Where the hell am I?

When I was a teen, I got a letter of acceptance to study at Pittsburg State University. Where was this place? Who cared!  I was just grateful to be accepted there. Period.

All the arrangements, like the plane tickets and so on, was settled by another girl who was going to the same place as me.  All I had to do was hand her the money.

So there I was, a month later, in one piece, and at the correct location. In Pennsylvania Kansas. That’s right. Home of Dorothy, corn fields and cows.

Why am I writing about this? Well, apparently, I read that this Dutch 15 year old boy and his 71 year old grandpa took a flight to the wrong Sydney: Canada, not Australia – 10,000 miles in the wrong direction.

So, you see, I’m not the ONLY one who makes this type of mistake when it comes to location.

It is not the first time travelers have mixed up the Sydneys as well.

In August 2002, British tourists Raeoul Sebastian and Emma Nunn from London spent their holiday in Nova Scotia after thinking they were flying to Australia.

And in 2008, Monique Rozanes Torres Aguero from Argentina flew into the wrong Sydney for her vacation but decided to stay after befriending a local woman at the airport, according to the Cape Breton Post.

Here’s the thing. Did you know Northern America has many cities and towns that share the same name? Brad Pitt comes from Springfield, Missouri but so does The Simpsons (not the same town though). Then there’s Springfield, Ohio, the Antique Shopping in America’s Heartland. There’s others who share the same name I swear. And it can get confusing.

This is Brat Pitt before he got old looking, taking care of 6 kids.

And that’s The Simpson family.

It gets worse. Traveling, you see is not so straight forward. Back before I got married, Shaun decided to take me on a holiday to Europe to see a Magic Competition in Year 2003. He needed a tour guide as he was clueless reading a map, and I love to travel.

Win-win.

I couldn’t find pics of Shauna and I in that Spanish airport
cause it’s past midnight and I’m past caring,
but I’ve got this lovely photo of me in Beijing
at this crazy street where they dug up the entire area,no signage, no warning, no nothing.
You’d get fired in England, in America, or even in Malaysia
for no proper safety regulations.

I booked all the hotels, the BBs, the backpacking hostels, the cheap plane tickets. It was going to be wonderful. And we were on budget. That is was, until I made a mistake in Barcelona.

“Wrong way man. It’s over there”  Peter, our Beijing guide seemed to say. Peter was showing us around the Forbidden City. The tour was organized by Tim Ellis for some of the FISM 2009 (Magic competition) participants held recently in Beijing. Thanks Tim. Lovely tour.

See, I didn’t know Barcelona had 2 airports. I should have been clued in when we arrived in a small airport with hardly anybody in it when we arrived on Ryanair. Cheap airlines tend to stop at the most remote places don’t they? So, when it was time to get out of Barcelona, I obviously got back to the same airport, could not locate our flight, pleaded with some airport staff there who spoke no English, who probably thought we were some insane Asian tourists.

It all got lost in translation.

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More on awesome our Beijing FISM 2009
(Magic Competition) trip ….

• It takes years to get it right
• Peach so cheap

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If we had spoken the same “language”, they would have told us we were at the wrong airport. It took Shaun, the genius (and he is a brainy one in the family, really) to tell me that. Alas, we could not get to the next airport on time because it was an hour away, and well, I just banged my head on the wall in shame, vowing not to make the same *cough* mistake again!

So anyways, now you know all this, don’t get lost the next time you travel ok?

These are 4 Chinese female magicians.
Female magicians are fairly uncommon in most parts of the world, but apparently not in China. Click here to view one of these ladies’ magic acts. If you’ve never seen a Chinese magic act, you won’t want to miss this. Very oriental.

Tagged with: Antique Shopping • Argentina • Australia • Barcelona • Beijing • Brad Pitt • Canada • Cape Breton Post • Den Haag • Dorothy • FISM 2003 • FISM 2009 • Kansas • Missouri • Ohio • Pennsylvania • Pittsburg • Ryanair • Springfield • State University • Sydney • The Haag • The Simpsons

Filed under: General

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