A Toronto man who made headlines last month by offering a free round-the-world air ticket to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend has found a taker.
Jordan Axani, 28, and his then-girlfriend, named Elizabeth Gallagher, booked heavily discounted round-the-world air tickets in May, but their relationship ended and he did not want her ticket to go to waste. The ticket had a strict no-transfer policy, but since passport information was not required when booking, it can be used by any Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher.
Axani posted his offer last month on the Reddit social media Web site and received thousands of e-mails, including 18 from actual Elizabeth Gallaghers with Canadian passports.
He has now chosen his travel mate, Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher, a 23-year-old student and part-time office administrator from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.
“It’s strictly a platonic trip. It’s going to be great,” Axani said.
At first the new Elizabeth Gallagher thought a trip with a stranger whose ex-girlfriend’s name is the same as hers was “crazy,” but she hit it off with Axani after talking on the telephone with him for hours.
“It definitely did seem a little bit creepy at the beginning, but now that I talked to him it’s less creepy and more awesome,” she said.
She already has a boyfriend.
“This is totally sort of like as friends,” she said. “I have a pretty serious boyfriend. We’ve been together for a while. We’re planning on buying a house and we have a puppy, so yeah, I’m not really looking for anything at all.”
She acknowledged her boyfriend is not thrilled.
“He understands that I’ve always wanted to travel, so while he’s not happy I’m taking off for nearly a month at Christmas with a random guy, he’s smiling through it,” she said.
Axani, who works for an international real-estate development and advisory firm, said the tickets were purchased for a couple of thousand dollars, but their cash value today is about C$5,000 to C$7,000 (US$4,400 to US$6,200).
The trip is scheduled to start on Sunday in New York and continue on to Milan, Italy; Prague, Paris, Bangkok and New Delhi, before ending in Toronto on Jan. 12. Axani said that after the breakup he deferred all other planning for the trip, such as making hotel reservations.
However, since the story became public, Marriott International offered to put him and the new Elizabeth Gallagher up, in separate rooms, during their trip.
Axani said the trip would be documented and shared online.
He said that he was so moved by some of the e-mails — including one from an eight-year-old boy who said he was going blind and wanted to see the world before that happens — that he and his brother created an organization called A Ticket Forward to help people who desire to see the world, but lack the finances to do so.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in