Lost passport, yearly MOT, Mountains and Eurovision 2020.

Viv & Rob Kleinjan
Apr 5, 2020
8 min read

Lost Passport On February 21st we were travelling to Europe. The first day to Zoeterwoude and the next days/week to Vienna and the mountains in Austria. I left Bella Vista with our driver Ali to go to the Nigerian Breweries office to pick up Rob. From there we would go by airport LC, this is an armoured car, to the airport. We were really lucky with the traffic, I think this was the fastest ride we ever had. So already at 6pm we were at Murtala Muhammed International Airport. There’s always a protocol manager waiting for us when we arrive, his name is Benjamin and he always brings an assistant. We were already at the KLM check -in, when Benji asked for our passports, I bended forward, opened my little rug sack to take out my passport. I had it in my hands, and I believed that I gave it to somebody. But then Benji said I only have FD’s passport….I thought, I think….but the next moment not…………where the….is my passport? I panicked. "Rob do you have my passport”, “no of course not" he replied. "Have you checked your bag", he asked, "yes I did, I had it I’m so sure. So we checked my bag but it was not there. We decided to turn every bag, suitcase and hand luggage suitcase up side down. No passport was found. “No way this is not happening, now what?”, I thought desperately. We both started making phone calls. I called Jan, our consul general of the Dutch embassy and Rob called Remco, he’s Commerce Director of KLM Nigeria. Jan told me he never made a temporally travel document before. He was gonna call Atilla his right hand. Remco was gonna to pull some strings in the KLM. In the meantime, I called Glory, our help, if I might have left it at home, but I knew 100% sure it wasn’t at home, because when I left Bella Vista I asked Ali to stop and I checked, passport ✅, keys ✅, cerpac ✅ and vaccination book ✅. The armoured LC was called to turn back to the airport and we checked if my passport was inside his car. Answer; nope not there either. We were facing a huge problem. Without a passport there’s no way you can leave Nigeria. Jan, the consul, said I could come the next morning with two photos to make a temporarily document. Remco send the station manager to us because maybe he could do something. He told us to go to the Immigration Office, they were the people to talk to. We went into the catacombs of the airport behind the in check-in desks. Walking through the corridors of the airport was an experience. Dark, used, small corridors and suddenly a lot of carpets, which turned out to be the praying area or mosque. Most people working at immigration were Hausa men, with long tunics all light blue and a little hat. They looked impressive but they gave us not much hope. First they started with the remark, probably you left it at home and small steam was coming out of me, but I contained myself. They explained that if I might have lost it we should make an announcement, perhaps someone had find it. So we went to another place, I had to fill in some paperwork, apparently it was the policestation, we were told. After filling everything in they would make an announcement, which we never heard. So we went back to departures where the French station manager said we should speak to the highest officer in rank of the immigration office. KLM had approved that I could fly without passport and the consul had arranged with the Dutch Customs that I could enter the Netherlands without a passport. So the only hurdle to crack was Nigerian immigration. We went looking for the comptroller, the highest immigration officer. Unfortunately he was somewhere but no-one could find him. So we ended up with the second highest immigration officer. We went to his office, with Benji, a lady of the KLM check-in desk, Rob and I and someone else of which we did not have any idea what his jobs description was. The little office, with 5 pair of black shoes under his desk, had a television on with the volume on 10. (maybe he knew I was coming) The guy was very friendly, but at first he didn’t give us a lot of hope. He kept on saying that we could not leave since immigration needed to be able to put a stamp in something. It sounded a bit bureaucratic since I am clearly not Nigerian so preventing somebody leaving the country that is clearly from another country feels a bit bureaucratic, but rules are there to be obeyed. Then Rob said two things, one is, we have a photo of her passport on the computer, couldn’t we make a copy of it? And someone on the phone had told Rob that if we would make it a bit of a sad story, that might help. So Rob told this second rank immigration officer that I needed to travel to Vienna for a surgery, because I have had cancer. Then the man waved his arms and said, "Oh really, my wife is the best and most famous oncologist of Nigeria. She’s been on television, she’s really good”. But then we noticed a little difference in approach. He agreed we could make a copy of my passport photo and that we then could manage to get 2 stamps on it, this is really important. Although we can not reproduce exactly what the immigration chief said, but it was very close to: "This might be a potential option that we could consider that eventually maybe could work and something he could consider to probably be able to discuss and propose to his boss…..". So we knew we were in business. Rob left me in this little office, to find a copy machine. The second highest in rank immigration officer went to the mosque for prayers. When Rob was walking with Benji through the labyrinth of corridors, he told Benji that I never loose anything, he’s normally the one who’s loosing stuff, and that we inherited this from Jack, our son who always loses everything. When he came back in the little office, with the photocopies, he saw his rug sack with his back turned towards him. He thought we checked everywhere including his rug sack but not behind this little zipper at the back of it. "Shall I check it or not", he later told me. It could not be there because that is where he saves his passport and he had handed it in to Benji. So he thought let’s not check because if it is there, I would look extremely stupid, although maybe it was better to check because if it was there ….. and guess what, 3 hours later we had back my passport. So I'm not crazy after all, I did have it in my hands and must have given it to Rob who then put it back in his rug sack……….grrrrrrrrr %&*#*$*. They were all laughing, including myself, just so relieved I had it back in my hands and Rob felt very stupid for creating all this chaos.

