Its a Weird World

Aug 24, 2009

Boy, do we have stories! I don’t think there’s any profession in the world that can come away, at the end of the day with as many crazy, unimaginable, strange-but-true stories as professionals who lead tours for a living.

But, this space isn’t about our stories right now (it will be at a later time because Boy, do we have stories!); its about some of the other crazy happenings in the world today.

• A German tourist was refused permission to carry a litre of vodka aboard a flight in Nuremberg airport. So….he chugged it down, rather than surrender it. He left the airport, but not on his planned flight; he left it in an ambulance.
• Pilgrims returning to Italy had their carry-on bottles of holy water from the Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes confiscated at security. “Three-ounce bottles only”, they were told.
• An American Airlines flight from Tokyo to Dallas had an emergency landing in Honolulu when the crew discovered a squirrel that had stowed away on board. The creature was given a new home among the palm trees in Hawaii and the aircraft took off again for its final destination with all its munchable wiring still in tact.
• A British man recently completed a 13-year worldwide journey during which he only traveled under his own steam. Jason Lewis traveled 46,505 miles across the globe using various means of self-propulsion; he roller bladed across North America, kayaked from Australia to Singapore, biked from Singapore to the Himalayas, hiked through the Himalayas and even pedaloed (a form of waterborne transport, primarily for recreational use, powered through the use of pedals) from Mumbai, India crossing the Indian Ocean to Djibouti. Included in with his adventures was being run over by a car in Colorado, breaking both legs, and being arrested in Egypt when his visa ran out on suspicion of spying.