Dorothee
Mon Feb 23 2009, 8:48am
Hi, there,
The last three weeks have been a huge learning experience for me and now, as it is over, I want to share it with you, folks.
It all started with the Abe Mexico Cruise, which was the reason that I went on vacation in a time of the year in which I wouldn’t have thought about going at all, since February is not really my favourite month for anything, it is cold and wet nearly anywhere, at least in Germany and – as I learned then – also in California.
So I signed up for the Cruise and the nearer the time for it came, the more I started to nag a bit with the Universe for having to stay there at such an unfavourable time etc. After I had already booked my flights, an opportunity arose in my office to combine a business trip with this vacation, which would then enable me to travel business class instead of economy, so I accepted and changed my plans accordingly.
This whole thing made the trip not easier, since I now had to haul around luggage and clothes for all kinds of weather (part of my business trip was a few days in Seattle, with temperatures around 30°F and rain) and for business and leisure and the cruise. Great! It didn't serve me in raising my vibration at all!
The first days in San Diego I was attending a conference, packed with people from the hospitality and banking business and all if them as “what-is”-oriented as possible, and again I noticed that this was not really where I wanted to be. I could feel my focus shift to things I didn’t like and began to really look forward to my vacation. After 3 days, as I was packing my things for Seattle, I suddenly noticed that my passport was missing!
At first, I was shocked and then I started to think, wow, I need my passport to get on to the airplane for my next destination, what do I do now? A phone call with the airline gave me some reassurance, since they told me I would be able to board the plane without passport, using my driver’s licence. Yet a second telephone call sent me way back down the spiral, since the nice person at the German Consulate told me that without my original passport there would be no way how I could board the ship to Mexico and come back to the US!
So I drove to the airport and boarded my plane to Seattle and all the way I thought “This is not possible, it is just not possible that this happens to me, there’s no way that I can’t get on board, this can’t be true!”
After my arrival in Seattle, I had two days packed with meetings and project tours, so that until Friday afternoon there was nothing I could do in this regard. Friday afternoon I stayed in my room and started calling each and every person and institution I had been in while I was in San Diego, but nobody could help me. Additional phone calls with the travel agency and Princess tours led to the same answer: no way to get on board, because the US won’t let me back, even if I have a valid, but temporary passport.
Saturday, I flew back to San Francisco and drove down to Monterey. This normally is one of my favourite places in the world, the weather was nice and sunny, but I couldn’t relax and enjoy the surrounding, the anxiousness just made me blind for the beautiful scenery.
Monday came and at 8 in the morning I picked up the telephone and kept calling all day, Lost and Found, hotels, taxi company, travel agency, US Border Control, Princess, German Consulate, whomever. Always the same answer: no way, the ship won’t take you on board, forget about it, just don’t show up or the price for your room mate will go up considerably. Great!
At ca. 4 p.m. I realized, it is beautiful sunshine out there, I am sitting in a dark and crappy hotel room and I haven’t reached anything today, this is big-time struggle, it will never bring me to where I want to be!
I decided to call it a day, get out into the sunshine, enjoy at least these last 1.5 hours of daylight and just relax. This I did, I went out, walked through Monterey, sat on a bench in the sun and decided just to let go of the whole thing. No matter what the result would be, I’d have a good time anyway and there was nothing I could do, so I just gave up.
When I came home, I talked to my roommate at the telephone and told her about the whole thing, shed a few tears, but decided that I had done enough and that if it should be like that, I would just accept it.
I had a good nights sleep and in the morning I decided to make one last phone call to Princess and if they would tell me again what they had told me the last two times I had talked with them – no way to get on the ship – I’d call it a day and not even apply for a new passport.
I picked up the phone, talked with a very nice gentlement and couldn’t believe what I heard: “I'd say, if you have a valid passport, no matter if temporary or not, that should be enough to get on board, passport is passport. I don’t see a big problem in that.” – What???
He even went away for a second to ask someone else and came back a few minutes later with the same answer. I stared at the telephone in utter disbelief, it was as if someone had changed the film over night.
From then on, everything went really smoothly, with a few rumbles here and there, since my vibration was still a bit unstable, but within two days I had my new passport, valid for one year, and after a long hour in which I had to wait at the embarkation desk until the friendly person came back with my passport from the US Border Control office, all went really well.
The cruise was great, Abraham was over the top, wonderful people, gorgeous ship, everything just great and the re-entry into the US just a piece of cake. Very nice people at the Border Control, friendly and helpful, just a breeze!
So the biggest lesson of this trip was that struggle really gets you nowhere, that all our power lies in alignment and that letting go is sometimes the best of all strategies.
The complete change of the scenery (from “No Way!” to “Why Not?” over night) makes me really wonder how much of our reality is really “real” and fixed. It seems as if nothing is fixed, all is fluid, and the more we can open up to total unexpected outcomes, the more we get them.
