of wine. I never crave/order pasta, but
trust me, I needed it. This is my first
happy moment of the day. I go back to
the hotel and pass out for ~7 hours.
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| White bean ravioli with roasted pork shoulder |
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| Gorgeous morning in Amsterdam |
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| Rijksmuseum |
I locate the consulate and there is a substantial line. I approach the security guard outside who is
checking folks in and tell him I have got somewhat of an emergency passport
situation and have an appointment tomorrow morning (Tuesday) and ask him if
there is any point in me standing in line and waiting. He says no, it has to be tomorrow
morning. Ok great. Then I tell him briefly about my situation
and ask him what the minimal amount of time will be to resolve my
situation. He confidently says, “Oh it
can be taken care of in one day. You
will probably drop off your passport tomorrow morning and pick it up in the afternoon.” Hmmm, this is unexpected and great news;
however, I acknowledge he is the security guard checking people in and not a
customs officer. I am cautiously optimistic.
I head back to the hotel and extend my stay another night and start
investigating flight times and seeing how full the flights look to Dar. There is one Tuesday night that routes
through Kenya and another one on Wednesday morning that is identical to the
flight I was supposed to be on Sunday.
I write to update my team and the country office that I will
likely be in Tanzania by Wednesday night.
After several hours of work in the early afternoon I decide to go on a
city walk. Keep in mind that Tuesday was
the only dry, nice weather day that I was there. I consult my friend Katherine, who had
recently been to Amsterdam a few weeks ago and she tells me to go to the ‘nine
little street’ section of town where 3 famous canals separate nine street and
it is full of boutiques, cafes, storefronts, etc. It is a couple of miles from my hotel so I
head out on foot and successfully locate the area. The area is really cute and I am struck by
how fashionable and expensive the clothes are.
I think even more so than in previous years of my life, living in Seattle
the last 4 years is really taking a tool on my opinion of buying expensive
clothing items, expect the tunic that I have on (of course if you are going to
buy something expensive it best be outdoorsy).
After walking around for an hour or so I head back to De Dijp and settle
on a panini at Meme’s Café which is a really cute artsy café with fantastic
paninis which I wash down with a stellar latte.
Feeling pretty happy about all of that I head back to the hotel to do
some work and have a lengthy call with boss Shelia.
Day 4 – Oct 21, 2104
Day 4 would receive a 1/5 stars from me and rivaled day 2
for worst day in Amsterdam. I woke up at
4am and couldn’t go back to sleep, jet lag fully setting in. It has been storming all night which
continued at that rate for the next 24-hours.
I set out for the consulate in my standard uniform – jeans, tunic,
lattice toms, and a purple scarf that I found in my bag. Imagine the beginning of Homeland where
Carrie is running through the streets of wherever she was in the Middle East
looking sketched out and followed. That
is what I looked like! Tunic hood on,
scarf wrapped around my head, head down, walking at a fast clip through the
pouring rain (cue Borne Identity sirens in the background). Mind you, I would have stopped to buy an
umbrella but in no way wanted to be late to the consulate.
I get to the consulate and huddle with a mass
of people under a pretty useless little 6/6 foot tarp they strung up which
wasn’t all that helpful seeing at the wind was so strong and the rain was
coming in at a hard downward tilt. There
I stood at 8:20am shivering like a wet cold dog. The security guard comes out and asks who has an 8:30am
appointment. About half of us raise our
hand. Then he asks who has a cell phone and
about 5 of us do (including me). He asks
that we line up – non-cell phone people on the right and cell-phone people on
the right. Let me pause here.
1. My hotel was 1.5 miles from the Consulate and it was
pouring fucking rain.
2. Boss Shelia wanted
to be updated as soon as I got out of my appointment.
3. I would need to
try to reach KLM by Skype and possibly rebook my flight for that evening if I
figured out I would, in fact, receive a new passport that day. Time was of the essence.
4. I needed to call
KLM to determine if I needed to tell the hotel I needed another night (check
out time was 11am).
5. Skype calling did
not work very well from my hotel room, it was pouring rain, and my best bet of
reaching KLM by Skype was calling from a coffee shop, one of which was conveniently
located by the consulate rather than having to sketch walk back to the hotel in
the pouring rain, get phone or computer, go back in the pouring rain and walk
to coffee shop.
I mean for fucks sake, I did not just blatently ignore the
website and instructions; I had legitimate reasons for having my cell phone.
So the punishment for bringing a cell phone was letting
everyone else in for about 45 minute, including admitting non cell phone people
who had appointment at 9:15, 9:30 and 9:45.
My appointment was at 8:30 and I am just standing there shivering like a
dog. Are you fucking kidding me?! The guard even told people with a car nearby
to go ahead and put their call phone in the car and he would and did admit
them. The woman behind me started raising
hell and asked how long this was going to go on and he replied, as long as
there are people walking up without cell phones. Prick!
