Big month a head
It has been a while since I updated my blog, but what could I have told you about; that I work from 8 to 5, Sunday to Thursday, every week, and then maybe go fishing the weekend, suffice it to say that life traveling was much more interesting. So you might ask what made me stop traveling and get a steady job? Well for starters I would need money to continue traveling, and I about traveled as much as I could with the money I had. Second I feel I am getting to old for a life of traveling and bachelorhood, now I actually enjoy just lying on a comfortable couch watching TV. Third I found the woman who I want to build my future together with; I am now in San Paolo airport in Brazil, on my way to Bolivia, were I will be for the next 10 days, then I will head back to my country, but this time it will be very different; I will be accompanied by my girlfriend, Maria Eugenia, along with her 5 years old son, Alejandro. Two weeks later, on the 8th and 9th of November, we plan to get married in my home town of Shefa-Amr.
Getting married, moving to a new apartment and traveling around the world to bring my girlfriend, all have to been done within one month, you can imagine why this is a big month for me, probably the biggest month of my life. So how do I feel about? Sometimes I feel buoyant and excited, other times anxious; I guess I am just worried something might go wrong, something that I don't have control over, hopefully all will go as planned, and I will be happily married in one month.
I can't do without some moaning about airports and flying; at the Tel-Aviv airport, I received a white security sticker (they used to have color coded ones in the past) this reminded me of an article I read about this not long ago, it said although they were discontinuing the use of color codes, there will still be different numerical codes on the stickers for Arabs and Jews. Never the less I allowed my self to hope, that this time might be different, and that I a might actually get away with a quick security checkup. But alas I was send to the special queue of the foreigners and Arabs, were people receive more length security checks. I watched the others to see how long each security check lasted, and I seem to have gotten it worst than most; I still had to go through a body check, which most others seem to have been exempt from. Never the less the overall time of the security check was about 30 minutes, which is not that bad, except for that problem with my ipod speakers, which protracted the process for another half an hour.
Now when I started my travels, I carried around with me a brand new swiss army knife, the problem is that almost always I forgot to check it in with my suitcase, so whenever I got to the hand luggage security check, I would have to leave my swiss army knife there. I would then buy a new knife, and carry it around until my next flight, were I would loose it again, this repeated itself a few times, after the third time though I decided to give up on carrying a swiss army knife in my travels. Now airline regulations are very clear about brining a knife on board a plane, and a sensible person can certainly see the danger in bringing a weapon on board a plane, after all thats how the 911 hijackers managed to take over the planes. But this is the second time that my electronics have been an issue, the other one being my last, nightmarish flight with El-Al from Paris, and I don't recall hearing or seeing any warnings about carrying electronic devices on flights.
I was told that the speakers were found suspicious by their scans, and would have to go on a separate flight, just as they did with my laptop last time. I found it a bit of an absurd idea to send my little ipod speakers in a separate package all they way to Bolivia, knowing I would only stay there for about 10 days. I made some creative suggestions to resolve the matter, which were all rejected; give me a refund and I will buy new ones at the duty free, keep it here for me until I come back, mail it back to my home address (they actually accepted this suggestion, except that the mail office was already closed). In the end they agreed to send it to Milan instead, and that I would pick it up at the Alitalia lost and found office on my way back. Just to clarify things, this was the Israeli airport security that insisted on this and not Alitalia.
Now their excuse was that the speakers would need to go through a more thorough and length security check, which they would not be able to complete before the flight scheduled takeoff time. I think this is a bunch of crap, I think there is no such security check. If they suspected this might be some kind of explosive device, they could just have me check it in rather than carry it with me on the plane, this way I will not able to use it on the flight. I think they are trying to also cover the possibility that this is some kind of explosive device with a timer, how can they then be sure it is not? they keep it on the ground during the scheduled time of the flight, and when that time passes without the device going off, then they are sure. Anyway I still have to ask my self, haven't all these genius companies who devices these security scanners, tried to run some common electronics through this scanners to see if they can distinguish them from actual explosive devices.
Was there any bright spots? well the security girl who handled my luggage thought I was a very patient man; the way I reacted after all what they did to me. The fact is I resigned to living with this inconvenience, even though it does not make me the least happy.
