Here we goooo!

Oh my goodness...

I mean, gosh really!

It was a close call but hey - here we finally goo!

Imagine this; you've been planning a trip for over a year, never mind you bought the tickets two months ago, you've still been planning it, thinking and dreaming about it for a long long time - and so you're finally there - or almost anyway...
You've got your travelling partners, never mind it's your parents (!), they're still your travelling buddies, and the packing is soon at I-see-the-light-in-the-tunnel-phase, and you've got everybodys tickets - now all you have to do is to make some copies of tickets, passports and so on.

Now imagine this - it's Christmas Eve, around ten in the morning, and you know you should have had all the paperwork done like yesterday or preferably the week before that, but what the heck - it won't take that long to make a few copies, and then you can pack some more before having a delicious christmas dinner at your grandma's house.
Now, when you're sitting there with all the documents, ready to copy your ass off, you're thinking it might be a good idea to check so that your parents passport numbers match the numbers on their visas - this you would normally not do to your travel companions, if they were anyone else but your parents, although we all know parents need looking after (!).

And here, to your outstanding surprise, you see that the number on your fathers passport is not equivalent to the passport number the visa is issued for - not a single figure is right - how is this possible?!?!?!?!

This is when you start to panic...

Well, as it turns out, daddy got a new passport about two-three weeks after the visas were issued,

and for those of you not familiar with the visa process; when you apply for a visa (we did it through our travel agency) you need to supply all the information in your passport, like passport number, date of issue, date of expiry and so on - so the visa (an electronic visa anyway) is now automatically and electronically connected to that specific passport, you don't need a label in it or anything 'cause that's all in the computer etc.

so when papy got his new passport because the old one was falling apart (don't ask me what he does with his passports when he's alone to make 'em look like that, I have absolutely no clue), the new one had a new passport number - everything else was the same, even the expiry date, but the passport number was brand new - and since that passport number doesn't have a visa connected to it, it's going to be pretty tough for the old man to get in to OZ I'd say...

So what did I do?
(now you don't have to imagine yourself anymore, I'll tell it from my point of view now)

I got a little stressed..

I spent around three-four hours calling everyone - well, first I tried to apply on-line for a new tourist visa for dad's new passport and normally this takes around five seconds and it's all good - but for some reason - I think God thought it would be fun to mess around a little - the visa process was "On hold" because it had to be "processed manually"....

Meaning when there are people in the embassy...

Meaning Monday - three days after take off...

So NOW I started calling everyone - the police to try and track down my fathers old passport, although after an hour or two we had established that it was probably just ashes now..

Then I tried calling the embassy to get them into action - but it was closed "due to a public holiday". And the police couldn't help us getting another passport either 'cause we would never get the old passport number anyway, and well - I tried everything I could possibly think of, even calling the airlines (SAS and Qantas) to hear if they would let us all three board 'cause then my father could wait in the airport until the visa was in order - around one day. Well SAS would let us board, but Qantas refused (was not really prepared to speak strine (australian) over the phone with a grumpy airline worker so I guess I didn't fight for my cause as much as I could have done) - so that would have left daddy stranded in Frankfurt...

I even called B, the guy at MyPlanet who got us our tickets - thank you sooo much for taking the time to calm me down on Christmas Eve! - and we figured out that the only thing we could do was for me to spend another couple of hours to try and track down anyone at any embassy anywhere who could help us, and if that didn't help I had to cancel my dad's ticket, well the one to oz anyway - and then B would try and get him a new one on monday (or if that was all booked, on tuesday) - so it looked really dim for a while, that dad had to wait the entire week end and then fly down solo next week...

Btw, I need to give good praise to MyPlanet - these guys rock!
Especially B!!!
so this is no no-commercial-travel-journal, 'cause I will most certainly speak very highly of those who deserve it, and the very opposite of others =)

Then, all of a sudden (well it took longer but I'm really tired so I've decided to cut the story short a bit) dad got a text regarding "visa" something - so I checked my email and there it was - an email from the on-line visa application I did around tenish "Dear Mister, we are happy to inform You that Your visa has been succesfully issued etc etc"

!!!

Imagine the joy! =D

We practically danced the rest of the day - it went from being a crappy lousy christmas into being one of the best ones ever!!

So now it's Christmas Day, well technically speaking it's the 26th, everything is almost packed and the train leaves in 9h, 25min

So I guess this is it - here I go !!!

I'm taking off!! Flying away!!!
(can you see me fly??)




Take care of Sweden for me ya!


I hate to say it - but see you soon! =)