Hi everyone, this is going to be a long and probably boring tale. I feel justified to share this you because some of you asked to be tortured by my (mis-)adventures, some of you were involved and some of you just unlucky enough that I have your email address. I am writing this in part to act as a journal of my trip and mostly because I am suffering from jet-lag, a cold/flu (courtesy of a fellow passenger) and allergies (from animals that pervade every house-hold in RSA) and can not do anything else of any use except sit in front of the computer. Given this I would not feel at all offended if any, or all, of you should stop reading at any point and simply close this blog. Now that I have completed my disclaimer, I will follow it with my saga.
My brother immigrated to Canada, so bringing my parent to the Unites States became a priority. After consultations with several immigration lawyers, it became obvious that the only way to get them over in a reasonable period of time was for me to make a trip to South Africa. Doing the paper work from the American consulate in South Africa would reduce the time from a few years to a few months. Hunting for air ticket took me to several sources until I finally settle on Cheap-tickets, a consolidator. The best they could do was for me to travel 9 days from booking the ticket. With the ticket settled, I had to choose a lawyer and engage him to help with the paper work. Two days before leaving, the lawyer produced a list of documents that I would have to have to accompany the applications. This resulted in here days of frantic searching for things like birth certificates, social security cards, bank statements, etc. Poor Violet had to go to her safety deposit box at least three times looking for non-existent documents. Finally two days before leaving, I had managed to gather all the papers that hopefully are required. Next panic was to copy them and send to the attorney while taking the originals with me to RSA. All the copiers within reach would eat the originals and then spit them out after copying. This was not viable as some of the papers like my birth certificate was older than I am and would not survive the copy machine’s digestive system. So off to “mailbox are us” and did the copying. Unfortunately, as some of the papers were very old and had writing on both side, the modern copiers would show both side of the paper when only one side was desired. One Friday afternoon at 3 pm, the lawyer called to tell me that I was holding up his long deserved weekend and that if I did not produce the copies for him within an hour, he would really have a good weekend. Desperation, being the mother of all creativity, kicked in and out came my trusty digital camera and in a thrice, I had the copies in digital form for the lawyer, beating his deadline by 30 minutes and thus spoiling his well deserved rest! J Strange, even though some of my friends are lawyers, I have not managed to develop much empathy with them!
Went to Violet’s to pick up stuff to take to RSA. Thought it would only be a few books, turned out to be a little more and would not fit into my luggage. So Violet offered me her “carry on” roller bag to accommodate the stuff. Went back to reshuffle my baggage and ended up with two roller bags plus a carry on roller bag. Not bad for a 2-month trip with at least 30% of space taken up with presents!
One week and one day before my departure, my niece, Bridget, emailed asking me to purchase and bring over a set of professional drums. This resulted in a flurry of phone calls to various musical stores none of which had the required instruments. Eventually found on the Net an organization in Florida, which had it in stock. The free delivery would cost extra if I wanted to get the set on time before my departure. So much so for free. The scheduled delivery was on the Friday and my departure was set on Sunday. Very little room for screw-ups! Along with the email promising delivery was a description of the boxes that contained the drums. “3 boxes measuring over 30 inches and weighing over 100 pounds.” Needless to say, I survived the heart attack this information produced. On Friday morning, the drummer boy (Justin) called to see if his toy had arrived and he offered to talk me through reducing the three boxes to two. Told him he had to contain himself for another 6 or so hours. At about 4:40pm, while I was in the copying process, UPS rolled up with these three mountainous boxes. Reality sank in; I really had no concept how big 32 inches until I saw the boxes. A few hours later, Justin called from RSA extolling me to open the two lighter boxes and consolidate the flat box (hardware) into the smaller big box (stool) and try as I may, I could not convince him that the things form the flat box could not and would not fit into the box containing the stool, either inside or outside the stool. We ended the conversation with Justin having the impression that I was really an incompetent buffoon. We agreed that I would simply carry the three boxes and he would show me how it is done once I get to RSA.