I am now at the San Paolo airport, I have more than eleven hours between my flights, and I am dying to get a couple of hours of sleep, but who ever design these waiting halls, designed them meticulously so no one can sleep on the seats; all the seats are single seats separated by metal rails, the rows are kept at a sufficient distance to each other, so one can't stretch his legs on the opposing seats, and everything is fastened well in its place so it can't be moved around, the only option I have is to sleep on the naked floor. There are massage booths and spa though, a bath and a massage might just be what I need to make it though without sleep.
Getting married, moving to a new apartment and traveling around the world to bring my girlfriend, all have to been done within one month, you can imagine why this is a big month for me, probably the biggest month of my life. So how do I feel about? Sometimes I feel buoyant and excited, other times anxious; I guess I am just worried something might go wrong, something that I don't have control over, hopefully all will go as planned, and I will be happily married in one month.
I can't do without some moaning about airports and flying; at the Tel-Aviv airport, I received a white security sticker (they used to have color coded ones in the past) this reminded me of an article I read about this not long ago, it said although they were discontinuing the use of color codes, there will still be different numerical codes on the stickers for Arabs and Jews. Never the less I allowed my self to hope, that this time might be different, and that I a might actually get away with a quick security checkup. But alas I was send to the special queue of the foreigners and Arabs, were people receive more length security checks. I watched the others to see how long each security check lasted, and I seem to have gotten it worst than most; I still had to go through a body check, which most others seem to have been exempt from. Never the less the overall time of the security check was about 30 minutes, which is not that bad, except for that problem with my ipod speakers, which protracted the process for another half an hour.
Now when I started my travels, I carried around with me a brand new swiss army knife, the problem is that almost always I forgot to check it in with my suitcase, so whenever I got to the hand luggage security check, I would have to leave my swiss army knife there. I would then buy a new knife, and carry it around until my next flight, were I would loose it again, this repeated itself a few times, after the third time though I decided to give up on carrying a swiss army knife in my travels. Now airline regulations are very clear about brining a knife on board a plane, and a sensible person can certainly see the danger in bringing a weapon on board a plane, after all thats how the 911 hijackers managed to take over the planes. But this is the second time that my electronics have been an issue, the other one being my last, nightmarish flight with El-Al from Paris, and I don't recall hearing or seeing any warnings about carrying electronic devices on flights.
I was told that the speakers were found suspicious by their scans, and would have to go on a separate flight, just as they did with my laptop last time. I found it a bit of an absurd idea to send my little ipod speakers in a separate package all they way to Bolivia, knowing I would only stay there for about 10 days. I made some creative suggestions to resolve the matter, which were all rejected; give me a refund and I will buy new ones at the duty free, keep it here for me until I come back, mail it back to my home address (they actually accepted this suggestion, except that the mail office was already closed). In the end they agreed to send it to Milan instead, and that I would pick it up at the Alitalia lost and found office on my way back. Just to clarify things, this was the Israeli airport security that insisted on this and not Alitalia.
Now their excuse was that the speakers would need to go through a more thorough and length security check, which they would not be able to complete before the flight scheduled takeoff time. I think this is a bunch of crap, I think there is no such security check. If they suspected this might be some kind of explosive device, they could just have me check it in rather than carry it with me on the plane, this way I will not able to use it on the flight. I think they are trying to also cover the possibility that this is some kind of explosive device with a timer, how can they then be sure it is not? they keep it on the ground during the scheduled time of the flight, and when that time passes without the device going off, then they are sure. Anyway I still have to ask my self, haven't all these genius companies who devices these security scanners, tried to run some common electronics through this scanners to see if they can distinguish them from actual explosive devices.
Was there any bright spots? well the security girl who handled my luggage thought I was a very patient man; the way I reacted after all what they did to me. The fact is I resigned to living with this inconvenience, even though it does not make me the least happy.
I am now at the San Paolo airport, I have more than eleven hours between my flights, and I am dying to get a couple of hours of sleep, but who ever design these waiting halls, designed them meticulously so no one can sleep on the seats; all the seats are single seats separated by metal rails, the rows are kept at a sufficient distance to each other, so one can't stretch his legs on the opposing seats, and everything is fastened well in its place so it can't be moved around, the only option I have is to sleep on the naked floor. There are massage booths and spa though, a bath and a massage might just be what I need to make it though without sleep.
posted by DiagonalMind at
5:05 AM
1 Comments:
Hey Wael,
Wow, those are big steps. I think a big, fat "Congratulations!" is in order. All the best to you and your soon-to-be-wife and child.
Good luck!
Jeroen
By
jeroen94704, at 12:29 AM
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