Episode 1: Phantom Passport

Prior to my departure to Shanghai for the summer, I needed to send my passport away in order to get my visa. When it was sent back to me, it arrived at my school address the day after I left. It was later forwarded to my home address, and shortly thereafter arrived in my hometown on the Thursday before I was scheduled to head to Shanghai (my flight was on June 2nd). However, the Post Office decided that this just wouldn't do, so they decided to send it back down to Miami for no apparent reason. I was told it would be delivered back to school in Miami on June 1st, so I decided that the only way to ensure that I had it was to fly down and spend the night in Mimi in the hopes that I could retrieve it and fly back the next day. I changed my ticket to Thursday and headed to Miami.

Once in Miami however, I spent the day searching to no avail, and came home empty-handed, as the passport

had left the Miami post office and was headed back out to some unknown destination. Numerous calls to customer service later, I still did not know where my passport would end up, or even if it would turn up at all. At the rate this was going, I decided to just cancel the ticket to

Shanghai for the time and try to get a new passport, with the earliest available appointment time being June 7th). However, it again popped up on the tracking website, and was again in Wallingford. I still did not know when or if it would be delivered, but it was finally delivered on June 4th. This allowed me to book a ticket to Shanghai for Saturday, the 5th, which would get me in 3 days after I was originally scheduled to arrive, but at least I was finally heading out to Shanghai!