Feb. 7, 2007: Things I love about air travel No.s 35–41.
#35: U.S. customs officials.
#36: $2.50 bottles of water (that you can’t even bring with you on the plane).
#38: $4.50 cups of coffee.
#37: air-con setting: Glacial.
#39: Saran-wrapped backpacks.
#40: Touchless bathroom sinks with electronic eyes that never work. I swear that’s a one-way mirror and there’s someone behind it just snickering.
#41: Public security announcements that repeat every three and a half minutes. It’s 2007: do you think there’s anyone that doesn’t know yet not to leave their bags unattended?
Yup, you got it, I'm in airport limbo! It's hour six of a 17-hour layover in Miami. Yessss! Though it's not so bad—I've got internet and heapsa emails tocatch up on and a blog to update. I used to think airports were hell; thanks to modern technology, they've moved up to mere purgatory.
Still hate coming into the U.S. though. Even though I'm just transiting through their dumb-ass country and NOT EVEN LEAVING THE AIRPORT they get all worked up when they see the stamps in my passport and ask all sorts of nosy questions about what I was doing in Egypt, Russia, and where’s this stamp from anyway? And where am I going next and how long will I be doing it for and where I'm going after that and backpacking, eh? What do you mean you don't have a set itinerary? (Surprise, I don't really like telling customs that I'm going anywhere to work. Even though this time it’s actually be above board, so to speak, I don’t have a joining letter from the ship to prove it yet.) The guy had to actually confer with another officer, who after asking me if I parlez-vous français apparently convinced the first guy I was harmless enough to let me through. Ugh, I hate U.S. customs!
Anyway, who cares, tomorrow I'll be in the Caribbean! …As long as the bastards let me back out of here now that they've grudgingly let me in.
Nearly have all my paperwork in order to board my ship on Sunday. In addition to a police check and a medical exam, I had to get a battery of blood tests done. I sort of questioned the invasion of privacy that requiring me to get these tests represents, but HR for the company is based out of Trinidad and Tobago so standard privacy laws don't apply, and anyway, I want the job too much to care. You’ll be happy to know I don't have AIDS, syphillis, TB, hepatitis B, parasites in my stool or any cannabis or cocaine residues in my blood. All I can say is, thank God I was in Guatemala. I can’t imagine what all that would have cost me anywhere else.
#36: $2.50 bottles of water (that you can’t even bring with you on the plane).
#38: $4.50 cups of coffee.
#37: air-con setting: Glacial.
#39: Saran-wrapped backpacks.
#40: Touchless bathroom sinks with electronic eyes that never work. I swear that’s a one-way mirror and there’s someone behind it just snickering.
#41: Public security announcements that repeat every three and a half minutes. It’s 2007: do you think there’s anyone that doesn’t know yet not to leave their bags unattended?
Yup, you got it, I'm in airport limbo! It's hour six of a 17-hour layover in Miami. Yessss! Though it's not so bad—I've got internet and heapsa emails tocatch up on and a blog to update. I used to think airports were hell; thanks to modern technology, they've moved up to mere purgatory.
Still hate coming into the U.S. though. Even though I'm just transiting through their dumb-ass country and NOT EVEN LEAVING THE AIRPORT they get all worked up when they see the stamps in my passport and ask all sorts of nosy questions about what I was doing in Egypt, Russia, and where’s this stamp from anyway? And where am I going next and how long will I be doing it for and where I'm going after that and backpacking, eh? What do you mean you don't have a set itinerary? (Surprise, I don't really like telling customs that I'm going anywhere to work. Even though this time it’s actually be above board, so to speak, I don’t have a joining letter from the ship to prove it yet.) The guy had to actually confer with another officer, who after asking me if I parlez-vous français apparently convinced the first guy I was harmless enough to let me through. Ugh, I hate U.S. customs!
Anyway, who cares, tomorrow I'll be in the Caribbean! …As long as the bastards let me back out of here now that they've grudgingly let me in.
Nearly have all my paperwork in order to board my ship on Sunday. In addition to a police check and a medical exam, I had to get a battery of blood tests done. I sort of questioned the invasion of privacy that requiring me to get these tests represents, but HR for the company is based out of Trinidad and Tobago so standard privacy laws don't apply, and anyway, I want the job too much to care. You’ll be happy to know I don't have AIDS, syphillis, TB, hepatitis B, parasites in my stool or any cannabis or cocaine residues in my blood. All I can say is, thank God I was in Guatemala. I can’t imagine what all that would have cost me anywhere else.
posted by Unknown at
11:24 a.m.
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