Thinking Only Makes It Worse

---

We've all heard horror stories about US airports. Queues winding outside the terminal and down the road, uncompromising officials asking obscure and obtuse questions and of course the laundry list of biometric data that they now extract without humour or lubrication. The stories of people transiting through L.A. and missing the connecting flight because they were still going through security - even though they began the process immediatly after getting off their arriving plane and had three hours between flights.

Therefore, when you are recommended to be at the airport three hours before departure to go through check-in, you do it. Doing the 'ol backward math, a 4:30pm flight means you have to be at the airport at 1:30pm. Checking the fine print on your return coach tickets, you see that the coach company recommends that you leave 2 hours to get between your hotel and the airport (a fact that we wish we had known BEFORE we bought the tickets) which brings you back to an 11:30am pick up by your coach. Our calculations were confirmed by the coach booking office when we rang to reserve our seat - actually they went one better and insisted on 11:25 for the pick up.

This is where the day took a turn for the surreal. Our coach turned up early and the driver jumped out all smiles and eagerness, wanting to help us into the bus and earn himself a tip. I hope he didn't do himself any serious injury by grabbing both our packs at once - not an easy thing to do as they both weighed in excess of 20 kg and were as unwieldy as heck. Come to think of it, he didn't bend with his knees and the first thing he did once he got back on the bus was visit the coach loo. hmm.

Well, not to worry - we were the first on the coach (not surprising given that we were the last to be dropped off on the outward bound journey) so we had our choice of seating. We were the first pick up - and the last. From the hotel the bus just hopped on the freeway and made a bee line for LAX - meaning that we were there in only 45mins. Good - except that check-in hadn't opened yet. So we sat on our bags for an hour and a half and played Nintendo while we waited for Air New Zealand to send someone in our direction. When you're packing your bags a consideration that you often overlook is "Will this bag be comfy to sit on?", followed quickly by "Oh Crikey I hope that I haven't just squashed somthing".

To pass the time I also scouted out our surroundings. Of note was the line of people waiting to go through security. The line started upstairs and worked its way along a balcony, down some stairs, along a hallway, out the door and into the carpark. It didn't move. Mind you we weren't part of that line (yet) - so who cares? Then there was the line of people waiting to check in at the Air New Zealand desks. It wound round and round a room out the door and into the carpark. Mind you we were at the front of the queue (hence inside) - so who cares? Finally to round it off were the group of security men having a team meeting and discussing how to spot terrorists (I kid you not). FYI their current top targets are teenagers and women - both on the increase in the suicide bombing stakes. Does this mean that they're run out of men? Hopefully Darwin is taking a hand in this...

Eventually though, Air NZ got off their ... hands... and we were able to check in. By this time the line for security had disappeared and we were able to stroll straight through and just like that, we were in the departure lounge. Well, not quite straight through. As Cheri walked through the scanner the security guard remarked that "you have faces on your feet", hoping that this wasn't guard-speak for "brace yourself I'm getting the lube" Cheri looked down, to find that yes, literally, she had faces on her feet. Piglet socks to be precise, so yes the guard meant it literally, she had faces on her feet. Rumour has it that the guards at LAX have been trained by Disney to be more friendly - coincidence?

Well I've endured much worse trying to go through any (and all) of Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow. The rest of the trip can be summarised like this: dinner, Nintendo, boarding, take off, good movie, bad meal, good movie, good movie, bad movie, attempted sleep, realisation that sleep was futile, good movie, bad meal, good tv, good tv, land, taxi, bed.

So actually, the point of this blog is to just let you know that security in the U.S. is not as bad as the stories we've heard. Mind you, perhaps I'm the only one thats heard the stories, or could it be that I just made them up?

---