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Booking blunder sends sports minister to wrong country

By Oliver Smith | 10:02AM BST 08 Jul 2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/11725701/Booking-blunder-sends-sports-minister-towrong-country.html

Jerseys sports minister has apologised for wasting around 1,000 of taxpayers money after he
mistakenly flew to Budapest instead of Bucharest and missed a global event

Bucharest and Budapest - but which is which? Photo: AP/FOTOLIA

Constable Steve Pallett was scheduled to visit Bucharest, Romania, to attend the official handover of
the Dance World Cup. Jersey is due to host the annual event next year and he was supposed to receive
a flag from his Romanian counterpart at the event.
But he flew instead to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, leaving him some 500 miles short of his
intended destination and unable to reach the ceremony in time.
A spokesman for Jerseys Education, Sport and Culture department said human error was to blame.
"It is really disappointing, I have to apologise for wasting taxpayers' money and for letting down the
Dance World Cup, Pallett told the BBC. "I don't know the exact cost as I've still got some figures to
come back, but it won't be less than 1,000 and the department should have been more careful when it
was booked.

"All I can do is apologise for what is a schoolboy error, the last thing I needed was a day trip to Budapest
after a long week supporting the Island Games."
It was by no means the first time someone has mixed up a pair of similar-sounding cities and ended up
a long way from their intended destination.
Earlier this year a medical student was left red-faced after he attempted to fly to Guyana to begin a
scholarship but ended up nearly 2,000 miles from his intended destination, in the Brazilian city of
Goiania.
In 2013 Lamenda Kingdon, a British woman, had hoped to explore the beautiful Alhambra Palace in
Granada, Spain. Instead she mistakenly caught a flight across the Atlantic to the tropical Caribbean
island of Grenada.
Earlier that year Sandy Valdiviseo and her husband Triet Vo were intending to fly from Los Angeles
to Dakar in Senegal with Turkish Airlines. However, instead they ended up almost 7,000 miles away
on an entirely different continent in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, after the airport codes were
mixed up.
And in 2009, Samantha Lazzaris had planned to visit San Jose in Costa Rica but was mistakenly sent
by her travel agent, Thomas Cook, to San Juan in Puerto Rico.
The following destinations have all reportedly been involved in air travel mix-ups :
Guyana and Goianaia, Brazil
Grenada, Spain and Granada
Dakar, Senegal and Dhaka, Bangladesh
San Jose, Costa Rica and San Jose, Puerto Rico
Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire and Stamford Bridge Football Ground, London
Sydney, Canada and Sydney, Australia
Lebanon, New Hampshire and Lebanon
Oakland, California and Auckland, New Zealand
La Paz, Bolivia and La Paz, Mexico
Antigua, Guatemala and Antigua
Lisburn, Northern Ireland and Lisbon, Portugal
Santiago, Chile and San Diego, USA
Stratford-Upon-Avon and Stratford, London
Turkey and Torquay

blunder = (n.) gaf, greeal

to blunder = (vb.) a face o greeal
to waste = a risipi
mistakenly = (adv.) eronat
instead of = n loc de
taxpayers money = banii contribuabililor
EX. Instead of dancing, he chose drinking. = Au lieu de danser, il a choisi de boire.
counterpart = omolog
to reach = a ajunge, a sosi, a atinge
spokesman = purttor de cuvnt
disappointing = annoying, suprtor, dezamgitor
to involve = amesteca