WHY IT WAS A SPECIAL DAY? Amanda

Everyone should have a special day in their whole life, isn’t it? We were planning to travel to the United States and Canada by ourselves in 1990. It would be my first time to travel to other countries with my husband. Our trip would be 14 days. We would go to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington and Ontario. It would be a long trip for us. We were very excited to get more information for the trip. We used a lot of time to prepare for the trip. My husband booked air tickets, made reservations in hotels, and rented cars in each cities. I was in charge of buying traveling necessities. We packed some luggage and were ready to go.

Early in the morning, we ate breakfast at home before we took a shuttle bus to the airport. On the way, we were very excited. We were talking about the trip and created many nice pictures in our mind. I decided when we went to each city; we must buy one special souvenir to remind us of this vacation. My husband would take a lot of photos in each city. When we arrived to the airport, there wasn’t time to check-in, so we walked around and took some photos in the airport. Until time to check-in, we went to the check-in counter and found the passports, but we couldn’t find the passports in our pockets. My husband told me to check all luggage but I still couldn’t find them. We didn’t know what we should do. We felt very nervous. Finally, my husband decided to go home and get the passports. It would take more than an hour. I stayed in the airport and was waiting until my husband got back the passports. I felt very unhappy in that moment….

More than an hour later, my husband came back. We went to the check-in counter again; there had a lot of people in line. At check-in, the receptionist told us our passports weren’t valid; it must have 180 valid days. We were very surprised about that. We never checked the passports before we used them. My husband was mad at me; he said why didn’t you check the passports before used. I said my responsibility was prepared all traveling necessities. We were upset for a whole week. Finally, we missed the trip. My husband needed to cancel all reservations in hotels, and rented cars in each city, and also cancelled some air tickets in other countries. We didn’t talk to each other for a week.

In conclusion, although we misunderstood about who took care of the passports which wasted a long vacation, we learned from this mistake. Next time, we will check our passports before we travel. Even thought this trip was very disappointed but we learned something special. We never argue about passports again. We will have an experience for future.