As we landed from our eight-hour long flight on Christmas Day, I couldn't wait to get to the hotel room and take a long nap. Flights have never been easy to sleep on, from screaming kids to the air-hostesses who ask us for food every two hours. I had been watching Christmas movies that were available all through the flight. As we get off the plane into this new country of France my heart starts racing with excitement to discover and explore it.
We waited by the baggage claim for a few minutes, luckily our bags came out fast. We collected them and left immediately to reach our hotel which was a three-hour long drive from the airport. As we sat in the taxi, I could see the beautiful scenery and tourist attractions that made this country fascinating. Throughout the car ride, I spoke to my family about the agenda of our trip and the places we must visit. And finally, after a three-hour long journey, we reached the hotel which had been decorated perfectly for Christmas. A huge Christmas tree was right in the centre. It had the most beautiful ornaments all over it and what made it even more magical was the bright and shining star on top. We checked in and went to the room. I was opening the suitcase to get my pajamas to take a long nap when I saw something, something shocking. Those weren't our clothes. I could see the clothes of two-year-olds, diapers, toys to play with and a small milk bottle. We had misplaced our luggage. Our original suitcase had my mother and my clothes along with our iPad and laptops and our money!
My father immediately contacted the airport stating that our suitcase had been taken by someone and we had also taken the wrong suitcase. However, how was that possible? There may have been two exactly identical suitcases to get misplaced, I wondered. The airport did not want to disclose the names of the passengers so now we were left to fend for ourselves. The tag on the bag that we had wrongly picked had the name Narayan on it. My father was shocked. There was a colleague in his office whose name was Narayan and apparently, he was also on a vacation. So, we tried our luck and contacted him. I did not expect him to be the Narayan with our suitcase. There are nearly eight billion people in our world. How could it possibly be him?
I was absolutely taken by shock when my father said that this was the same person. “Wow! That’s amazing now we just have to contact him to get our luggage back!” my mother exclaimed. My father spent the next hour trying to contact him, figure out the situation and how we could take back our luggage. He said that his family was leaving for Prague that evening itself so we would have to get our luggage back by that night itself. They were staying at a hotel three hours away. We left as soon as possible. After a long three hours, (which is probably the longest I had ever gone without my laptop) we reached their hotel. But there was another issue to get through before we could finally get our luggage back. The Narayan family had gone out and the hotel manager said that he needed an identity card to prove that we could take our bags back. “Oh God! We have left our passports back at the hotel,” said my father. Panic takes over again.
My father came up with a smart solution, he had his driver’s licence which could be used as proof. He verified that the baggage was ours after this and we finally were allowed to leave with our baggage. We felt so relieved that we had finally managed to get our items safely. This incident only made my belief in Christmas miracles stronger. There were very few chances that we could have securely contacted the person in this brand-new place as well as retrieved our luggage safely. After a long six-hour drive to and from Narayan’s hotel, I finally got to take a well-deserved nap, with all my luggage intact of course!
Whenever I recollect this incident, it makes me laugh. I will cherish these memories in my heart forever. It truly was a Christmas miracle; we got our luggage back!
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