The Passport Story
Even though he surely was teased enough about this and is quite fed up by constantly being reminded, this made us laugh several times as Craig (and everyone else) really really likes to pick up on Mark. But what exactly happened? Read it all here ...
About a week and a half before Ring*Con 2003 in Germany, Mark and Craig travelled to Los Angeles and stayed there for a while. Mark had organised their trip which involved some stops in Chicago, then Toronto and some other places. When they arrived at the L.A. airport, they had problems because the nice lady from the airline they meant to fly with was sure they weren't confirmed for any flight. But as the nice lady was *really* nice, she put them on another flight which should fix their problem.
After a rough landing in Chicago (with the plane circling for 90 minutes and lightning bolts hitting the wings) they were quite late to catch their connection flight to Toronto but they could still make it. Then Mark said something he shouldn't have said: "Oh. Where is my passport?" They got back into the plane, looking for the passport but it was nowhere to find. Big fat shock! Obviously with all the problems and the hurry, Mark had left his passport (and all his tickets) at the counter at L.A. airport. And because they were trying to get to Toronto (another country!) they were facing serious problems.
After an enforced night in a horrible hotel in Chicago they spent the next day in an embassy's office and tried to get a new passport for Mark. In the end, he got his passport, after being told off by the people in the office about 'stupid Australians who lose their passport' (to quote Craig - obviously this really wasn't the first time Mark tried to get rid of his Australian passport and as it seems these several times have been within quite a few years only). When they got out, it all got confusing again and it turned out that their bags got lost somehow. Craig had a hard time staying calm (he didn't mention anything about Mark but surely he wasn't in the best mood, too) but they finally were told this wouldn't be a problem, the bags would follow and the two of them could go to Germany.
Needless to say that by the time they arrived at the counter, the flight officially was closed and they just got in by pure luck. And on top of this their luggage sat somewhere for three days so they had nothing when they arrived in Germany and had (according to Craig) wear the same things for three days in a row ...
If you're interested in the whole sad story with all nasty details (well, as much as Craig told us), you can read a transcript of the
Ring*Con 2003 panel at ParkerBlue.
And to add a bit to this already sad story, I am referring to an incident reported by
MarkFerguson.net. Obviously Craig and Mark decided to visit Prague after this fatefull Ring*Con, took the night train and reached the border between Germany and the Czech Republic in the middle of the night ... and got expelled from the train (in 'Marktredwitz', like an irony of fate) because Mark couldn't get into the country without a proper passport still valid for a certain amount of time. Which would at least explain his very happy expression on his face in this picture, shown at Ring*Con 2007:
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