Thursday, May 14, 2009
It wouldn't be my trip if...
It wouldn't be me traveling if there wasn't some major mishap. Which I survived, of course, sitting here as I am, in Finland, writing this blog.
Common sense will counsel that if one loses one's passport, one cannot travel. I lost my passport the night of my flight, two hours before we were due to leave, realising the missing travel document as Monn came out of his bath, crying and ready to be fed.
"Can you just feed the baby?" said Mikko, slightly irritated by the protesting bundle draped over his shoulder and pummeling his shoulders with its fists. "I'll look for your passport."
The baby fed, the room turned over by Mikko and P'Oad (who's aid had been enlisted on this occasion), and still no passport. "As long as I can get out of the country, it's fine - they can't deny my entry into Finland." I was pretty calm about it, having come from Australia to Thailand once without my Thai passport, and having once been told by the Thai immigration officers that what matters is that you exit the country on the same passport with which you entered. My non-dual-nationality family members, however, were not entirely convinced of this. They rarely check that you have a visa upon leaving the country. Really. It's your problem on the other end if you are not allowed into the country of destination. It still pays to be at the airport well in advance, just in case somebody raises an eyebrow, which in this case they did, since my mom immediately reported the strange situation to the check-in ladies. Still, I think the whole procedure would have been faster if we hadn't said anything about the passport's unknown whereabouts.
In any case, I do digress - So, now that the passport was definitely missing, and a state of general panic, and of irritation directed at me, there were some phonecalls to be made. The passport (in case you haven't already guessed, my Finnish one) wasn't at home. The last recollection I had of it was at the Spanish embassy (try explaining to officials - "My passport is at the Spanish embassy." "Are you Spanish?" "No, Finnish." "So why is your passport at the Spanish embassy?"). The Spaniards are insufferable bureaucrats who are incaple of reading university transcripts in English, and do not believe that all documents aren't somehow forged documents unless certified by a Spanish official.
(Small digression: Monn has just woken, and projectile vomited into my shirt, and fallen asleep again. See why, despite the mishaps that I incur, the baby himself is not difficult to travel with?)
My first degree was done in Australia, and my Masters was done in Spain, and thus I needed my transcripts and diploma translated and legalised at the Spanish Embassy (They also refuse to believe that Finland, another EU country, could have a birth-certificate free system, and thus my Spanish university was also, until two days ago when they decided they no longer require birth certificates, requiring a letter from ANY official, stating that it is in fact true that Finland does not issue birth certificates.). This is why I had reason to suspect that my passport had been forgotten at the Spanish embassy. How that came to happen is a short story of its own:
Having recently borrowed a baby sling/carrier - shaped like a money belt with straps to keep the baby against your chest (which is how Monn is currently asleep), I put my wallet, with my Thai ID, into the pouch. Upon arrival at the building housing the Spanish embassy, however, Mikko decided he would carry the baby, and so, the pouch was left in the car. At the entrance to the embassy, they needed our ID's and our phones, and of course, I was unable to produce mine. Luckily, however, I had my Finnish passport on me, should I need it for the document certification procedure. In the middle of waiting for our turn (Monn slept through all of this - he'd earlier been at the hospital for his check-up and second Hep B vaccination), we realised that in any case, we'd require cash to pay for the documents... and thus, my wallet was needed in any case.
So, out I went - the guard at the door saying there was no need for me to exchange my queue card for my things. "But I need my phone," I said, thereby sowing the seeds of eventuality. I got my phone, and ran downstairs to call the driver and ask him to bring me the black pouch. When I got back, I traded my phone back in... When we left, now that I think back, I don't recall receiving my passport back - only my phone. But at that stage, in the rush we were to leave, it wasn't noticed.
Anyhow, so on the evening of the flight, the Finnish embassy's emergency number was called. They said no, it would not be possible for me to travel to Finland on a Thai passport without a visa (Bollocks! Shows how much they know!) The Spanish embassy's emergency number was called, in case they had seen my passport, but they wouldn't check until Monday (it was Friday night that we were traveling).
So finally, we agreed that we'd just go to the airport and try our luck. And of course, my mom confessed my missing Finnish passport to the check-in ladies immediately, who had to then make a million phonecalls checking to see if this case was ok (they discovered it was). I guess we'll never know if they would have ever noticed if they hadn't been told. In any case, on their recommendation, I went to the tourist police to report the missing passport. My mom and I decided to report it as missing on that day (a public holiday, thus, embassies closed!) at the Emporium shopping mall (easier to explain than "Well, it's been missing for two weeks, and we just realised it tonight"). I wrote, on the form, "Spent the day at Emporium. At home, we couldn't find the passport." Technically, I didn't lie - I can't pull off lies convincingly - I just relied on human faith in causality (one sentence follows the other, therefore, one event must be the result of the previous reported event. People like to add "because of this" or "therefore" where there are none). I don't feel as bad about saying misleading things as I do about lieing.
The immigration official in Thailand didn't bat an eyelid, and stamped me through. Of course, now the baby was a problem. "How did he get here?" asked the immigration officials. Out of sheer luck, having run out of space in my suitcase, Monn's birth certificate was in my carry-on. He was leaving Thailand on his Finnish passport (his Thai one is yet to be obtained), and nobody had said anything about producing a birth certificate upon leaving the country!
All debacle's cleared, the flight was fairly uneventful. The Finnair staff may wonder why, from row 21, there was one pee'd on blanket, one poo'd on one, and a third vomited on, but perhaps Monn was being cheeky, giving them their dues for apalling 'don't look at me, this is just a job' service. I was waiting for them to start blowing bubble gum in the aisles. One of the air hostesses spilled a bit of orange juice on my arm and said 'Ooops!' and walked on.
On the Finnish side, the immigration official was a bit puzzled, pointing out that I didn't have a visa in my Thai passport, after he already said it was fine for us to pass... I think he realised this and changed to subject to going to report the passport as missing at the Porvoo police station ("There's one at the airport, too, but you have baby with you and it'll take a long time here.").
Well, that was that for that trip. The trip home was fairly uneventful... My alcoholic aunt claimed to not have gotten the message from my dad saying we didn't need a ride from her, as a Thai friend would come to get us. She explained this with breath that smelled of the last night's wine, though... Not difficult to choose who to believe on that one. To keep the peace, my mom went with her, and we went with the Thai friend. Not that that kept the peace... My aunt called me the next days with reports that my mother had cursed the entire family (she'd said she was bored of hearing her stories about the family).
The fun never ends... I could go on for a few more paragraphs about these mishaps... perhaps one day I will write an autobiography :S
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