Okay, listen up. If you are getting on an airplane and you get an inkling that something is not quite right, that perhaps you are off course, PAY ATTENTION to that feeling and double check.
If you want to head to Sydney, Australia but something seems amiss, ASK, for heaven’s sake. Otherwise you could be like Monique Rozanes Torres Aguero who boarded an airplane in Buenos Aires, Argentina with visions of taking in the Syndney Opera House, perhaps, and trying out phrases like “G’day Mate,” only to land in another city–another Sydney, a town in Nova Scotia that does not have one tourist attraction listed on its Web site, according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald. It does have the largest Ceilidh Fiddle in the World, though.
Ms Torres Aguero’s situation was not the first time this gaff has happened. Sydney, Nova Scotia, located on Cape Breton Island, has had other visitors unwittingly arrive at the airport expecting that they have landed Down Under.
Instead, there they are in an industrial, former coal mining town making the best of it since they are on vacation after all.
The problem that causes such errors is the drop down menu box that list airports with when you book on line. booking. Highlight the wrong airport and BAM, there you are one fine day in an unexpected place. This is kind of like Dorothy stepping out of the house in Munchkinland I would imagine.
There was a comment left on the post I wrote about a woman my mom met on a Greyhound bus who thought it only took one day to go from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, California. She thought she’d be in L.A. by morning.
The commenter told about one woman he met who was heading to Manchester, New Hampshire, or so she thought, but ended up in Manchester, England.
If you do ever end up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, by mistake or on purpose, it has a “beautiful island coastline” and you can use it as a springboard to a trip on the Cabot Trail, the trail followed by explorer John Cabot.
I hope there are some good restaurants at least and a decent hotel in Sydney, Nova Scotia. If you think about it, this travel story is a far better one to tell the grandkids later in life. Lots of people have the “my trip to Sydney, Australia” story. This other version gets you interviewed for a newspaper article.
Check out other troublemakers in the skies!