101 True Tales From the Terminal- Celebrating Airport Stories and Desiree's Book

101 True Tales From The Terminal

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[00:00:16] Nasreen: Hi, welcome back to another episode of Time to Talk Travel. We are here today on a momentous occasion because our very own Des Miller has a book coming out on the 22nd of August, which is her birthday.

It is called 101 True Tales from the Terminal and it is all about airport stories.

And we were just chatting for a minute before we started here saying, Oh, are there that many airport stories? Honestly, especially with people who travel a lot, you forget what you forget. And the telling of some of these stories just triggers more and more, Oh yeah, that happened. Or, Oh, that's kind of like the time this happened.

So the big question Des is what inspired you to write this book in the first place?

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And I shared this one person just came back from his flight and he's on his speaker and has now shared for the third time that he left his wallet on the last flight and had to run back and get it. Because he had thrown it in the pocket of his jacket and on the overhead bin, he had to run back and get his wallet. He's on speakerphone. We hear the story three times over, we all start rolling our eyes at each other, okay, once was enough. Then the next guy, he's on the speakerphone with his mom talking about, mom, I need you to pick me up three hours later than you're supposed to, because the airline is paying me $500 to take the next flight and mom is on the speakerphone.

This is an adult man, 30 ish, 35, probably. You will not be taking the next plane. I will not be sitting three hours waiting for you. You go back to that gate agent and tell them, put you back on that flight. And he's mom, $500 is so much money. And it's just the drama of this in your life. The poor guy and that poor mom, you know, for real. And then the next story is this lady sitting next to me with her baby who was being a perfect angel, really an infant. And Sharing that her baby now had more air miles than probably everybody around us because she'd been back and forth to see her mom who was sick and how much she hated, hated, hated the Atlanta airport because she lived in a town with a tiny airport.

So I posted on Facebook, just these great stories and how funny some of it was around me. I landed in Ohio and by the time I landed, I had 70 comments from friends about, Oh my gosh, this happened to me.

Oh, just let me tell you my story. And two of the comments were from people who said, Des, you have a book here. And then I thought, so I landed, , didn't know a soul at this Humor Writers Conference. I'm normally at Travel Writer conferences and I know people, I didn't know anyone at , but I met two really sweet ladies.

We had dinner. I kind of told them my story and they said, oh, you do. They said you know what? This is the Chicken Soup of the Soul for Travelers. The gal sitting next to me, Kathy Toley, she goes, , call it 101.

True Tales from the Terminal, because if you do a number, it'll appear first alphabetically. I thought, gosh, these ladies are geniuses. So I bought the URL right there at the dinner table. And then they said, you're going to have a sequel too. So buy more True Tales from the Terminal. We are dreaming big here. And then the next morning I was sitting at breakfast before the opening session and the guy sitting next to me happened to be a publisher. And I said, Hey, since you're a publisher, let me ask you, what do you think? And he said, if you write it, I'll buy it. I will publish it. All right, all the stars have aligned.

I'm going to do it. I started it and I got through 11 essays and then I just got busy with life. Then it came for the conference the next time and I thought, I cannot show up there without my book. And so I spent the next 90 days writing an essay every single day, until I had 101 essays, showed up at the conference and everyone said, is it done?

Is it published? And I said, it's written. And the publisher is meeting me this afternoon to hammer out the rest of the deal. So this is the baby. I've got it all. With little notes because I wanted to hit some of the highlights, but this is it. I went ahead and made a frame of the book cover behind me just because I, I'm so proud of it.

I love the cover. Isn't that clever?

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cute with the airplane window.

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I know you will. I'm sure you guys have airport stories. Ooh,

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So, yes, so many airport stories, , but Mo is fresher off the airport status right now than I am because she literally landed yesterday, right?

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[00:06:21] Desiree: That's the number one.

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I don't know how you say it,

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[00:07:06] Maureen: , they have koi ponds, just beautiful artwork, they have Interactive screens. Everything is pristine and beautiful. , that's certainly not the standard for every airport, but it was interesting to see them take the time and effort to make the airport an experience as well.

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take you to your gate. Like you gotta send your carry on down

And then you follow. No joke!

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And I know that Mo has said she's a long dress and platform sandals girl. And I am just picturing her trying to go down a slide to her plane, thinking this would have been a lounge wear day.

