My daughter has it down pat, really.
The key to this one was to try to bring her American son into Malaysia for 2 weeks to see his grandparents, complete with return ticket, but on a passport that is only valid for another 4 months. Now, as everyone knows, people with passports that aren’t valid for 6 months are able to overstay as illegal immigrants as easy as pie, especially when they are 5 years old. (We were contemplating sending him out to work in the plantations. Darn it, foiled again.)

So the airline refused to let the child board the final leg of the flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. This after a 4 hour drive to Dulles airport, followed by a 14 hour flight to Japan, a couple of hours in transit there, another 6 hours to Singapore, a layover of 9 hours at the airport…that adds up to 37 hours travelling…with a 5 year old.

Don’t miss the crunch of all this: grandson is not a Malaysian citizen because he committed the heinous crime of being born abroad instead of in Malaysia. My daughter is – obviously – female, and Malaysia practises blatant and unrepentant sexism, denying citizenship to the children of Malaysian women – but not to the children of Malaysian men born under exactly the same situations. Nice, modern nation, this.

So there you are – denied entry to what ought to be his own country, but isn’t. (I am not blaming the airline – they are under instructions from the government. And my daughter should have read all that fine print you need a magnifying glass to see.)

Now here’s the second crunch: my daughter was not travelling with her husband. And she cannot extend or get a new passport from what is for her a foreign country, on her own. Her husband was attending a conference away from home. I ended up phoning him in the wee small hours of the morning, his time, to ask him to find a notary who will notarise a form obtained on the internet, granting permission for a new passport to be issued. Needless to say he couldn’t find one at 1 a.m.

The other thing required was a copy of child’s birth cert. The original of which is in their home – now an empty house, remember, as the whole family is away.

In the meantime, over-tired grandson has lost it and is throwing tantrum in Singapore. I tell daughter by phone to try a more congenial airline, which she does. And finally, after signing loads of promises about how she will pay all fines incurred by the airline for allowing the criminal entry of a 5 year old with a perfectly valid passport, the lovely and intelligent supervisor allows her to buy a ticket for them both on this airline. (The same one I always use if I possibly can…) And they arrive, somewhat lighter in pocket, and many hours late, but at least on the right day.

Problem, after the assembly of all documents by the American embassy, three days later grandson has a brand new passport waiting for him in another country – Singapore – which he cannot fly to. Now what?

And here’s the irony. Malaysia has for years been trying to entice its citizens who live abroad back to serve their country. Scientist daughter has degrees from Oxford and Cornell (Pd.D) but does this country really, really think she will return if they won’t give her child citizenship? The right to attend a government school? The right to get a job? If she can’t get her husband permanent residency? If they won’t even give her mother (me) permanent residency?

Dream on, Malaysia. This is how you lose your brightest and best.
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Today is the 20th anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s velvet revolution, which in the end resulted in the replacement of the Communist government by a democracy.

Actually the disturbances started slightly earlier, when we were in Prague.*

October 28th was the anniversary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia as an independent state in 1918. In the main square as I recall, they were putting up a viewing stand or something similar, as we strolled through the main square on October 27th 1989 – my husband and younger daughter, then aged 14, and myself. We left the next morning for another part of the country, which was probably just as well.

Here is an extract of a letter I wrote to my mother on Sunday the 29th October, after we returned to our home in Vienna.

We are safely back in Wien, having missed out on the riots yesterday (much to T’s disgust.) Looking at T.V last night here in Wien, I think the shots of the demonstrations and the police bludgeoning people into submission was taken from our hotel window – the very room – overlooking Wenceslas Square. Those young people are so brave; Czechoslovakia is an unforgiving country.

I was a great admirer of Vaslav Havel then, and later too, when he negotiated the splitting of the country without the horrors that were to come in Yugoslavia**.

I think my first real inkling of what the fall of the Berlin wall really meant to people was a few weeks later. I walked down to the tram stop in Nussdorf and caught a tram to Heiligenstadt U-bahn station. And there, in the station, was parked a train of a strange colour. I stared at the writing on the side and my jaw dropped. It was from Czechoslovakia.

For the first time – in how many years? – a train had crossed into Austria. And Vienna was full of people with no money but a boundless joy in at last being able to catch a train, or drive their noisy little Trabants and Ladas, to visit their neighbour.
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*which gave more fuel to the rumour that my husband dragged revolution and mayhem in his wake whenever he travelled. Either that, or he lost his luggage – and yours too, if you travelled with him. That expression “to be noramlyed” was not lightly earned.

**NOTE: I originally used the expression “when freedom came to Yugoslavia”. It has been rightly pointed out to me that Yugoslavia did not lack freedom. The country was non-aligned and in no way comparable to iron curtain countries in its politics, economics or liberalism. My sincere apologies for my moment of careless thoughtlessness. Not sure what I was thinking, as I did know this, having been living next door. Sigh. Sometimes I wonder what, um, doesn’t go on in my head…
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My flight was Charlottesville to Dulles Airport (Washington DC), then Newark (NY – well New Jersey actually), then Stockholm and home.

The first flight was fine. Arrived in Dulles early. Found gate, plugged in and did some writing. Then comes announcement: delay because of weather over Newark. Doubt over what time would be taking off. Start worrying. Departure time keeps on changing. I have a three and a half hour layover in Newark, and it starts being eaten up… I know that when I get to Newark, I have to change terminals, get a boarding pass for my Malaysian Airlines flight and pass through security. No joke.

