Excursion Permission: Fill & Download for Free

Long time ago, before the Iron Curtain came down, my job as 3rd mate was keeping sea watch at the gangway door of a small cruise ship while in port. How we all hated that job, being a doorman and smiling to every comment passengers felt compelled to make when boarding after their shore excursions: ‘Permission to come onboard’- a hundred times a day….In Leningrad, however, there was no place for jolliness: Officials collecting passengers' passports, issuing replacement visa documents in Cyrillic writing only, soldiers armed with submachine guns watching all this, and officers checking at top and bottom of gangway, when boarding the tour bus and finally again on the port gate to the city. Same procedure in reverse on return from the tightly scripted, supervised and expensive excursion.Knowing all this, one particularly brisk guest managed to dash past the officials to the upper accommodation platform where I was standing rather purposelessly, surveyed the scene, armed guards surrounding the ship and all, and then turned towards me: ‘Can you call me a taxi?'…That was my moment of ‘You gotta be kidding me.’The Russian seafarers club made up for this: As members of the suppressed and exploited working class, we were granted visa-free unlimited shore leave without curfew, taken on free sightseeing tours and were returning late in the evening all jolly, with the passengers enviously looking on….

I took some students (13–14 year olds) on an excursion this week.We live on the plains, and experience, maybe, four weeks of winter-winter spaced out over three months. Our winter rarely drops below 0 degrees Celsius.The place where we were staying was in the mountains, and routinely drops below zero over night, and sometimes even during the day. We just happened to plan the excursion right when the polar burst of cold air reached the area. We saw snow on the way over.When we arrived at the campsite (located about 30 minutes drive outside of town in a bush area), we let the kids settle in their cabins while we started preparing dinner. The students were to come to the main dining hall to help out as soon as they’d freshened up and unpacked.I suspect it was a God-prompt, but about twenty minutes later, I decided I would go check on the students. As I approached the cabins, I noticed a group of four girls opening a fence and leaving the grounds.“Where are you going?” I called out, hurrying over.They jumped. “Oh, ah, one of the boys is missing, and we’re just looking for him.”“I see. And did you tell a teacher that the boy was missing?”“Um, no.”“Well, it’s not your job to go looking. It’s my job. You girls need to go back to the dining room. Now.”As I walked a bit further, I saw a group of five boys, just walking through a second fence, headed directly towards the unfamiliar bush.The sun hadn’t set yet, but it would in a matter of minutes.I’m not sure what the temperature was, but steam was puffing out with every breath.The boys weren’t out of sight yet, but if I’d come out even one minute later, they would have been.“Oy!” I called out, praying they would hear me. “Where are you going?”For the second time in five minutes, I made a group of students jump. The boys quickly turned. “Ah, we’re just going for a walk, miss.”“You need to get back here. Right now.”As they drew level with me, I asked, “Who did you ask for permission to go on a walk?”“Um… no one.”“I see. Who did you tell that you were going?”“No one.”“Right. Dining hall. Now.”One of the students was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts.What did you have to tell a student that you thought was common knowledge?I had to tell a group of fourteen-year-olds that it was a very dangerous idea to go bushwalking in sub-zero temperatures, in unfamiliar bushland, while inappropriately dressed for the weather, in the almost-dark, without telling anyone where you were going.The word “tell” is subjective.“Yell” might have been closer to the truth.We took 27 students on the trip and, by the grace of God, we brought 27 back.I’m still not sure that they fully understand just how stupid and potentially life-threatening their actions were.Oh. And for those interested, the temperature dropped to -7 degrees Celsius that night.

Thanks for the A2A, Sean.I have one that I use in few occasions and works like a charm every single time.I think I have already written an answer about how we lost our house when I was young and how I bought my parents a house, few years ago. It was a dream come true for me and my parents.But, it wasn’t easy to make it happen. My father was very reluctant about buying a house again. He was scared of losing it again.I kept asking and pushing him for almost 4 years. One day, when I was home for a weekend, I decided to have the big talk with him.I sat in front of him, looked into his eyes and asked him to let me do it. I used my puppy face reaction.I told him that I’ll take the home loan as it’ll have tax benefits, pulling a face like that and it worked!And now, we have our beautiful house:Even recently, when they were reluctant about visiting me in Paris. After a few conversations back and forth, I pulled the same face in the video call and voila, it worked.And now, here they’re having a great time:When I was young, I used this to ask my dad’s permission for school excursion and I have been using it ever since then. Works like magic every time!With everyone actually. I’m always quite the rebel, so when I try this once in a while, everyone gives in :P