Yearly MOT/TUV/APK/PICKERl

So off we went to The Netherlands and the very next day to Vienna.

We brought almost our ski gear with us, our ski boots, Rob’s skis not mine, helmets etc, so we had a lot to carry therefore we decided to take a taxi to our Airbnb. We choose this airbnb not only because it looked so nice but also because of the location. It was near our old house in Vienna. It was opposite the altes AKH, just on the other side of the junction at the end of our street. Monday was a busy day with doctors appointments, scans etc, all went well. Tuesday I had the bone density test and on Wednesday they took out my port-a-cath, after three years I feel confident enough to live without it. Monday evening we had a wonderful time with our Dutch friends in Vienna. One of them said that I was APK/MOT checked again, like with your car, you can drive another year. I totally agree, I feel it this way. I hardly think of it during the year, until the day comes nearer with the big check ups.

A House in the Mountains

Thursday 27th of February we drove to the mountains. This time not Tirol, Voralberg or Salzburgerland, no we went to Kaernten, this is the south of Austria with mountains and lots of lakes.

We stayed in a small village called Ebene Reichenau, just in-between Turracherhoehe and Bad Kleinkirchheim. The reason is to find a nice location for a house in the future. We skied in both places, saw some stunning houses and some houses that really were in a bad shape. We could discus everything with Eric and Ulrika, our Swedish friends who joined us with skiing. Robin’s in laws told us that Turracherhoehe is such a great place to ski, and yes we agree. However there’s not much more then ski accommodations, therefore we think in summertime it can be a bit dull. Bad Kleinkirchheim has a golf court, shops, restaurants and two Thermen or Spa’s in English. We ate the best steak ever with Anna Maria and Thomas Santler in Bad Kleinkirchheim. Also with these two lovely people it was so wonderful to catch up again, we know them very well from Villach. Austria feels like a second home. We know the Santlers and the Gothlins will stay in Austria. Robin and Armin and his parents are three hours drive ride away, not too far. And then came COVID-19 and everything was and still is on hold. So no news about houses etc, let’s first wait and see what the future will bring us, we are not in a hurry, but we have something to dream of.

Eurovision Song Contest 2020

On our way back to the airport we drove by to see Robin and said a quick hi and bye. The week before she was in Croatia with Armin, but got really sick there. It was good to hug her and see her for a moment and by Monday night we were back on Dutch soil.

Rob left on Sunday I flew a day later, the reason was that I had a training's day in Rotterdam because I’m the delegation host of Austria during the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. Well this was the idea, but due to the circumstances, it has been cancelled. Now I hope to be the Austrian delegation host next year again, but this has not been communicated nor confirmed yet.

I had a wonderful day in Rotterdam, with a fun tour around Rotterdam and an informative afternoon about the job description of a delegation host. We are with 82 hosts, 41 countries so every country becomes two hosts. My co partner in this is Carlo Hofman, 24 years old and a wonderful young man. I met so many nice people. Unfortunately Frank Otten and I were separated because his country North Macedonia was in the first semi final and Austria in the second semi final, but we saw each other briefly and hugged. We know each other since the ESC 2015 in Vienna. One of the leaders of this event is Anja, she asked me if I wanted to talk to a journalist because she found it so cool that I travelled from Nigeria to be there and to be part of the ESC 2020. So of course I was willing to talk to a journalist, apparently it was on tv, I didn’t think of this until I saw the camera. It was a nice chat of maybe 4 minutes, but he used only a small bit of it because he also asked some other people to say something. It was a wonderful experience overall. Such a big bummer it’s not gonna happen this year. 😢

https://www.anpfoto.nl/search.pp?page=1&ShowPicture=407970337&pos=

https://dagblad010.nl/algemeen/begeleiders-songfestivaldelegaties-gekozen