This past week was spring break for many colleges, and talking to your friends you might begin to hear travel horror stories. And that is the case here.
For the first weekend of the spring break, several members of the newspaper staff and me were trapped in the trials and tribulations of travel. We hit every road block imaginable in our trip across country to take part in a national newspaper convention.
Here was the round down of the ups and downs of our trip. Our first flight left JFK airport at 7am. That flight, in my opinion, was by far the best. It did have its snafus, however. It was a six hour flight to San Francisco and there was no snack served, nothing, just juice for six hours. Plus, the in-flight movie, Happy Feet, had some crazy messed up sound where you were hearing Spanish and English at the same time. But all in all we got to San Fran safe and sound.
We exit the plane and notice that we are in the smallest terminal ever built, and we have only 35 minutes to catch our next flight to our final destination; Portland, Oregon. We asked a TSA agent where the next terminal is and their response is "You have to exit this terminal and walk to the next functioning terminal." That is correct, we had to walk through a dead terminal to get to our next flight, which also meant that we needed to go back through security.
This is where it all went down hill. One of our group members, Claire Owens, had lost their ID somewhere between NY and San Fran and just realized it as we got onto the security line. At this point, the advisor, Ashley Friedman, shoves cash into my hand and says "If we don't make it on the plane, have fun in Portland!" Ashley and Claire had to go back to the check in counter and verify that they could come on the plane. Myself, Melissa Peace and Ana Montano all got onto the security line and started taking off our shoes and the like to get through the metal detectors.
The second snag of the trip. We had gotten through JFK without any problems, but at this point, Melissa and I both (who carried on our luggage) are pulled aside and told that our liquids are too large and that they need to be in clear plastic ziploc bags. The man who searched my bag did not take any of my items; I just received a stern lecture. The person who was searching Melissa's bag however, decided to take about $50 worth of makeup and perfume, but left a considerable amount of liquids with her anyway. It was very confusing.
Somehow, we all made it onto this flight to Portland. Claire was forced to go through extra security where she was puffed with air (to make sure that she didn't have any bomb making material on her clothes) and we got to Portland safe and sound. Claire, Ashley's and Ana's luggage, however, was left behind in San Fran. We go to customer service and make sure that they will send the luggage to the hotel. It arrived later that night, at about 11pm.
Compared to traveling, the time spent in Portland was rather uneventful. We went about going to sessions and meeting new people and gaining new ideas and insights. But as soon as we left the hotel, the trip got even more interesting.
We arrived at the Portland Airport at 9:15am for our 10:40am flight because we knew that Claire needed to go through extra security. We all get through security, where I also was forced to be puffed with air to check for bomb making material and we sit down on a bench to wait for Claire. She is surrounded by two TSA agents and we see them take away her shoes. They believed that there was something strange on her shoes and they needed to be re-x-rayed for safety. We are all, eventually, on the opposite side of security and ready to board our third flight to San Diego.
Once we land in San Diego, we realize that we have to leave the terminal we flew into and go back through the security procedures, yet again. At least this time, our lay over is about two hours, instead of 35 minutes. We exit the terminal carrying out coats and scarves into 70 degree, sunny San Diego. We board the Red Bus that transports passengers from one terminal to the other, but because the driver makes no announcements about what stop the bus is at, we end up taking a tour of the San Diego airport.
We enter our last and final terminal of the trip and get on the security line ready to go through "the unbuckle your belt; take off your shoes" ordeal again. But the TSA lady who is checking boarding passes informs us that our boarding pass is in fact not a boarding pass, and this is after she had let Melissa and me through, and was directing her comments to Ashley, Claire and Ana. So, to keep with the trend of the trip, Melissa and I trekked onwards as Ashley, Claire and Ana went back to the check in counter to figure the situation out. It ended with an American Airlines worker yelling at the TSA agent.
At this point, we have gone through 4 security checks, 4 airports, countless numbers of TSA agents and had traveled thousands of miles. We thought it was over, but in fact it had not. We board our last flight from San Diego to JFK at 2:35pm Pacific time. The plane is supposed to take off at 2:55pm and land in NY at 11pm Eastern time. But as we sit on the plane and 2:55pm passes us by, the pilot of the flight informs us that we are going to be delayed about a half an hour because our flight path changed due to a storm in the Midwest and we needed to take on more fuel. Not to mention, this plane is far smaller than any of the planes we had been on and I was squished next to this law professor who smelled a little funky and huffed and puffed every time I shifted half a centimeter in my seat.
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