The next morning was taken up with last minute shopping for packaging tape and green (so that it would be distinctive, not with-standing the sizes of the boxes!) ropes. Back in the garage, re-taping the boxes and then using my extensive (but non-existent) boy-scout skills tying the boxes up with green ropes to provide handles for the boxes (and I guess to keep them from falling apart.) Finally I have all my luggage ready. It consisted of three big boxes and one really big roller bag and a smaller (normal size) roller bag and a carry on roller bag. Five items to be checked and one carry on. I had arranged to have my friend, Wendy, take me to LAX; Kathy and Lilian working that day and Violet not being able to drive to LAX and also attending church. Looking at the boxes, it was obvious that they would not fit into Wendy’s car. So now, transport to LAX was a problem. Fortunately my friend, Mary had a Humvee available and was free to take me to LAX.
Arrived at LAX three hours before the flight!!! Had a porter help with the luggage and his comment was, “you are allowed two bags of 30 kilos each, you will pay lots”. As we walked in, I slipped him $5 and his disposition changed and he then said to me to wait and not enter the queue. He went over to two guys in uniform (TSA baggage handlers) talked to them for a while, left them my luggage and came back to me to me and said they will look after me. One of the two came over and said that I was facing an excess luggage charge of over $1000. Did I want some help to reduce that? Obviously a rhetorical question! J On my affirmative answer, he started weighing each piece, did his arithmetic and came back with a solution. He would make the flat box and the smaller big box one item and my two roller bags one item and I would end up with 3 items instead of 5 and only get charged for 1 excess bag. I readily agreed, he, however, just stood there. I took me a whole 5 seconds to realize what would fire him up. I slipped $20 to him and that proved to be sufficient lubrication. He sent the older guy off to get binding straps while he examined the boxes. The other one returned with a bunch of tapes and they started tying the two boxes. As it turned out, the straps that airline provided were not long enough to go around the combined boxes and they had to create makeshift straps much like fat people have to have extension seatbelts. What bothered me was that they managed to break several straps buy pulling too tightly. After about 30 minutes, they were examining their handy work and pronounced it good. Next problem was to take care of my two roller bags. I was told tat I should go and buy a big box so that they could put the two bags into it. On my protestation of my ignorance, the younger one volunteered to buy the box for me. Another $20 proved sufficient to light the fire under him. Off he went and about 20 minutes later, he emerged with two old boxes and strong packaging tape. I decided not to question him, but I guess my facial expression could not hide my question. He then handed me $10 and said he got free boxes but had to go a long way to buy the tape. They put my big roller bag into the box and found that they could not figure out how to make the other roller bag fit. They then suggested that I remove the contents of the small roller bag and pack it around the bigger bag and then they inverted the other box and capped it off with lots of tape and then put straps around it. They weighed the result and it was 30.5 kilos. They proclaimed their job well done. I must admit that I was dubious that the airline would accept this jerry-rigged lot as 3 bags and only charge me for one excess bag. They took the bags to the counter for me and when it was my turn, they talked to the counter person who agreed to make me pay for only one excess bag at the rate of $250. The older of the two guy stood looking at me with a strange look on his face and I suddenly realized that he needed to be paid. So out 1 $20 bill and all was happy. My mind was racing; I managed to save $500 with an outlay of $50, not a bad ROI! J I thought that my luggage problem were over as I was given the claim checks, but no!
After the airlines tag the bags, the passenger is obliged to take them over to security for screening. The two guys, bless their hearts, stuck with me and moved the boxes (3) to the screening area while I waited in line again. A few moments later, the older one waved me to get out of line and follow him. Why, I inquired! Too big, he answered. Bewildered, I followed him to the other end to the cavernous departure hall to a place where they screen over-sized bags. This time, the two guys left me to my own devices as soon as they deposited the three boxes into line. When it was my turn, I pushed the big box to the front of the line and the woman handling the machine struggled to get it up to the conveyor belt and screamed “stop”. The box was falling off sideways. What is funny now was then not very amusing. I was barred from going to help prop up the precious drum form dropping to the hard floor. She tugged and pushed and got the box to the edge of the screening machine and yelled “stop” again. The box was too big by 1 inch to fit into the machine! By this time, she was pissed and simply gave it a shove and the drum rolled over and dropped on to the floor. She then came for the combined boxes and tried and guess what, that too was too big. Now there were two big boxes that had been dropped from the screening machine on to the floor. She came back for my third box with a look of this better fit look on her face. Miracle or miracles, it went through without a hitch. She then came over to me and told me that they will have to open the boxes up. The look of horror must have been pasted on my face because she started beaming. They cut apart the combined boxes and sent the flat box through the machine. Then opened the smaller big box and riffled through it. Then the big box was taken apart. They, in about 1 minute, undid the tying and wrapping and roping that took hours to do! Tapped it up and waved me off. I was protesting that there was now 4 pieces of luggage, but I had only three claim checks and there were only three routing slips on the 4 boxes. My protestations were to no avail. Despondent and resigned to having to explain to Bridget how a piece of her drum set went missing, I went to the departure gate.
