Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Getafe

English - Students' Corner - Contributions

A Nightmare Trip, by Vera (Av2 Mon, 2009-2010)

In 1988 Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses were published. Muslin integrists considered it a blasphemy. Therefore, Ayatolá Jomeini offered a reward to whoever either captured or gave some information that helped to capture the writer. Because the Indian author is a nationalized British citizen, the U.K. and its economic and commercial interests were threatened as well.   In 1989 I went to Brazil to spend two weeks with my family. Afterwards, I intended to spend one week in London and one week in Rome, where my elder sister lived. For this reason, I had bought my ticket with British Airways. My return trip began in Sao Paulo. After one hour, we reached Rio de Janeiro, where we had to remain for 40 minutes to take passengers in transit. However, we were asked to get off the craft.

We had been waiting at the transit ward for at least three hours when we were asked to go to the landing strip, where we found out that our luggage was lined up on the ground. I had to identify mine and the following step was to be searched by police officers.

When we got on the airplane no one explained what was happening. Luckily, I was sitting next to two politicians who were able to get some information about the incident – believe or not, it had been a terrorism threat!!!

Nine hours passed and we were sure that our eventful flight was about to finish when the pilot informed us that we would land on Lisbon Airport in Portugal -- it was unbelievable. 

I spent five hours trying to change my ticket London-Rome to another one, Lisbon-Rome and I finally managed it.

Getting to Rome I thought that my nightmare trip was finally over. However, the Air Company had mislaid my luggage so I had to buy new clothes and the rest of the things I needed.