Jul 21 2008
Travel Horror Stories
Absolutely Bananas is starting a new weekly writing project, in which she gives a writing prompt to help us find something to write about. I like the first topic, and I hope I’ll be able to keep this up on a weekly basis, so here goes!
Nor does it happen on my next trip to London, a year later. Nope, that was a wonderfully uneventful trip, 1 week in London. It doesn’t even happen on my 3rd trip to London in November 1998. That time I went with my college roommate, and we took the opportunity to visit Edinburgh, York, and Bath in addition to London.
On all these trips, I loved shopping. It’s so much fun seeing what’s available in the shops that we just can’t get at home. One shop we visited is Lush (which has since made its way into the US). After travelling for a few weeks, I knew I’d need a nice relaxing bath when I got home, so I got myself a bath bomb. Little did I know that this would almost get me arrested.
My luggage had a habit of not wanting to travel with me. On my first trip to Europe, because of some last minute flight changes due to the weather (I would have missed a connection), my luggage never made it to my new flight and decided to spend an extra day in London. On my second trip to London, I stupidly packed my travel alarm clock in an effort to lighten the load in my carryon. This caused an intense inspection of my checked luggage, which again spent an extra day in London. Even on a bus trip to Toronto, when changing bus drivers at the bus station in Buffalo (they changed drivers, which signified they changed companies, but the actual vehicle did not change). When they were changing, they emphasized that if we were continuing on to Toronto that we were to stay on the bus. DO NOT GET OFF THE BUS IF YOU ARE GOING TO TORONTO. So I stayed on the bus. When we got to customs a few minutes later, I realized that they forgot to tell us something. If we were going to Toronto, we were to get off the bus, claim our luggage and re-check it, then get on the bus. So, I went thru Canadian customs without luggage. I filed a report at the bus station, and it was put on the next bus so I only had to wait about 3 hours for that one. Overall, that’s three times that my luggage has chosen not to travel with me.
This particular trip to London, I was determined to do things right. I made sure that the weather cooperated so that I would not have to change my flight after checking in, I was a pro at packing for security, and I didn’t have anything packed in a way to warrant a search. We got back home to Boston, and I had all my luggage with me. The customs officer put it through the x-ray machine and as it was coming out the other end, picked up my carry on and began to open it. I was certain that I did everything according to the rules this time, so I couldn’t think of anything that would have raised suspicion. The customs officer said it looked like there was an orange in my bag, but I knew not to bring fruit into the country. He pulled the “orange” out and emerged with a white, powdery ball in his hand. Oh Fudge. My mind raced. I tried to tell him what it was without using the word bomb - I told him it was an aromatherapy alka-seltzer like thing for the bath. I encouraged him to smell it, then remembered that I had the flyer from the store with me. I showed him the flyer, he smelled it, and luckily, I was off the hook. It took me quite some time for my heartbeat to return to a normal pace, since I’d never been in trouble before, and I was nearly panicked at the thought of getting busted for trafficking. Thank goodness I’m a souvenir hound and saved the flyer, especially since the store didn’t mark the packaging at all.
So that’s it, my travel horror story. Not too bad, really, just a close call with a federal prison. But now I know not to pack unidentified bath products when I travel internationally.
I am not surprised that one of your travel horror stories involves travel via bus. The ONLY travel horror story that I can think of at the moment involves a bus.
I need to try to remember to stop by that site; I always seem to do a bit better with writing prompts.
If you use a reader at all, like Bloglines or Google Reader, that will help you remember. I love the feed reader - all the good stuff comes to me, and I don’t miss anything (as far as I know).
That was the only travel by bus story that went wrong. I’ve been from Boston to Toronto on the bus a few times, but after that first time I knew better.