Finally the cell phone line devises a plan to give all of
our cell phones to one person. This
really nice African woman at the end of the line offers to hold all of our
phones so that we could take turns going in and alternately holding one another’s
cell phones until another person cycled through. That is right I just turned over my I- Phone over
to a random stranger in line who I didn’t ever know her name and then got in
the right hand line. Then the guard
asked me if I had a cell phone. I
replied, “I obviously just handed my phone to a random stranger to hold and
don’t have a cell phone on me anymore.” She smiled and said “Great!” Asshole!!!!!!!!!!!
Sigh…I finally get checked in to the consulate. An overly exuberant customs officer listens
to my story inside and says “Yeah, you really need to have 6 months of time
left on your passport.” It’s a good
thing that glass he is speaking behind is really thick. Yes got it.
Expiration dates on passports don’t mean shit and are arbitrary dates
put on there to fuck with you. Lesson
learned. Don’t need to hear it
again…..EVER!
Then he says, “What we can do for you today is issue you
limited validity Emergency Passport but there is no guarantee that the Tanzania
government will let you in on such passport.”
In other words, what he was saying is that I will just simply have to
fly there on this emergency passport and try it out at custom in Tanzania and
no guarantee that they will let me enter the country. OMfuckingGod, are you serious?! I get to stress about this the next two
days. Yep. Sure do.
They tell me to come back and collect possibly useless $110 emergency
passport at 2:30pm. I go outside and get
the stack of cell phones from the sad looking line of cell phone carriers and
then proceed to wait another 30 minutes for the next person to come out of
which to pass off the shamed cell phone stack.
Honestly, this portion of the story had to be by far the most ridiculous
and just plain unnecessary practice by the US consulate. Come on!!!
Is insult to injury really necessary?!
Is it possible that every other consulate in the world has a cell phone
check in when you go through security? I
don’t think I need to belabor this point any further. I think I have adequately described how I
felt about this particular situation.
Leave and go to coffee shop nearby and order a latte. Call KLM and a very nice gentleman rebooks me
on the morning flight at no additional charge (because of involuntary
rebooking) in my aisle economy comfort seat.
Finally, something is going my way.
All this gets worked out for me to extend my hotel room again for one
more night by 11am. Do some work….update
my boss.
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| Dutch Sausage Sandwich |
There is a slight lull in the rain (equivalent to a Seattle misting rain) and I decided to head to Kingfisher Café (http://www.kingfishercafe.nl/) for lunch. I want to order this traditional Dutch Sausage sandwich and the waiter warns me it is an acquired taste. He explains that it is raw ground sausage, that is smoked (so not raw), but maintains the consistency and color of raw ground sausage. I am intrigued and decide to go for it. It was really good. Nice bun, fresh veggies and basil mayo. Practically nothing is served without mayo in Amsterdam which really speaks to my heart. ; )
Back to the hotel in the rain. More work until 2:15. Back to the Consulate in the pouring rain,
soaked, without a cell phone, back to the hotel in the pouring rain to get my
cell phone and or computer. Decide to
just stay there and work. The weather is
too miserable to go outside. Decide to
get pizza and set out in the rain looking for a pizza place, get lost in the
rain and can’t find it. Give up all hope
for the day and get a take-out burger at Geflipt (http://bysam.nl/getest-geflipt-nieuwe-burgerbar-de-pijp-amsterdam/)
and get totally soaked in the pouring rain on the way back to the hotel.
Did I really eat a raw sausage sandwich followed by a burger for dinner? I sure did!
Did I really eat a raw sausage sandwich followed by a burger for dinner? I sure did!
Day 5 – Oct 22, 2014
Despite a million canceled and delayed flights mine takes
off right on time and I get to Dar 10 hours later and fly through customs with
my two passports (one emergency with 6 stupid months before expiry and one with
5.5 months with an active Tanzania visa.
11:30pm – crash in my hotel room in preparation for an early
morning call today. That is right…..after
5 very long days I finally arrived Tanzania!
A summary of lessons learned and afterthoughts (I believe
they call these ‘post-mortems at PATH – ha!):
- ALWAYS….ALWAYS read the visa page before traveling to the country.
- Travel confidence can be the kiss of death. I pretty much thought I knew it everything about international travel and it got me into trouble this time.
- Never and I mean never take your phone to the US consulate – you will regret it! Stash it in the bushes or give it to a random stranger in line or just don’t bring it ever. Or you can opt to just throw in the middle of a busy street, which is what I almost did that day.
- As amazing as Amsterdam is, it is cold and fucking rainy in October. If at all possible go ahead and pack that rain jacket, even if you think you are visiting a sunny tropical climate.
- The expiration date on a passport can mean nearly nothing. Just to be safe always renew 6-months in advance. No shit. Lesson learned.
- Amsterdam is killing it in the culinary scene. Plenty of awesome food around there to drown your sorrows in when stranded for 4 days.
- I fully acknowledge and understand there are much worse things that can happen to a person while traveling (i.e. you can contact Ebola). My experience was simply a slight nuisance rather than a life threatening condition which is precisely why it was ranked down on the travel debacle index.
I think this post is more of a short story than a blog
post. Oh well, I think it was cathartic
for me to put the whole experience behind me.
If the story was not entertaining, I hope it was at least informative
and keeps 1, 2, 50 or 1000 of you out there from going through the same
experience. ; )
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