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think if she, if she, had

been in the airport bar first, having two or three of her drinks, she would have done it. No doubt. 100%. I

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Half of my stories are people watching in airports and the clothing is definitely, I'm sure you have to have a few of those people who think that going out in their pajamas, I've even seen bathrobes,

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Five minutes later, they said, he's clearly drunk. We probably need to get him off the flight. So they escorted him off and the pilot felt bad because it was his call. And the pilot watched him as he went off. And he said, I didn't think he was that drunk. I didn't, I really was feeling kind of guilty. Maybe we made a bad call there. He said, by the time we landed at the next destination, his friends were saying, did you hear what happened? And when he was escorted back in, he proceeded to take off everything he was wearing and was stripping through the airport. So good call there. And apparently it's not illegal to board a flight naked.

I looked into the rules. Most airlines do not have a rule clarifying this, but it is a struggle to get through TSA in no clothes there. I mean, it's so funny. I found all these rules. I had a friend who got stopped at TSA security. Her husband has all these food allergies, so they have to be really, really careful about boarding flights and making sure they get the right thing.

So one of the things that is safe for him is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It holds well, it travels well, it's all fine. Except, jelly is not TSA approved. It is a liquid. And if you have more than 4 ounces on your sandwich, they can totally confiscate your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. No joke!

It's a liquid. And I had to look up the definition of a liquid as anything that can change its form if lying flat. so, is this not interesting?

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And I never, I got it through every time and would show back up with chicken and dumplings. It was a short flight, then I'd bring it back for him. So , I think it really is that your mileage may vary, but the naked thing, in Vermont. Public nudity isn't necessarily against the law in most places, but you cannot disrobe in public.

You have to just show up naked. You can't take your clothes off. That's different.

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[00:11:02] Desiree: Yep.

I remember at a blogger conference, we were all given Play Doh and a bunch of people tried to bring it back and the first person who went through said, don't even try getting your Play Doh through, they're going to take it. So a whole lot of Play Doh got donated to a whole lot of TSA security.

I think this was in California when we were in San Diego . But , yeah, I have so many great TSA stories, so many great ones. ,

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I had to pull my shirt down and show the lady that it was my bra that was going off. I didn't have anything in

there. And then another time I was wearing a sequined shirt and it went off . It must've been some metallic thread in that as well.

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Drugs and things, putting it inside their body down below. And so they're especially aware of that. Anyways, she ended up having to have surgery. She had a distended. bowel part anyways, she had no idea. It's a great story. To this day, she has to thank the TSA security people because it wasn't something she was even aware was wrong in her body, but it picked it up and thought she was, thought

She was a drug mule, but she wasn't.

One of my favorites is just funny. It's something we can all relate to. It's called, now boarding . I'm going to read just a little bit of it

Whenever I book a flight, I always end up in group seven, even when I check in 24 hours ahead of time on the dot. Tappity, tappity, tappity, tap. That's me typing like a madman, hoping to beat my fellow passengers and secure a decent boarding number. But when my boarding pass pops up, group seven. Am I competing against professional typists? How many times have we all thought that when we go to Southwest or whatever, and you can't check in until 24 hours. Now they're changing this. They're going to assign seats in the future. And you're like, I'm seconds in, how am I already in B? I mean, we can all totally identify with that.

She goes on to say, I got tired of it. So I finally became a Delta person and I'm , all right, yay Delta. And they signed me for group two and I'm so excited. Group two. What I don't realize is Delta has all these others. The agent gushed, we will start with our Delta one passengers and The writer says, that must be their fancy name for first class.

That's okay. Main cabin one will be next, and then moi. After all the fancy pants people boarded, the agent announced, active military, you may now board. She saluted them. I'm not gonna argue with that one. Also, thank you for your service. I edged forward any moment she'll be calling the good folks of main cabin two. First class and Delta premium. You may now board. Gave them a round of applause. I thought Delta one was first class and what's this Delta premium you speak up? More fancy smug people boarded, but I didn't lose faith. I knew I was close. We now invite our diamond medallion members to board. The agent beamed. I sighed as if I could compete with a club based on diamonds and medallions. She goes on, but it's so funny and we can all relate because we all stand there Wait, how many more people can be above two? You know, so there's

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[00:14:39] Desiree: go

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And they're on three, there are going to be potentially five more levels before you get to go up.

