I remember a couple of consecutive NBA championship series some 40 years ago that pitted the Bullets against the SuperSonics (Washington vs Seattle), which kind of describes what Washington state is like, to some extent. It was from one of those series that one of the coaches popularized “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”, though I doubt he actually coined that phrase.
Actually it was coined in 1976 in a college basketball game in Texas. It was popularized during the NBA playoffs in 1978 between the Washington Bullets and San Antonio Spurs.
The very first time I flew (which was in 2003) my flight was delayed because this exact thing happened. Apparently after we all boarded the gate agents realized one of the boarding passes they had scanned was for the wrong flight (I’m not sure why they didn’t catch it the moment they scanned it). The flight attendants made several announcements along the lines of “This flight is going to Chicago. If you’re not going to Chicago you should deplane now” but no one got off. Eventually they figured out that the person who didn’t belong on our flight didn’t speak English and thus didn’t understand any of the announcements. Adding to the confusion, as I recall there had been another flight that was supposed to depart from our gate but had been delayed due a late arriving aircraft. So I assume this person was supposed to be on that flight, couldn’t understand the boarding announcements stating that this was a different flight, and just followed the crowd.
Lack of English proficiency is a definite problem. We have folks who also make announcements in the native language of wherever the flight is going. But there’s nothing preventing an e.g. Russian tourist from visiting an e.g. Spanish-speaking country and traveling via the USA despite having very, very little English or Spanish.
The worst of those I recall was a couple of decades ago I found a lost ~5yo boy who’d somehow gotten separated from his adults. The kid was highly upset, looked sorta Slavic / Polish, and spoke no English. It was late in the evening and very soon the last flights would be leaving and all the workers would be going home. All-terminal PAs didn’t turn up any parents missing a kid. The clock is ticking … I and a female gate agent are trying to keep the kid from panicking and dashing off into the crowd again. He definitely didn’t want to be held or even touched by strangers.
Suddenly up run two very distraught Slavic looking parents, out of breath and looking like they’d run a marathon. Cue tearful reunion. They too spoke zero English past a halting “thank you”. I think the language was Polish though I never found out for sure. I don’t know whether they made their flight or not.
A scary spot for everyone involved.
My step-daughter phoned in a panic from Lapaz, Baja, Mexico. She had told her travel agent she wanted to go to La Paz, Bolivia.
My wife’s other daughter was an an accident near Billings, Montana. The travel agent typed in Billings MO, and the airline counter was waiting with a ticket to Springfield, Missouri. They fixed it and flw her to Montana on compassionate fare…
I saw that on a connecting flight in Portland. I was coming in from Narita, Japan and after going through customs got on a flight to Salt Lake City. Next to me was a mother and daughter from Japan and we started chatting in Japanese. It winds up that they were supposed to be going to somewhere else, but got on that flight by mistake. These were those gates where you climbed down the stairs walked over to the airplane and got on. They just chose the wrong airplane. I helped them get a flight attendant and it got straightened out.
On all international flights I’ve been on the flights are leaving from the International Terminal and while the passports are rechecked at the gate the visas are not rechecked. That is all done at the ticket counter.
A friend landed in Gainesville, FL when she had asked to fly to Gainesville, Ga. She had been very clear with the reservations agent that she wanted to fly to a regional airport north of Atlanta, but the reservations agent must of thought she was bonkers and issued a ticket for FL. This was a last-minute ticket pick-up at the airport and my very rushed friend found herself on the way to Florida, a long way from where she needed to be. Mistakes happen when you are in a hurry, but the ticketing agent should have listened and clarified, too.
I remember many moons ago watching Johnny Carson, and his guest was somebody who wound up in Auckland New Zealand, when their intended destination was Oakland California. Carson did a spot-on imitation of an announcer with a down-under accent relaying “Now boarding for Auckland” over the PA.
About midnight during a college party, someone yelled “Tri-State Trolley’s leaving from track two!” My roommate from Denver and I jumped in the car, and were informed we were on an impromptu road trip, hitting three states.
“Bu-but I have a class on Monday morning!” wailed the Coloradan. The driver laughed “We’ll be back in an hour and a half. And that’s with a stop at Lester’s All-Nite Diner.”
When Vancouver BC hosted the Winter Olympics, some spectators ended up in Vancouver WA by mistake.
No one even knows Vancouver, WA exists.
They sell shirts that say:
VANCOUVER
. . . not BC
WASHINGTON
. . . not DC
Washington state needs to change its name. I favor “Edge”, because no state names start with “E”.
That happened to Stephanie & Michelle on an episode of Full House.
On an average July afternoon, it is 7 degrees F warmer in Ottawa than in Mexico City.
That’s due to Mexico City’s high elevation, I assume?
I had a similar realization about Uganda when I visited a few years ago. Even though it’s right on the Equator, it was actually kind of chilly there due to the elevation.
Not me, but a friend in Japan. He is terrible at geography and thought that Taiwan was on the same latitude as Tokyo.
Happened in real life first, though.
On an annual average basis one of the coldest big towns/small cities in the USA is Flagstaff Arizona.
It’s built on a sky-island mountain in the middle of very hot dry desert. If you didn’t know about the elevation you’d expect it to be one of the hotter places in the USA, not one of the coldest. (on average).
Flagstaff is one of the neatest towns to drive into; “sky-island mountain” is an apt description.
Eldest was running in the NAIA cross country nationals, which were held in Vancouver, WA. I assumed it was a Kansas City MO/KS sort of situation and planned to see the relatives in Seattle while I was out there. Turns out it is almostly the opposite of that, with Vancouver, WA being on the Oregon border.
Although just now looking at a map, Vancouver, Canada is farther from Seattle then I recalled from vacations there in the 1970’s.
In July, Ottawa gets about 3 more hours of daylight than Mexico City. It also has, I suspect, higher humidity: water vapor is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, which means that Mexico City will radiate off more of the day’s heat in its longer night than will Ottawa.