No, you may not see my black box....

I'm not pretending this is the worst thing that's ever happened to a traveller. But I tell ya, it took a long time for me to get over it. Add it to the other stories I will be telling for 28 years.....

In 2001, my friend MW and I went to Europe for three months. It wasn’t the longest overseas journey ever, but she and I were both in long-term relationships and couldn’t exactly disappear indefinitely without Mr Fix and Buddy getting slightly concerned about our intentions of returning.

We were very excited our trip – me especially as I am something of a history nerd and was planning more time at sites of historical significance than your average old fogey. We had managed to get a rip-snorter of an airfare, which we deemed to be the result of travel agent stupidity (we believed this because several other travel agents said to us that not only could they not match the fare, they couldn’t even come within $500 of it).

We had also planned a stop-over in Japan, which was going to save us another bunch of money and also give us the chance to say that we had been to Japan when in fact all we’d done was stay overnight in Osaka at one of the Airport Hotels. That was a strange experience in itself – when we arrived all the airport restaurants were closing and we had to eat Italian food as there was no Japanese food to be found.

So in resuming our flight to London, we were pleasantly rested and not particularly hung-over despite our propensity for watching Japanese game shows until late in the night* and dance about the room in the sheer delight that comes with being on holiday. We were being met by my friend Amandalicious, who had lived with Mr Fix and I about four years previously, and who now lived in Richmond, just north of London.

Like many international flights, our luggage had been sent straight through to Heathrow and we were carrying only our (over-stuffed) day packs. Mine, certainly, contained more books than was entirely necessary.

Anyhoo, MW has an Irish passport, so she wandered gaily through the residents queue while I waited with the several thousand other sweating and tired individuals in the “rest of the world” line.

When I finally got to the front, the official took my paperwork and then bluntly informed me that I had an invalid ticket.

Me: “What? What do you mean?”

Him: “You don’t have an English passport, and this is not a return ticket”

At this point the hideously cheap ticket started to make sense. Karma was raining down on me in a very, very frightening way.

Me: “But how could I get on a plane without a return ticket – surely the airline staff should have checked this?”

Him: “It’s the wrong ticket”.

It had started to look very much like they weren’t going to let me into the country. There were several versions of the conversation above had with both this man, his supervisor, a randomly interested colleague and I was starting to really fear that I would be put on a plane back to Melbourne (at my own expense of course).

Eventually, MW finished all her “I’m here” phone calls to family and friends and wandered back to see what was going on.

“I don’t have the right ticket! I don’t have a return ticket!” I wailed.

She pulled her ticket out of her bag and looked at it.

“No,” she said. “I have your ticket. You must have got mine by mistake.” She then reached over the desk, ripped the ticket the man was holding for me out of his hand and said, “See? Look at this! It says MW right here. It doesn’t even say her name!”

One might think that the suitably humbled official might have

a) realised that the ticket and passport did not have matching names and perhaps drawn THAT piece of information to the passport holder’s attention

b) when confronted with the evidence that a simple mix up had occurred when tickets were returned at Kansai Airport, smiled politely, apologised for the stress and let me go on my way.

But no.

First, he made fun of my job: “Communications Officer – what do you do, answer the phone?” (accompanied with a jab in the ribs to his oh-so-amused colleague)

Then he questioned whether I had any friends (in London) and asked me to call them to verify my good character: I said: “I can’t call her, she is waiting about two hundred metres behind you”

And then they made me prove my bank balance, which thankfully was very healthy.

And then, after 40 minutes of piss-farting around, they grudgingly conceded they would have to let me enter their country.

Amandalicious was waiting patiently at the gate, with a home-made sign which read “G’DAY GIGGLEWICK!” which no doubt she had been enthusiastically waving at one point. She immediately took us home for multiple glasses of red wine before we collapsed in a heap. The next day I had my very first breakfast that came with a gin and tonic.

The next week, when I flew (alone, except for the other 200 passengers) to Ireland to meet MW, I was a bit paranoid. I practically crash-tackled the Irish Immigration official at the regional airport to present him with my (perfectly valid) ticket and passport. We had the following exchange:

Me Here’s my passport. Do you want to see my passport?

Him: Not really.

Me: No, here it is. And my ticket.

Him: How long are you staying?

Me: Eight days.

Him: Have a good time.


And I did. **

I'm off to sample the finest "prawn cracks" in all the land tonight. Will report on their relative gastronomic (and economic) value later.

* If you’re wondering what happened to the Tokyo Shock Boys, this is where you’ll find them.

** Realise this is the blogging equivalent of the 12 year old plot technique, "And then I died", but I got nothin' else.