Official News - page 12

REAL LIFE NEWS: SPELLING MISTAKE SENDS TOURIST 8,000 MILES OFF-COURSE

by Hazed

A German tourist who made a typo on an online booking form was sent 8,000 miles out of his way on a journey to meet his girlfriend. He wanted to go to Sydney, Australia but his mistake took him to Sidney, Montana instead!

He left Germany, dressed in t-shirt and shorts for the Australian summer, on a Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago. When he realized his plane had headed for the US he didn't panic, because he figured it was possible to fly to Australia via America. He started to feel a tad concerned as he continued from Portland, Oregon to Billings, Montana. It was when he was about to board a commuter flight to the tiny oil town of Sidney, home to 5,000 people, that he realized that something was very wrong. "I did wonder but I didn't want to say anything," he told the German newspaper Bild. How very mild-mannered and unassuming of him.

He was left stuck in the middle of Montana in his shorts with only a thin jacket to keep out the bitter cold. After three days his family and friends were able to send him the money he needed to book a new ticket to Australia. The news story I read did not say whether he was forced to spend those three days camping out in an airport, or whether some local took pity on him and gave him a somewhere to stay! Nor did the story say anything about what his girlfriend did while waiting for him in Oz.

A very expensive and inconvenient typo, to be sure!

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