Three Mistakes

... view from Citizen's Square ...

A long time ago I figured out that after I told one of my kids to stop something, or to do something a different way, it still took them three times more times of doing it the wrong way to change, at least.

So here goes, and trying to apply the same standard to myself ... five of us didn’t have the paperwork we needed to get into Dubai. Scrambling through the world wide web, finding government offices in Dubai via the internet that could help us, figuring out time changes – we lived on the edge, only getting the necessary paperwork in place days before ... we made it to Dubai.

... mechanical clock in Citizen's Square ...

When we got on the boat, and passed Dubai, that is when we discovered we should have done the same paperwork for getting into India. All hope lost, and many other passengers in the same situation, the boat worked hard with the official in Cochin and the day before arriving there, we found out we could get Visas in the long line-up in the lounge – 20 Indian officials up there, stamping passports and studying our documents. Now despite see in bold letters You are responsible to get Visas for China, that piece didn’t fall in place for us until we heard some passengers saying, if you don’t have a Visa for China, you won’t be going in. Wyona went to Customer Relations to see if this were true. And when she found out it was, she tried to find ways to get the Visa while we were on the boat. Absolutely not. The three of us adjusted to know that we went to China, but that we would not be able to go into China. We just made a pact never to let anyone know of our folly. No one felt worse than Greg. He could have put on a hair shirt, feeling responsible for all of us loosing this chance. Wyona just said it is all of our faults. The paper work said to get Visas. We didn’t. My days are so full of fantastic choices that I just thought... there goes one lovely opportunity. On the other hand, we will have an entire vessel to ourselves with 1,000 crew taking care of us. We will survive. Two nights before we arrived in China, Greg came to the room and said, “At 6 p.m. we can get passport photos. We are going to China.” Greg had been walking by customer relations and another couple were having a hiccup worse than ours in their lives. They were scheduled to get off the boat for good at Tianjin, but they couldn’t get off without papers. An immigration official onboard was facilitating their departure. Face to face he facilitated Greg. Oh happy day That is the end of my story about making three mistakes. Three of us made three mistakes each. A grand total of nine for our group.