At 6.30 (when I should have been landing in Newark), there’s an announcement – change in Gate number. Get over there quick, and the plane will leave as soon as you do. So we all rush off. When we get there, someone tells us the plane is not there yet. Then a pilot comes rushing past, glances at the gate info and does a double take. ‘Whoa,” he says, “that’s my flight. How come it’s here?” He was on his way to the gate we had just left.

Right. Anyway, he gets that sorted out, and yes, we are supposed to be leaving from this gate. We also hear that yes, there had been bad weather in Newark, but the plane had been taken for some kind of repair anyway…

We hang around for a bit longer. Finally plane arrives and we get to board. Then we don’t move. Seems there’s something wrong with the onboard computer. “Not to worry,” says captain, “happens all the time. We have to get the technician to come and reboot the cockpit.”

Oops. We passengers start laughing. Nothing else to do. It is now way after 7.30.

Technician arrives, fiddles around, lights go on on the cockpit console (hey this is a small plane, ok?). Technician gets off, we start taxiing, wondering all the time what can go wrong next.

After a strangely long time wandering all over Dulles airport taxi runways, we finally stop. “Sorry,” says pilot. “We were directed to another runway. Now we have to wait.” (I assume because we had lost our slot in the take off line.) We sit, and sit and sit.

Plane finally gets into the air at 8.15. We almost applaud. Great anvil black clouds on our left as we fly on into Newark. Land at 8.55. Off plane and in terminal at 9.05. No signs telling me how to get to the terminal I need. Ask questions.

Start running. Finally find airtrain to right terminal. Then rush to check-in counters. MAS counter not there. It’s 2 floors down on the arrivals floor. Rush down. Counters still open. Wow. Thanks MAS. Have to wait for another person to be attended to – same problem, her flight also delayed because of weather. (Find out later that she lives just a few streets away from me in Malaysia, in the neighbouring sub-division.) I am dishevelled, perspiring, panting.

Girl behind counter deals with me, records my luggage details (it had been booked, in Charlottesville, straight through to K.L.), hands me the boarding pass. Offhandedly she says, “We have upgraded you to business.”

I almost jump over the counter to hug her. But no time. Rush off to find gate. Have to pass through security. Take shoes off. Take out plastic bag of liquids. Take out computer. Put it all back again. Find gate.

And I am finally on the plane, sinking into the lap of luxury, fabulous service, good food, excellent wine, personal entertainment, a chair that becomes a bed. Meals are a dream. The cutlery is metal, not plastic that wouldn’t cut icecream. And it tastes delicious. The coffee tastes like coffee should. There is even a buttonhole embroidered into the spotless white napkin, for gossake. Oh, wow, if only plane travel was all like this. MAS business class: I love you. Just tell me what I have to do to get upgraded again.

I am in Kuala Lumpur, on time, well-fed and rested.

Was that the end of the story? Of course not. I am a member of the Noramly family, don’t forget.

My luggage is still in New Jersey.

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Synopsis: many years ago 2 sons-in-law invented a new passive verb: “To be noramlyed”. The meaning: when you travel with any member of the Noramly family, something will go wrong with your plans. Now read on…

Daughter and husband have been noramlyed. Firstly, she and her husband sent their passports off to have a Chinese visa inserted…but only one passport came back. Much telephoning and pleading ensured.

Promise was extracted that passport would arrive on plane at local airport at 11 pm, the night before they were to leave at 7 am. Hmm.

Drive out to airport. One hour later, it was established that a) passport was not at airport and in fact no one had the faintest dea where it was, and b) the plane it was supposed to have come in on was not arriving – at all. Which might not have been such a huge problem, had it not been the same plane they were supposed to be taking out the next morning. Which might not have been such a huge problem, except that they were connecting to a flight, to China, in Atlanta and there was no other flight that would get them there in time to make the connection.

Midnight to 2am, they spend 2 hours on 2 telephones to:
a) find out where passport is
b) book new flights
c) persuade airline to add 2 days on to end of trip seeing as they were going to knock 2 off the beginning – yep, they couldn’t get them to China until 2 days later!

Of course, there are all kinds of knock on effects too…

Noramlyed, definitely.
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You’d think that I have enough trouble being Noramlyed by the winds of fate whenever I travel, without encouraging disaster on myself.
Yet that’s exactly what I did today.

I was saved by a young lady called Nor’Ain, and a young man called Putra, who both work for the Bintang Warta supermarket down here where I live.

Today – after visiting the moneychanger to change some notes into Australian dollars, I did a spot of shopping – and left my purse behind at the counter. Containing not only the money and credit and bank cards, but also my passport. And I am leaving early Tuesday morning.

That was almost the end of my trip – but Nor’Ain found the purse and sent it down to the head of security, Putra (which means prince btw), who immediately telephoned my handphone after extracting my business card from the purse. He reached me before I even made it home.

Lovely honest people who restore one’s faith in the world, refusing a reward too.

Thank you to you both.

Noramlyed once more.*

The last 3 days have been awful, with one miserable thing happening after another, a lot of them costing me money that I didn’t expect to have to pay out.

So I guess I should not have been surprised to find that something went wrong when I took my husband out to the airport for an international flight. His passport was 3 days under 6 months to expiry – and they wouldn’t let him on the plane. So he had to dash off to the immigration and get a new passport. But in K.L. there are more demonstrations, and more road blocks, and tens of kilometres of traffic jams. And it was a Selangor State holiday, so no chance of going to the state passport office. What a stressful mess. Anyway, finally he took off 24 hours late, and 600 RM out of pocket for new ticket and new passport.

*word invented by the guys who married into this family, to describe the inevitable disaster that happens when travelling with us. Can be used as a verb: “We’ve been Noramlyed again” or an adjective: “It was a Noramlyed trip.”