Mr. and Mrs. Deals Once Went to Australia – Part 2

Another blog post from Mr. Deals…

Welcome back everyone. This is part two of my very first travel adventure with Mrs. Deals. Last week, you may have read Part 1, where I explained we were about to embark on study abroad trip to Australia. To recap, I was on my way to LA to meet up with Mrs. Deals who had arrived earlier. My flight out to LA wasn’t the best, and neither was Mrs. Deals’, but we both finally made it. I’ll pick things up from there…

So I arrive at LAX, with 45 minutes to spare before hopping on a 14 hour flight to Australia. Of course, the terminal I had to be at was just about as far away as you could possible get within an airport. Since I was heading overseas, I left my cellphone back at my parents house for my brother to use (these were the days where cell phones were a luxury!), so I just figured I’d see Mrs. Deals at the gate or in line checking in. My first thought was that she was probably already at the plane (given how late I was).

I finally made it to the international terminal and what do I see, a security line out the door. Go figure! Nothing about this travel experience was going to be good. So I hop in line and I’m looking around to see if I can catch a glimpse of Mrs. Deals somewhere and off in the distance I see her. She’s running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I finally wave her down and she grabs me to come up to wait in line where her cousins are (nothing like skipping the line a bit). I’m wondering what’s going on and why she’s running around frantically and then she breaks some news to me.

“I left my passport in Boston, I have to get my bags and hopefully get on the flight tomorrow…if my passport shows up.”

My response:  “Ha!” While I felt bad, I was psyched to get to Australia.

Oh Mrs. Deals, quite possibly the most important item you can have when traveling overseas is your passport. Not only was it left in Boston, but it was left in the copy machine. Good thing she had grabbed the copies from the machine, right? NOPE! Turns out in the preparation of overseas travel, Mrs. Deals or Mrs. Deals parents thought it was essential that she had copies of her passport. Unfortunately, a copy is absolutely useless and only the real thing can get you anywhere.

At this point, I don’t think I’m going to make the flight, even with the help of skipping up a bit in the security line. Mrs. Deals cousins wait with me and Mrs. Deals finally retrieves her bags. Of course she was the one who made all of the reservations in Sydney, so she gives me the hotel info for the place we were supposed to stay at (with another one of her college friends who was arriving later in the day) and off I go to the gate.

The kicker on this whole thing was I make it to the plane, with minutes to spare and without a seat assignment, go to the gate and what seat do I get? Oh, only the last middle seat on the plane.

You know what though, I was so excited to go to Australia I could’ve been standing the whole time and it wouldn’t have mattered.

P.S. — Mrs. Deals finally made it to Australia the very next day. Her passport was flown from Boston to LAX and in enough time for her to get on the flight out that night. Lesson learned, now she always has me hold the passports…