Everyone's

in their starting blocks, ready to go.

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It turns out she's nice, too. Our time in the air flies by and it's all over all too soon. Over the next few weeks I take a few more flights, but I don't have nearly as much fun. And it hits me. Wouldn't it be nice to sit next to someone you'd like to sit next to on each and every flight? Why can't we do that? So I invented a company that makes it possible. It's called Airtroductions and it gives a different meaning to making your flight connections. This company actually existed and it let people connect . You could say what your seat was, number was, and if you want to sit next to a woman , whatever you wanted, and he sold the company for quite a bit of money. The company that took it over didn't run with it, I guess. I always see this as an April Fool's joke every single year with Southwest and a couple of airlines. Have you seen it where they say, Oh, now you can pick who you want to sit with. Speed dating in the air. I thought that was funny.

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[00:16:25] Desiree: I have a woman who had a seat, and was in line to board and these two girlfriends behind her were complaining that they weren't sitting together and they were so bummed and it turned out one of them was sitting next to the seat she was assigned. So she gave up her seat, said, you guys can sit next to each other. I'll take yours. So she swapped and she was like, Hey, Karma, you know, Karma was so good because it turned out the seat beside me was empty. So I got to stretch out a little bit. And I was so excited right until they were closing the gate.

And then all of a sudden one more person walks up and she's like, I'm looking down, willing it to please not be my empty seat. And it was, and of course he sits down, but she looks up. And he's hot and not just is he hot? He's got an accent and he sits down next to her and starts talking to her.

Clearly he's sweet on her and they start talking and 30 minutes in, he asks her on a date. She's like, I'm not even landing in the same city as you, but they both had taken off from Greenville, South Carolina. I mean, not a huge city. And , he said, well, when we both get back, we'll have dinner. They did meet for their date when they landed and then a year later they were booked on the same flight, going to the same place and in the same seats. And an hour into the flight, he proposed, he booked the flight intentionally with the same seats.

And they're still married. And isn't that sweet. I know quite a few people who've met their future spouses on flights and I love that you just never know who you're going to sit next to and Mo, we've both talked about this.

We've made lifelong friends from it. And one of the saddest stories in my book is from someone I was sitting next to on a flight.

It was a Southwest flight. He had the aisle. I'm a window girl. He was working on his computer when I boarded, I picked his window seat because he was wearing a Miami Dolphins ball cap and I'm a Dolphins fan. He's my people. So I tap him on the shoulder, excuse me, can I get to the window? He looked so clearly annoyed. He had to pick up his computer, get up from his seat, and I was , Dude, I like your hat. After that, he warmed up to me and we started talking and he's typing.

I said, I don't want to stop you from your work. He's no, it's fine. I can talk to a Dolphins fan anywhere. He lives in New England where the Patriots reign. So it's a very rare thing for him to find a Dolphins friend to talk to. We talk, I share, my dad had just died.

So I was kind of struggling and he said, my son just died. His son was only 26. Military, he had just bought an orange Jeep to match the Dolphins. I mean, it was heartbreaking, we talked the entire flight. And by the time we landed, we hugged each other, swapped business cards, and became Facebook friends. I became Facebook friends with his wife, who I'm tighter with to this day. When she flew in to see him on a business trip here, I went and met them for dinner. It was just, and, and after that, the Miami Dolphins actually honored his son at a mid fifth party. You know, when they honor military members who die and presented the dad, the wife and the two sisters on the field with an aqua, dolphin's uniform. I cried, I

cried. I mean, I wrote a whole blog post about it because of how high class. Some of his friends had reached out to the Dolphins and said one of your biggest fans died today

and the Dolphins sent orange and aqua roses to his funeral. I mean,

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[00:20:01] Desiree: Yeah. I mean, so there are just essays.

Some of them are really sad. I'm tearing up just thinking ,

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The one big piece of advice I have there for the airport in general is, Is if you're on one of those early morning flights with everyone who kind of staggers in and you can see who's a morning person and who isn't, you join the line for coffee, whether you think you want coffee or not.

You just get in the line because it's always long. And by the time you get to the front, you probably want coffee.

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[00:21:28] Nasreen: yeah.

not everyone does it, but when you can get it, actually the funniest thing I've made friends, in the airport, , the things that have made me buddies are. The outlet things you plug in, when you travel with one that has more so that everyone can have one in an area that doesn't have a lot.

