The Misworn Money Belt: Or, What Not to Do on Your Summer Vacation

3. We were nowhere near it, and we'd certainly miss our flight.

We were now stuck in Bilbao's airport, 10 minutes or so from downtown. Our astounding lack of research and preparation, along with a fondness for winging it, had proved costly.

Luckily, we found an evening flight (for about $215 each, compared with the $50 we'd paid for our original tickets) to London on EasyJet, which meant we'd spend the next eight hours in the airport lamenting our misfortune. It also meant I'd spend my afternoon on an airport pay phone, figuring out how to replace my stolen Air India ticket home.

After multiple calls to New York's Kennedy Airport, London's Heathrow Airport and Air India's New York office, I had pressed about 978 buttons and needed my prepaid calling card minutes replenished. I would have to call my parents and ask them to do it for me. Gulp.

I had resisted contacting my folks the entire time I'd been in Europe, so I dreaded the prospect of calling for a favor. I was a vagabond, a young man on the greatest adventure of his life, and vagabonds do not call their parents for extra calling card minutes. In fact, I wasn't sure vagabonds even had parents.

I called. Mom answered. I pleaded for 500 extra minutes, told her I would explain later, thanked her and hung up. Considering the brevity of my phone call and the lack of information disclosed, I figured I hadn't violated any sort of vagabond code of conduct.

With more minutes, I called Air India's Mumbai headquarters and was told I would have to visit its London office to have my stolen airline ticket blacklisted. Blacklisted? Uh-oh. I'd done all I could on the phone, so I nervously looked ahead. We arrived at our London hostel after midnight.

* * *

Never mind that London is one of the world's most dynamic cities, with its endless array of museums, monuments, parks and neighborhoods. We were visiting a real-life Air India office! Opportunities like that don't come around every day.

At the Air India office that Wednesday, a friendly employee let me know that such pickpocket predicaments routinely were handled. She told me the airline would blacklist my ticket and give me a new one. I could not have been more pleased.

Then she explained that I'd have to call the company that issued my ticket, StudentUniverse in Massachusetts, and have it call Air India to confirm the information. StudentUniverse would then have to fax a copy of the ticket to London. From there, Air India would send the info electronically to its headquarters in Mumbai. Then the headquarters would relay the blacklist confirmation back to the London office, which would contact Heathrow Airport and tell its employees there to hand me a new ticket.

It would all have to happen if I were to board my flight Friday morning.