I’m not sure how much you have been following the ash cloud spewing from the volcano in Iceland, but it’s been wreaking havoc on air travel throughout much of Western Europe. I was fortunate to leave Switzerland before this whole mess started and haven’t been impacted as the airports in Greece remained open and I was flying east to Kazakhstan via Istanbul rather than returning home.
Some of my colleagues weren’t as lucky, though, and were stranded in Greece for the weekend constantly going back and forth between the hotel and the airport waiting for air travel to resume. Emilie also got stranded – in the West of France – and had to resort to renting a car for a full day of driving back to Switzerland.
Hopefully things work themselves out over the next week as I’ll be flying back to Switzerland next Sunday.
***
My olive oil purchase didn’t end up working out quite as planned. Given the size of the bottles, I couldn’t put them in my carry-on. I also didn’t want to check my bag and pack them inside because I’ve heard too many horror stories about broken olive oil bottles in checked suitcases (from my Greek colleagues) and couldn’t risk having all my work clothes ruined before our meetings. Thus, I went with option C, which was packing them in a small bag and trying to check it.
All was going well at the check in counter until I was asked what was in the bag that I wanted to check and naively responded “olive oil”. This raised an immediate red flag and I was subsequently told that given the level of damage that olive oil has caused airplane cargo areas and other passengers’ luggage, I wasn’t allowed to check it. This left me two options: (1) accept defeat and throw it out or (2) try to sneak it on the plane in my carry-on luggage.
As thoughts of worst-case scenarios danced through my head, I approached the security checkpoint with a plan. If the security guards discovered the bottles, I intended to play the ignorant traveler role and pretend that I was merely oblivious to the security rules regarding liquids in carry-on baggage. After successfully passing through the metal detector, I anxiously awaited for my bag to go through the x-ray machine. And then on the screen I could see the picture of my bag with two gigantic bottle-shaped outlines.
Amazingly, the guard didn’t seem to notice…at least at first. Then all of a sudden he called his colleagues over and I knew my plan had failed. When approached about whether my bag held the contraband, I did my best stupid American impersonation and tried to give of the impression that I had absolutely no clue what I did wrong. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t buy any of it.
In the end, though, they recognized that I wasn’t a threat to air travel and simply threw away my precious Christmas gifts. I guess all things considered it could have been a lot worse – I made my flight and my only loss was the €10 that I spent on the purchase. And at least I did my part to help out the Greek economy. It’s also comforting to know that airport security is doing their job. It actually would have been a bit worrying if I had been able to get two large bottles of liquid onto the plane so easily.
Some of my colleagues weren’t as lucky, though, and were stranded in Greece for the weekend constantly going back and forth between the hotel and the airport waiting for air travel to resume. Emilie also got stranded – in the West of France – and had to resort to renting a car for a full day of driving back to Switzerland.
Hopefully things work themselves out over the next week as I’ll be flying back to Switzerland next Sunday.
***
My olive oil purchase didn’t end up working out quite as planned. Given the size of the bottles, I couldn’t put them in my carry-on. I also didn’t want to check my bag and pack them inside because I’ve heard too many horror stories about broken olive oil bottles in checked suitcases (from my Greek colleagues) and couldn’t risk having all my work clothes ruined before our meetings. Thus, I went with option C, which was packing them in a small bag and trying to check it.
All was going well at the check in counter until I was asked what was in the bag that I wanted to check and naively responded “olive oil”. This raised an immediate red flag and I was subsequently told that given the level of damage that olive oil has caused airplane cargo areas and other passengers’ luggage, I wasn’t allowed to check it. This left me two options: (1) accept defeat and throw it out or (2) try to sneak it on the plane in my carry-on luggage.
As thoughts of worst-case scenarios danced through my head, I approached the security checkpoint with a plan. If the security guards discovered the bottles, I intended to play the ignorant traveler role and pretend that I was merely oblivious to the security rules regarding liquids in carry-on baggage. After successfully passing through the metal detector, I anxiously awaited for my bag to go through the x-ray machine. And then on the screen I could see the picture of my bag with two gigantic bottle-shaped outlines.
Amazingly, the guard didn’t seem to notice…at least at first. Then all of a sudden he called his colleagues over and I knew my plan had failed. When approached about whether my bag held the contraband, I did my best stupid American impersonation and tried to give of the impression that I had absolutely no clue what I did wrong. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t buy any of it.
In the end, though, they recognized that I wasn’t a threat to air travel and simply threw away my precious Christmas gifts. I guess all things considered it could have been a lot worse – I made my flight and my only loss was the €10 that I spent on the purchase. And at least I did my part to help out the Greek economy. It’s also comforting to know that airport security is doing their job. It actually would have been a bit worrying if I had been able to get two large bottles of liquid onto the plane so easily.
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