With one exception, the trip to London was uneventful. I was sitting next to a young boy probably about 10 years old. He seems very nice and was very quite. At about meal time severe turbulence (as is usual during meal delivery) set in and the plane was shaking very badly. Just as I finished my dinner, I noticed that the guy sitting next to the boy was opening a burf-bag, then I noticed that the boy was crying and grasping for breath. The older guy, who I surmised is his father, kept smiling and repeating, “be a man and beat it”. It was obvious to me that the boy was having great difficulty breathing. Not being able to hold myself back, I said to the guy that the boy was not breathing (this was of course obvious) and he replied that the boy had asthma and this was aggravated his fear of flying and the turbulence. I asked if he had the spry device that would ease his breathing and he replied that he did not bring it and that the boy needs to learn to get along without. I felt really bad for the kid and wondered what kind of man would let his son suffer like that without showing some sort of compassion. I guess it take all kinds to make a world. About an hour later, the boy did indeed survive and revive.
The transit in London was a 8 hour layover. I had originally planned to go into London during my layover, but was informed that going through customs and immigration would take up to two hours and that the trip itself was about an hour to and from the airport, leaving me 4 hours and that I need to, because it was an international flight, be at the airport 3 hours before the flight. That left me with an hour in London. Hardly seemed worthwhile. So I decided to be bored and just walk around the transit lounge. On my wonderings, I came across a Luffhaser booth that had a bunch of laptop for people to use to “get information from Luffhanser”. I looked around at the machines and everybody except the Luffhanser employee was surfing the net instead of being connected to the intended company. So I stood in line for an available machine and logged for my emails, expecting the get kicked off when the employee came around. She did, indeed, come around to my machine, but instead of kicking me off, simply said ‘good morning’. After my email session, I walked around some more and found a whole bunch of terminals that one could use for a fee. Boredom and lack of sleep was catching up on me and I found a chair that could recline and immediately claimed it as my own and fell asleep for about an hour. Walked around some more and it was time to catch my flight to RSA.
The BA ground staff was very organized in LAX and boarded everyone by rows and there basically order. This time round, there was a free for all and mass confusion. When I got on, the plane was full to capacity and I was sitting next to an elderly woman (probably one or two years older than I am!) and soon it was apparent that she was suffering from a bad case of some sort of flu. I was hoping that my constitution was strong enough to not catch what she had, but alas, that turned out not to be the case as I would find out a day later. Sitting behind me were two women and a man that were speaking a language that I did not recognize. It was probably Russian. They were very rowdy and the man decided that he was not going to allow me to put my seat back. The kept kicking the back of my seat even before the plane took off. After the plane leveled off, I put my seat back and he tapped me on my head and indicated that he wanted to push my seat forward. I gave him a dirty look and ignored him. Later he tried to push my seat, but fortunately dancing developed my leg muscles and he was not able to successful in pushing my seat forward. At meal time, as the stewards were coming around with the drinks, they helped themselves to bottles of wine while the stewards were serving other people and got caught and were forced to return the bottles. He then made a big fuss about the seat and the steward asked me to move it forward until the meal was over, which I did. As soon as the meal was over, I moved it back and he made another big fuss, this time, the steward told me to cool it. He tried pushing the seat a few more times and got tired of it and the rest of the trip was relatively peaceful.
