If forced to chose a theme song for my last trip, I would probably go for: "The Time They Kept Feeling Me Up and Sending My Luggage to Alaska". If no country singer has thought that one up yet, well, someone ought to.
After each flight -- and I do mean EACH of the many flights I had to take -- I would waste a good 30 minutes at the baggage carousel only to end up at the airline counter. In most cases, the airline sent my reliable red Samsonite oyster-shell to my hotel the next day -- which meant I had to go to bed wearing pajamas fashioned from print-outs of my project plan (it was a wonder how I had anything left to present to my boss). At one point, my luggage came back smelling like curry. My sister and I scrubbed, Lysol-ed and Febreze-d the damn thing -- but to no avail. Sadly, I had to travel the rest of the way with luggage smelling like BO.
At each (again, I do mean EACH) leg of my trip, I was also taken aside for "random" security check. The folks at TSA had a really bad crush on me. At each entry point, they felt me up and swabbed my stuff down with what looked like a towelette-on-a-wand. To TSA's credit though, their procedures made sense to me -- nothing compared to Metro Manila malls where entrance security go through one's purse with nothing but a wooden stick (Hogwart's School of Security graduates?).
I should be thankful I've never suffered the indignity of being detained. But then again, I'm still young ...
I was a rolling stone ... for a few weeks. Chance (and my company) brought me to a strange distant land that amused, puzzled and scared me. I visited the American midwest -- and bloggables are busting out my rear end.
