Our day started at 0630 (okay, technically Nate’s didn’t start until 0700, when I got stern) so that we could finish packing and then go grab some breakfast before meeting up with the others at 0730. We bid a fond farewell to our little Yotel room (which may have seriously been our most favorite hotel on this entire trip- certainly a damn sight better than the EasyHotel) and headed upstairs for some grub.
Nathan, of course, didn’t want anything, but I took advantage of the M&S Simply Food (side note: I cannot tell you how much I wish our country had this chain…) to grab a tuna and red-pepper sandwich, along with a few snacks for the flight. Once we’d gotten our little cat herd in once place, we began to amoeba our way towards check-in, where we learned why you’re supposed to show up two hours before your international flight is scheduled to leave.
We stood in that damn queue, inching our way forward, for an hour. And no, I am not exaggerating for the sake of a better story- in fact I’m actually being a bit modest, because I distinctly remember glancing at my time-piece and realizing an hour had passed, and yet we still hadn’t made it to the front…
Eventually we did, however, and from there we went on to security- where they confiscated my Febreeze (which, in all fairness, was in a 6oz bottle- but there was less than 3.5oz of it… oh well…) (and, by the way, a total life-saver in terms of keeping our limited clothing supply bearable) and tried to take my Stag’s Breath whisky liqueur, but I started to kick up a high holy fuss until Nathan calmly pointed out that no matter what the agent thought it looked like, the label on the bottle was 10cl, which was within our volume rights.
I got to keep it.
We had to book it through the rest of the airport, since they were already boarding our flight, but we all made it on okay (although for a while there we thought for sure the Jeff and Elizabeth kitties were going to miss it) and settled in for another eight-hour test of endurance.
(Safely on board!)
Customs was shockingly efficient, but security managed to irritate me. Nathan and I ended up in the body-scan line, which apparently cannot handle scanning such dangerous articles as sunglasses or gold bracelets (I really freaking hate it when they take my bracelet away from me- it was my great-grandmother’s, and there is literally no reason for them to make me take it off). Before I got in they asked if I had anything in my pockets. I told them no. I went and stood in the stupid thing, then they had me stand outside of it, not moving, where they again asked if I had anything in my pockets (shockingly I had not managed to get anything into them between one side of the machine and the other) and then they left me there while they glared at me and didn’t say anything, then they frisked me, and finally said into their little walkie-talkie “female cleared”.
What. The. Hell.
Seriously, I get that it’s for our safety or whatever, but you’d think they’d at least do me the courtesy of telling me why the hell I have to stand in one place, not moving. What about me was so suspicious that there had to be walkie-talkies involved?? And, as Nathan pointed out, the whole thing is just stupid if you’re not subjecting everyone to the same process, which they were not. The other queue, which Jeff and Elizabeth were in, was not subjected to the body scan (although they did unpack their bag because apparently their rolled up clothing looked like food- and yet they let the girl ahead of them take through an over-the-size-limit Tupperware container of pork and beans. Again I say: What. The. Hell.)
Ugh.
We had about a four hour layover in CLT, which was uneventful, as was the final leg home to Birmingham. It is definitely nice to be in my clean apartment, snuggled up in my high thread-count sheets, after the luxury of a shower which involved a loofah and conditioner. And now I’m going to stop fighting, and go to sleep (after all, as far as my body is concerned, it's after two in the morning tomorrow...)
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