Advertisement
Published: January 8th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Disaster avoided --- just in time.
Last night, after putting the berths down so we could sleep, the conductor collected the passports of everyone on the train. This was strange as the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, France and Spain are all parts of the EU and are part of the Schengen states. In our travels in Northern Europe no one had asked to see our passports when we crossed boarders since 2008. We had no choice and gave him our passports.
The train was about fifteen minutes from Figueres, our first stop in Spain. In fact, we were already standing by the door with our luggage to get off when Nancy said, "Did you check the passports to be sure the conductor gave you the right ones?"
"No," I replied. I had meant to, had thought about it last night, but had forgotten this morning. I pulled the passports out of the holder in which I carry them. I opened one of the passports and WHOA, a young woman's picture appeared. I checked the second and saw it contained a young man's picture. The conductor had given us the wrong passports!
"We have to find him and get the right ones," Nancy exclaimed. As I ran to see if I could find the conductor, I was praying! I headed off toward the front of the train and Nancy toward the back. She found him.
"When I told him he had given us the wrong passports he turned white." Nancy told me later. He hastily ran down the corridor, found me and exchanged the passports. He said, "There were only four of you Americans on board and I just didn't check." He really looked upset with himself and I am sure was glad that we didn't fuss at him or make a scene.
We do not know if the young couple every knew of the close call all four of us had because of the conductor's mistake. If they had gotten off before us with our passports or if we had gotten off before them with theirs, none of us could have stayed the night in any hotel in Spain without a passport. We would have been stranded without the ability to travel anywhere on a public conveyance like a train or an airplane. Our visa allowing us to stay in the Czech Republic would have been gone. In other words it was a near miss, a very serious situation. I am positive that will never happen again with that young conductor. He must have been almost as frightened by what he nearly caused as we were. Also, we will never again take a passport back from someone without seeing for sure it is ours. I felt then and am sure now that God was watching over us as we traveled. This was not the only 'near miss' problem of our trip but each possible problem was solved before it caused us trouble.
All is well that ends well. He exchanged the passports less then five minutes before the train pulled into the station. Whew, it would have been a disaster if we had not gotten the right passports. In my mind's eye I could see us in a Spanish police station trying to explain,
They gave us the wrong passports on the train while the other poor young couple was trying to explain the same error in a police station in Barcelona or Madrid or who knows where!
Whew! A close call.
When we were heading home and our passports were collected again on the first return leg of the trip, we told that conductor about our near adventure two weeks before. He looked shaken to even hear of it and promised to be careful . My conductor was a lady and she promised to get mine safely back . The other two legs of the trip home our passports were not collected. This seemed to be done only when passing through France.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.508s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 28; qc: 168; dbt: 0.1867s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Barb Willilams
non-member comment
close call
Wow! I am so glad things worked out alright. Thanks for sharing. It sure will prompt me to be more careful when traveling.