Know where your passport goes

Greetings and Salutations from England!  Which on this New Years morning (2015) is actually quite green!  I had a little bit of nervousness and butterflies in my stomach as I had to drive 5 hours to get to the Milwaukee airport from my weekend in McNaughton, WI.  We had one last weekend and drove 4 hours to spend my last 3 days in America with my family and 8 inches of fresh snow!  What a treat!

Yes, we went to Narnia! :-)

The good news is that I made it here, to The King's Lodge in Nuneaton, England with almost no trouble at all.  Until I touched down at Birmingham International Airport.  And by the way, a shout out to all of the staff and employees and Immigration officers there, they were terribly kind in my "mini- crisis" :-)

View out my bedroom window, On December 31, 2014... green!

So... I'm a pretty seasoned traveler.  I've never misplaced my passport before, and I didn't actually misplace it this time either, I knew exactly where it was, I just wasn't sure how I was going to get  it where it needed to be! (In my hands)

My passport, along with most of my cash, was securely in the front pocket of my carry-on luggage.  This carry-on was a little larger than normal due to me getting my "stuff" down to one 52 pound bag instead of two, a last minute decision.  My flights went from Milwaukee to Minneapolis to Amsterdam and then my destination, Birmingham.  Everything went incredibly smoothly, no incidences- I even slept!  But, for the last leg, it was a smaller "city hopper" plane, which means there isn't quite enough overhead space for those extra large carry-ons, so they take them at the door of the plane and put them underneath.  Blame it on the lack of sleep and the fact that it was 4AM body time, but I just wasn't thinking to take my passport out of that front zipper before my bag went underneath. It wasn't until we were about to land and I was going to fill in my customs card that I had the slightest thought that this might be troublesome.

As I was getting off the airplane I was hoping my bag would be given to me at the door on the way out, but of course this was not the case... after talking to the co-pilot and stewardess and doorman, I realized that my bag and passport would be waiting for me... at the baggage claim... past the immigration desks.  Uh Oh.

This is where my calm and collected traveling self came in.  I followed the crowd to the immigration line and calmly explained my dilemma.  I'm sure I'm not the first that this has happened to.  I don't even think my blood pressure went up at all!  I knew that it would be ok.  An honest mistake with an easy solution.

They were very kind and I simply had to wait until the end of the line.  Two employees then went to fetch my bags and I got my passport and very smoothly went through immigration.  WHEW!  

So, the moral of this story is to ALWAYS stay calm in such a situation.  I was able to joke around with the immigration officer and we chatted about New Year plans, instead of crying and worrying about the situation.  Worrying never helps. :-)

Thanks be to God for getting me here and continuing to take me on this journey!  Seriously!  Life is grand!  More to come soon to tell you of the tale of how I got HERE and where here is!

Happy New Year!