On arrival at Jan Smuts, we were bussed to the terminal from the plane. Then proceeded to the immigration stations and went through without any fuss. At baggage claim, I waited and waited and waited for my luggage. Finally there were only three of us left who had no gotten their luggage. I had walked between the carousel, where the normal bags came out, and the over-sized conveyor many times, hoping that my luggage would show up somewhere. Eventually the box containing my roller-bag showed up at the over-sized area. I went to rescue it and one of the porters offered to help and I gratefully accepted. The intercom kept announcing that the going price for baggage handling was R5 per piece. I did not have any South African money. My second box, the big one containing the drums came and was out on the cart, which was now full. I went to get another cart by which time the second big box arrived and that was put onto the new cart. Waiting a few minutes, the flat box arrived. Miracles of miracles, all 4 boxes arrived despite the fact that I had only claim check for three boxes. Not sure how they did it, because one of the boxes did not have a routing tag! I now had two trolleys filled to capacity and one roller bag (my carry-on) and I thought ‘no problem’ as the porter would help me. I gave him US$5 because I had no RSA money. He accepted this with a big smile. As we walked towards customs, the porter said to me that he was not allowed beyond the red line and abandoned me with two trolleys and a roller-bag. I must have looked a sorry sight as I tried valiantly to navigate the three wheeled objects around the corner to the customs station. One of the customs officers came to my rescue and we managed to get all the luggage to the customs station.
The customs officer asked me what I had in the boxes. I told him my cloths in the smallest one, and a drum set in the other three and of course my carry-on. He wanted to know what I was doing with the drum set and I told him that I had just started drumming and that I was planning to practice on it while I was visiting my parents for 2 months. He then said that I was obviously going to take it with me when I leave and I replied that was the plan. He called over another customs officer who is supposed to be a musician to question me about the drums. He asked me if I knew what a 'riff' was and I gave a a blank look. He said to the first officer that I was abviously a real beginner. I readily agreed with him and he was satisfied. He asked how much it cost me and I answered that it was US$1,000. He spent the next 20 minutes trying to make me say that I was going to sell it while I was in South Africa and I would not admit to it. Eventually, he said that if I was going to take it back with me, then he would charge me a deposit that is refundable, but if I had a possibility of selling it, then he would charge me tax and that the tax would be considerably less than the deposit. When I asked how much, he did some calculations and told me based on US$1000, with some exemptions that he could apply, it came to R600. The deposit would be over R900 as the exemptions would not apply. I then told him that I would pay the tax. He then went to his computer and told me that he had to confirm the price of the drum set. My heart skipped a beat as I was sure that the internet price would show something like US$3000 instead of US$1000. (The actual price paid was US$1799 with a MSRP of $3000). He kept complaining about the slowness of his computer and then smiled broadly. I interpreted his smile as a “I got you, you bastard” smile. He pointed his finger at me and said with a broad smile “you have been had, my boy” and I gave him a quizzical look. He pointed at his computer and said the “yamaha drums are only $800 and you paid $1000.” I said with a sad face “even the best of us get caught” and he laughed again. I then asked him if I could pay in US$ and he said no but that I could change money outside and come back in through security and pay at the cashier. In the meantime he would hold on to my stuff. I thanked him and went off in search of Bridget who was going to come and get me, hoping that she had cash to pay customs. As I walked out, I was confronted by a wall of faces, none of which looked remotely like Bridget. So I proceeded to the money exchange area and stood in line. The line was relatively short, but was not moving after 5 minutes. Then I spotted an ATM machine and I said to the guy behind me that I would try the ATM machine and if it did not work, I would come back and claim my spot. The ATM machine accepted everything I told it and then eventually put a message on the screen that said something about coming into the bank to get an ID card. I thought that I had lost my credit card and that I would have to spend hours getting it back and getting some money to rescue my luggage. Just as depression sank in, I heard the clicking of the machine obviously counting out money. I grabbed the money, my card and the receipt and rushed off the customs area. The entrench was not obvious, and had to ask three different people before being directed to the correct security area. Went in and paid the tax and came out struggling with the two trolleys. As I got out of the doors, another porter came to my rescue and as we pushed through the crowd, I found Francis, my nephew with Helen, who was going to take ownership of the drums. I absent-minded reached into my pocket and pulled out a bill for the porter and gave it to him, only realizing that it was a R100 bill when he had his finger around it. I quickly grabbed it back and asked Francis to give him R10. We then walked the drum set to Helen’s car. And then went with my luggage to Francis’s car. The journey had come to an end and I was safely in South Africa.
I was later to find out that one of the three boxes comprising the drum set contained the in-correct stuff (reason why Justin was surprised that the flat box stuff would not fit into the box containing the chair), but that is the subject of another blog.
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