so, a few years ago, i didn't make as much money as previous years and hadn't really planned a super bithchin trip. my aunt angela asked me to come stay with her and my cousin kufassi at their home in switzerland. angela is amazing! she seriously needs to be her own blog, and i will do one on her one day. she works for unicef and is in charge of the all western euorpean countries and had to do some traveling for work. she hoped that while visiting, i could "babysit" kufassi.
during my stay, i toured through italy a bit, cruised all around switzerland and france. for my last week, i wanted to make one last stop. my choices in order of preference were 1. prague 2. spain 3. amsterdam. the trip to prague was way to expensive. checking the weather, it was pouring all week in barcelona. the flight to amsterdam, cost $60! okay, sweet, easy choice!
i book my flight and of course my flight was delayed about 6 hours and i arrive at midnight. i walk out of the airport and locate the trolley, which run until 3.a.m. and find my way to my hotel which of course is locked up for the night! i manage to find another hotel in the same neighborhood which was open, had a vacancy and unfortunatly super expensive. i awake on my first day there and glance over what i had researched on line. i attend the anne frank house in the pouring pouring freezing rain, with no umbrella. it was really emotional. i went to the van gogh museum, i checked out the red light district, ate the most amazing thai food and of course checked out the smoke shops...duh!
amsterdam is full of tulips! big bright beautiful tulips everywhere. there are kiosk on every street selling bulbs. they are all "usda approved for export", "approved export to united states" , "approved export for france", "basically approved for wheverever the fuck you are going next". i would be home for christmas this year so i bought tons of bulbs for gifts.
i had a very early flight back to switzerland the next morning so i packed everything that night. i get to the airport at 0400. of course the damn counter doesn't open until 0500 and my flight is at 0530. i stand in the super confusing check-in line for about 15 minutes and then it's my turn.
i hand the lady behind the counter my ticket and passport and i ask, just to clarify, if it is okay that i packed my bulbs in my carry-on. being that i work for the usda, it would be very embarrassing to get arrested for smuggling bulbs!
so, i say "i'm just making sure that it is okay that i have bulbs in my carry-on". she gives a complete blank stare and after about one minute she says 'BOMBS?!" super fuckin loud! "no. no bombs on the plane!" she says. (um no shit!) "NO! not bombs BULBS"i shout back looking around. meanwhile everyone in the airport is staring. i start to pull one of the bag o' bulbs out of my backpack and she yells "no, no, no bombs"! (again, no shit!) "NO. bulbs not bombs, god damn it stop saying that!" i shout, as security makes their way towards us.
i managed to pull the bag of bulbs out of my bag and the lady behind the counter says "ohh, bulbs!" and then everything seems to return to normal in the airport. what the fuck just happened??? i was so perplexed, i mean i know people fly out of this airport all day long with bulbs. is that just a joke that they pull on tourists to scare them? little blonde girls traveling by themselves at awkward hours? who the hell would ask if they could take a bomb on the plane? i made it threw security with no problem after that. if that had been lax, i would have been arrested and held in custody until i had a psychiatric evaluation. in amsterdam, i guess it is the norm.
0 comments:
Post a Comment