I usually, when I was business traveling, had paper and crayons on me, particularly for the flight if there was a kid near me, because a lot of people just don't they don't know what to bring for their kids, or they don't bring it, and then they get, you know, I don't want to listen to it either, so I just give that.

And then , the coffee sticks. That's the Cafe Bustelo or the Via Coffee Sticks. Cause you can mix them into a water bottle. If there's no coffee available, you can make friends real fast that way.

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He said by the time he got to the hotel, 20 minutes. And standing in the lobby on the screen was a news video where a plane had just crashed and there was a big black hole in the ground and they were reporting on it that all 24 people on board had died and he looked and he realized it was the plane he had just gotten off.

It had reloaded, taken off with the next people to go back to where he came from.

all died.

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[00:23:05] Desiree: Chills, right? , chills. and, he said, yeah, the TSA contacted him later. Did you hear any noises? Did you hear anything? And he hadn't. And I don't even know if he knows, but this was, this was, 9 11, but before 9 11. So isn't that weird? I mean, it's a date, but yeah.

I have a 9 11 one too. I interviewed another man who was on the tarmac, the third plane in line to take off at JFK. And they were waiting. And they were waiting and the pilot came on and said, sorry, guys, we've got a bit of a delay. There's a mishap over in the city, a small plane just hit the towers I mean, they were thinking of a two person plane .

And he said, we just have to wait until they give us the all clear for air traffic control to let us take off, third plane in line. Okay. And he said, but if you want, you can look out the left side of the plane. You can see the little poof of smoke with a little poof of smoke became a massive poof of smoke. And the guy beside. The person who was telling me the story said, that is not a small plane. That's a big one. And they were on the tarmac. And he said, less than 10 minutes later, the pilot came back on and said, buckle up, people were going back to the gate. And he said, I have never gone faster in an airplane on the ground.

He said, I bet we were doing 50 miles an hour, just vroom, you know, back to the gate, trying to get everybody off because they didn't know at that point. He said we couldn't leave. We go back to the terminal, we see on CNN what's going on, and oh my gosh, this is a bigger deal. And he said, I knew right away, he's a PR person who travels all the time, he said, I booked the airport hotel that second. And, Got 1 of the very few rooms that were available. He said, by the end of the night, I had 5 other people total stranger sleeping in my room with me because no 1 had anywhere else to go.

And it was just reaching out. Does anyone know anyone? He said, we stayed there for the night the next day. They weren't running cabs or what have you couldn't really get anywhere. Through public transportation. So, They decided they were all going to walk back from JFK into the city. However, they could, but a pickup truck drove by as they left the airport and, and the truck driver said, you guys can all jump in the back.

So. All these New York City people are in the back of a pickup truck, , you know, hillbillies. The truck drove them on into Grand Central, dropped them all off. And they kind of dispersed from there. And they said, he said, just seeing the city and the rubble of that. And the smoke in the air as if it had just still happened, just insane.

And I mean, I've got a flight attendant story about 9-11 too. And the first people who flew people back home , say they were stuck in Europe. One of the flights went to Italy, empty. Just to pick up people who had been stuck because the planes couldn't come back. And, the Italian people made them stop well short of the gate because they wanted to check to make sure the plane was secure before it.

Yeah, I mean, everyone was really skittish and they boarded that flight and when she, Got in, the main gate agent in Italy said, don't worry, Italy loves America and hugged them because they knew everybody had just been through, you know, we all have PTSD from it still so many years later. The next flight she did was Aruba back into JFK. And they were all people who lived in the city more or less and had not seen. New York city for a couple of days because they didn't fly for so long. And when they landed and saw it was just dead silence. Just, yeah. But there are funny, stupid stories too.

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[00:26:31] Desiree: yeah. I grouped them. There are a couple of stories at the gate. Then there are a couple of stories through security.

Then there are some at your gate waiting and that's where the most stories are. That's just where the craziness ensues, in my opinion. And

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[00:26:47] Desiree: yeah.

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[00:26:58] Desiree: I've done that.

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That was interesting. In my head, we walked through, and got everything and we had checked our bags and I grabbed a bottle of water from a little store and then we walked to the gate and then I had to get in line for the security at the gate and I was Oh, okay. Sorry, I shouldn't have bought water. But then there was nothing on the other side to

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[00:27:20] Maureen: buy anything, so,

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Because they let people in kind of as the flights were closer to being ready to board. And there was somewhere else, maybe it was Dubai, that did that as well.

