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Passport

I almost forgot to mention one of the weirdest things that has recently happened to me. At the Athens airport, on my return to Cyprus, I almost lost my passport. When I was checking in with Charlene, I handed the agent my passport, and then she asked for it again a little while later, and I responded that I had already given it to her, so she responded affirmatively, and processed my stuff. She later handed me back all my stuff, including my boarding pass, and since we were in a hurry, I may have been a little screwed up. I was also wary as there were a bunch of Arabs around.

The reason we were in a hurry, was that we were waiting for the airport bus downtown, and after one half hour, none came, so I decided to get a cab, and then at the same moment, a protest started, so we had to go several blocks over to even get a taxi, and then we had a difficult time even getting around. The protests may have been against Bill Clinton, and I suspect that is why the bus never came either.

After we went over to another check-in counter to see away the girl from Whistler, Charlene had just met waiting for the bus, I could not find my passport. I started to operate in semi-panic mode, as we were already pressed for time, so I searched my bag where all the stuff was, and it was not there. I then went back to the Cyprus Airlines counter, and asked the agent if she had seen my passport. She negatively responded, so I searched my bag pocket twice really well again, and every other place it could have been. I was just resigned to being totally screwed, and had picked up my bag and was walking away, when the agent called me back, and showed me my passport, which was in a Cyprus Airways envelope. The agent said that the older lady at the check-in had found it, so I really thanked her, and asked her where she had found it, and she responded "around". I thought that was really strange, but I went back and got Charlene, and we just made to the gate when the flight was boarding. Another weird thing was that the lady was still at the check-in counter, chatting to the agent, when we finally went past it. I have a few theories what happened, but it's a real mystery to me.



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