Love,
Dorothee
The last three weeks have been a huge learning experience for me and now, as it is over, I want to share it with you, folks.
It all started with the Abe Mexico Cruise, which was the reason that I went on vacation in a time of the year in which I wouldn’t have thought about going at all, since February is not really my favourite month for anything, it is cold and wet nearly anywhere, at least in Germany and – as I learned then – also in California.
So I signed up for the Cruise and the nearer the time for it came, the more I started to nag a bit with the Universe for having to stay there at such an unfavourable time etc. After I had already booked my flights, an opportunity arose in my office to combine a business trip with this vacation, which would then enable me to travel business class instead of economy, so I accepted and changed my plans accordingly.
This whole thing made the trip not easier, since I now had to haul around luggage and clothes for all kinds of weather (part of my business trip was a few days in Seattle, with temperatures around 30°F and rain) and for business and leisure and the cruise. Great! It didn't serve me in raising my vibration at all!
The first days in San Diego I was attending a conference, packed with people from the hospitality and banking business and all if them as “what-is”-oriented as possible, and again I noticed that this was not really where I wanted to be. I could feel my focus shift to things I didn’t like and began to really look forward to my vacation. After 3 days, as I was packing my things for Seattle, I suddenly noticed that my passport was missing!
At first, I was shocked and then I started to think, wow, I need my passport to get on to the airplane for my next destination, what do I do now? A phone call with the airline gave me some reassurance, since they told me I would be able to board the plane without passport, using my driver’s licence. Yet a second telephone call sent me way back down the spiral, since the nice person at the German Consulate told me that without my original passport there would be no way how I could board the ship to Mexico and come back to the US!
So I drove to the airport and boarded my plane to Seattle and all the way I thought “This is not possible, it is just not possible that this happens to me, there’s no way that I can’t get on board, this can’t be true!”
After my arrival in Seattle, I had two days packed with meetings and project tours, so that until Friday afternoon there was nothing I could do in this regard. Friday afternoon I stayed in my room and started calling each and every person and institution I had been in while I was in San Diego, but nobody could help me. Additional phone calls with the travel agency and Princess tours led to the same answer: no way to get on board, because the US won’t let me back, even if I have a valid, but temporary passport.
Saturday, I flew back to San Francisco and drove down to Monterey. This normally is one of my favourite places in the world, the weather was nice and sunny, but I couldn’t relax and enjoy the surrounding, the anxiousness just made me blind for the beautiful scenery.
Monday came and at 8 in the morning I picked up the telephone and kept calling all day, Lost and Found, hotels, taxi company, travel agency, US Border Control, Princess, German Consulate, whomever. Always the same answer: no way, the ship won’t take you on board, forget about it, just don’t show up or the price for your room mate will go up considerably. Great!
At ca. 4 p.m. I realized, it is beautiful sunshine out there, I am sitting in a dark and crappy hotel room and I haven’t reached anything today, this is big-time struggle, it will never bring me to where I want to be!
I decided to call it a day, get out into the sunshine, enjoy at least these last 1.5 hours of daylight and just relax. This I did, I went out, walked through Monterey, sat on a bench in the sun and decided just to let go of the whole thing. No matter what the result would be, I’d have a good time anyway and there was nothing I could do, so I just gave up.
When I came home, I talked to my roommate at the telephone and told her about the whole thing, shed a few tears, but decided that I had done enough and that if it should be like that, I would just accept it.
I had a good nights sleep and in the morning I decided to make one last phone call to Princess and if they would tell me again what they had told me the last two times I had talked with them – no way to get on the ship – I’d call it a day and not even apply for a new passport.
I picked up the phone, talked with a very nice gentlement and couldn’t believe what I heard: “I'd say, if you have a valid passport, no matter if temporary or not, that should be enough to get on board, passport is passport. I don’t see a big problem in that.” – What???
He even went away for a second to ask someone else and came back a few minutes later with the same answer. I stared at the telephone in utter disbelief, it was as if someone had changed the film over night.
From then on, everything went really smoothly, with a few rumbles here and there, since my vibration was still a bit unstable, but within two days I had my new passport, valid for one year, and after a long hour in which I had to wait at the embarkation desk until the friendly person came back with my passport from the US Border Control office, all went really well.
The cruise was great, Abraham was over the top, wonderful people, gorgeous ship, everything just great and the re-entry into the US just a piece of cake. Very nice people at the Border Control, friendly and helpful, just a breeze!
So the biggest lesson of this trip was that struggle really gets you nowhere, that all our power lies in alignment and that letting go is sometimes the best of all strategies.
The complete change of the scenery (from “No Way!” to “Why Not?” over night) makes me really wonder how much of our reality is really “real” and fixed. It seems as if nothing is fixed, all is fluid, and the more we can open up to total unexpected outcomes, the more we get them.
Love,
Dorothee