Things Will Go Wrong: Missing Passport and Wallet Edition

I’m waiting for a courier to deliver my passport (and maybe my wallet too?) to a hotel room in the middle of Lisbon. It’s the first time I have ever been properly stranded: no passport, no driver’s license, no credit cards, no insurance cards, no phone that works internationally.

I’m still not entirely sure how this happened.

I was flying from Vienna to Newark via Lisbon. I had everything when I removed my money belt to go through security in Vienna. But when I was doing a check on the plane before landing in Lisbon, I realized that it was gone. At some point between security and that moment, it had vanished.

After we landed, the airline searched the plane. Nothing.

I emptied my bags. Nothing.

I was able through messenger to ask my partner to call Vienna Airport to see if anyone had turned in my passport/wallet. He did, but it was 6:11pm and the office closed at 6pm. He filled out a request form, but there was nothing more that could be done.

I had had emergency cash, but used it on my previous stop as I was headed home. Further, because my wallet was stolen a week before I departed for this trip, I didn’t have more normal reserve credit card for emergencies as the replacement had not come in time.

The wifi at the airport was super spotty, so I tried to take my normal phone out of airplane mode in the hopes of contacting my emergency travel help (through Duke). Normally, when traveling in Europe, I have a special phone specifically for Europe but I had left that in Slovakia since it’s no good in the US. But even when I turned on roaming, the phone just said that I had no access to the network. I couldn’t call my travel insurance/SOS line, and the online chat wasn’t working due to the wifi not being strong enough (the chat would not connect). My phone wouldn’t work with an esim, either and I had no way to pay for a new sim card (my phone also can’t do contactless payments). 

I visited the airline to ask about my options for rebooking the flight – only to find out I had none (due to how I had booked the previous flight).

The embassy was closed. Someone called their after-hours emergency line for me, but they didn’t pick up. I tried to access their website but could not get it to load properly.

But when I spoke with the people at Western Union about if someone could transfer money to me with only a passport copy and expired passport to prove my identity, they told me that was illegal.

I write all this like I was calm and methodical.

I was not.

I had always known something like this could happen, and had tried to prepare for it. I had an expired passport and passport copies as well as passport style photos just in case. I still had all of that.

But in that moment, it felt like I had very little else.

And that’s where I was wrong – because what I had was my network even if I was only connected to them by spotty wifi.

I am grateful to everyone who tried to figure out how to send me food and money.

I am grateful to everyone who listened to me cry about my issues with the embassy.

Finally, I am grateful to everyone who prayed for me.

I’m not sure how it happened, but it feels like a miracle: my passport (and possibly wallet?) was found in Vienna Airport yesterday. My partner called them 1 million times, and arranged for them to send it here. I’m waiting for it now, so that I can book a flight out and get back to the US. FedEx says the passport is already in Lisbon. Thank God Europe is small.

It seems like a fact that on a long trip, something will go wrong.

Some going-wrong is mitigatable or preventable, but even with great planning and preparation things will happen. I have never had to experience a truly catastrophic situation, and hopefully never will. However, sickness, injuries, hospitalizations, transportation strikes, hurricanes, floodings, bombings, a global pandemic, theft, visa issues, my debit card getting eaten, are all things that have thrown a major wrench in my ability to go from point A to point B. Sometimes, that meant eating only cold canned food because that was all I could afford. Sometimes, that meant begging some hefty favors from generous friends. But in all these cases, it was the good will and kindness of that network (and random strangers who let me borrow their phones) that make the potentially disastrous into a vaguely stressful memory.

Final reflections about the nature of grace:

It seems kind of basic, but in all of this people did not really care how it happened.

I cared, in the sense that I was like how could I have been so dumb? How did this happen?

But in general, people did not care.

The question was not how did you end up here as much as what can we do to help you now that you are here.

I found myself remembering a situation back in 2019 which was objectively my fault. I was in Hong Kong, on the way to mainland China. I thought I had a Chinese Visa good for 10 years, but it had turned out I had misunderstood it (despite the fact that it really was pretty clear) and it was only good for 60 days (which had long passed). A friend sat with me, helped me get the cash I needed, and navigated the whole thing with me. He made an extremely stressful process a fond memory. That particular issue was 100% preventable and was 100% my fault. But grace did not really care about that – instead, grace helped me, whether I had caused my own problem or not.

I’m still not sure how it happened that I got separated from my wallet and passport – we will see if my wallet turns up with the passport and if anything is missing from it. But none of the people who helped me really cared about what I could have done to prevent it. People just cared about getting me fed, housed, and home. I don’t know what better gift they could have given me.