Part 3
I wish I could say the trip over was uneventful, but ittoo was fraught with drama...self inflicted...embarrassingly self inflicted!!
But I will circle back to that later.
In the lead up to the trip, we were co-ordinating withSophie in the Montreal office. I ended up electing to go a day earlier on the17th, to get some rest after the 30+ hour trip, and try and start acclimatisingbefore
Split and co arrived the next day.
When I got to the airport on Sunday morning, I had failedto get a Visa waiver for the US. I was just transiting through SFO, so didintthink much of it. Australians
do not need a visa to visit the us for non businessactivities, but and electronic visa waiver is still required....even whentransiting. So United would not check me into the flight.
No worries, I will do the application now at the airportand should still make the flight. However, Saturday nights is when US customscloses their website for maintenance....for 4 hours!
I managed to get the application in, but it never gotapproved, just sat pending, due to the website being down.
.
FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about stress.......
The trip was slowly falling through fingers right infront of me......the one we had fought so hard to get.....
So sat there, refreshing my junk mail page, waiting forthe waiver (ESTA) to come through to no avail.
I missed the LA flight and them the San Fransiscoflight. Sitting there like a complete amateur for 3 hours kicking myself feeling like the biggest DICKHEAD in the world!!!!
.
Called my wife and explained..hunny I am sostupid......no your not stupid, your not............ I know am not honey, butin this moment, I feel like the stupidest man alive!!!!
There were 6 others that failed to board for the same issue...
I was communicatingwith Split, so worried the hell out of him- You going to make it? Yeah mate, I will try again tomorrow.....even if i get there for one day.
.
Lucky I brought my trip forward 1 day, so if could getout the next day on the 18th, it was actually the same itinerary I was originally booked for.....no worries....
Except my background IS the airlines.....been there sinceI was 17. I SHOULD know better. I had researched everything about Montreal,picked my seats on the flight after studying the seating maps. Everything,except the visa.
.
And I have had ESTA's and B1/B2 working Visas for the USAbefore.. I should know better, but for some reason, missed it.
.
Anyway, the United staff booked me on the flight the nextday, and in the meantime I prayed my waiver would come through in time.
.
Went back to work, picked up my car and drove home.
At 1pm Melbourne time, the US customs website came backup.........1.18PM I had my ESTA! 18 f...ing minutes it took to process....allthat drama today for 18 minutes and if the website was not down, would haveeasily made the earlier LA flight!
FFS!!!
But I had my ESTA..we are on here...flights wererebooked...CRISIS AVERTED!!!
Next day, heade off to the airport and everything ransmoothly...no issues.
The toughest decision being what bottle of alcohol to buyand share with the boys...sorry, no Kracken.....Metaxa 12 star it was.....
Expand
(20min delay)