Trying travels
I’m relaxing in a busy bakery not far from my parent’s house in Southern California. As usual, I’m sitting here waiting for some kind of reverse culture shock to begin, but so far it’s been smooth sailing — probably just another sign of globalization.
The greatest shock I’ve experienced so far happened at the rental car agency. After making it from Costa Rica to Texas to LAX and finally to the rental place, I discovered that I couldn’t rent a car. It seems as though my driver’s license inconveniently expired on my last birthday. In Los Angeles, no license, sun setting, tired and excited to get home, I contemplated a meltdown.
When things like that happen, I’m lucky to have far more challenging travel mishaps to reflect on which quickly put the situation into perspective — cliff-dangling bus rides in Bolivia, triple attempts to land during a violent rainstorm on Bangladesh airlines…the pilot was praying, too — outloud. Calmed by way of reflection, I flung on my daypack, grabbed my laptop and jumped on the shuttle back to the airport.
My first thought was to take the minivan shuttle service from LA to San Diego. At $250, I decided to explore other options. The airport was a zoo. Weather conditions had several flights cancelled and rerouted which made lines longer than usual. After checking with a few airlines, traversing four different terminals and waiting in line for over an hour, I got a ticket.
Maybe it was my been-traveling-all-day demeanor, my list of connecting flights, my one-way reservation, or that fact that I paid in cash; whatever it was, it got me flagged “SSSS,” which stands for Secondary Security Screening Selection. Highlighted in red on my boarding pass, this acronym got me yanked into secondary, patted down and all of my belongings swabbed inside and out and tested for explosive material.
Another experience to add to my reflection list.