So I was just sitting here and was an account manager for years. I covered territories. I flew around the country. I went and helped other people out in different regions. So a lot of flights, right? I don't even remember half of my stories. And then you say something and I'm , Oh, I kind of had something like that happen.

I was on a plane with penguins on it once. Southwest used to have penguins on the plane sometimes because they would transport them between zoos. But at one point in time, they also had the plane called Penguin 1 and flew two penguins, ambassadors, back and forth between two sea worlds.

But there were penguins on my plane on Southwest once. It was one of my very first times I had ever flown.

It was one of the most bizarre things. So they can fly! But they have a plane to do it.

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[00:28:29] Maureen: I can't wait to read it. It sounds right up our alley and, Naz and I will

have to write down some

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[00:28:38] Nasreen: I have a big question though. Okay. So we have all the people who are traveling. Are there any TSA people who wrote about the weirdest things they've ever seen or airport workers, because when I was doing this travel job and it was in coffee, we had licensees and locations in different airports, so I would routinely go visit.

Sometimes when I wasn't even flying to go check these locations and work behind the counter. So I saw the traveling public as I'm doing things there. I still remember at JFK once they asked the guy who was escorting me through and I'm in business clothes. Okay. And he shows his badge and he says, he's escorting me through.

And the TSA guy goes, Oh, where's your paperwork? And he goes, unaccompanied minor. And I'm , I was like 25. I had two kids by then, you know, I, and it was just baffling. So I would love to hear some of the stories from the worker's point of view, because some of the ones they told me when I was working were nuts.

Like ones about people shoving money through closed grates and fishing, anything. They could get through because they were so hungry. They'd come back sometimes and someone would have fished a candy bar or a thing of chips through a hole, but they'd see a note with a $5 bill. It'd be I'm sorry.

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[00:29:56] Nasreen: gates close sometimes and then people get stuck in the airport or the flight lands super late or whatever. I've had this happen where I've gotten delayed because. In some airports, they're required to keep concessions open for a certain amount of time, but sometimes they'll cut people at a specific time or they have the J 1 visa workers who can't work past a certain time.

And so there are times when you could be in an airport that technically doesn't really have food out and about.

They were just trying to leave money for what they took. They were hungry.

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[00:30:26] Nasreen: Now they have the machines, right?

Have you ever seen the machine that you order through the app and it drops a salad out?

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This is not in the book, but I can't wait for the sequel. Remember the pommel horse guy?

My friend who's a flight attendant for Delta was on his flight and took pictures with him when they flew home. It was supposed to be the girls gymnastics team and the boys gymnastics team on that flight, but the girls decided to stick around and stay. So, they had the pommel horse guy on and everybody wanted to meet him. He's such a star now.

That'll be the next book.

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I everyone's heard that

and it's,

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[00:31:19] Desiree: I saw that too. I didn't vet it to make sure it was accurate because

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[00:31:24] Desiree: I just didn't know , if it was really called Air Horse 1 or somebody got really clever.

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all packed in there.

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And I was just this is

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[00:31:41] Nasreen: amazing.

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Now the rules have changed and they've put boundaries on it.

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Is there somewhere they should go?

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Yep. Yep. I have it at the very end of the book. The last page says, if you have them, share them with me.

It's 101 tales from the terminal at gmail. com. easy enough, you'll find my name and my thing. that's, I'm on the back.

I have a cute little picture on the

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[00:32:50] Desiree: anyway, yeah, it's,

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[00:32:54] Maureen: It does.

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[00:32:59] Nasreen: Okay.

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So I'm pushing it.

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Put it on your Facebook and be happy birthday Des, don't post it on my wall, buy a book.

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[00:33:39] Nasreen: Okay. Well, thank you for chatting with us about this today. This was a fun departure. Departure. We're so excited for you and I'm excited to read it. And until next time,

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[00:33:53] Narrator: This has been another episode of Time to Talk Travel, brought to you by HashtagTravels. com. You can keep in touch with us between episodes by checking out our site, joining our newsletter, or connecting with us on social. We've always got the information you need in our episode notes. Until next time, happy travels, and thanks for being a part of our trip.