Flashback to May 2007. I had a work trip that took me to India for a week, then I had to continue onto Israel for a week. I flew from Delhi to Frankfurt and had a 15 hour middle of the day layover. As much as I've travelled and as excited I get about airports, 15 hours is too much for anyone! Luckily, I knew my way around Frankfurt, so I thought I'd take the train into the city and wander around. After a train ride into the city only to realize that the entire city was shutdown for a national holiday, I trained it right back to the airport. After looking at every single item in the duty free shop, I wandered back to the lounge and killed about 12 hours.
3 hours before my El Al flight was due to leave, I thought I'd at least change scenery and wander down to the gate. El Al is supposedly the safest airline in the world. They were the first to institute locked cockpit doors and are known to have armed air marshalls on each of their flights. Though I was already through one security check, I had to go through another one just to get into the gate area of El Al. Once I got to the El Al counter, I got my boarding pass, and had to go through yet another x-ray for my hand luggage. Once I thought I was finally done all of the x-rays, I was greeted by another plain clothes agent who greeted me in Hebrew. The extend of my Hebrew starts and stops with "Shalom" so it's safe to say we didn't exactly have a lengthy conversation. From there, he asked me a bunch of pretty normal questions (in English) "Where are you going?" "Who are you travelling with" etc... Then he welcomed me into a gated little seated area. I knew he wasn't going to ask me how my trip was and how I was doing, so I got nervous. I tend to get nervous in any situation with authority. The one time I was pulled over for speeding, I'm pretty sure the reason I got off without a warning was because I was shaking when I gave the police officer my license!
From there, the questioning grew intense. Who was I visiting (a factory) ? Did I have a boyfriend (yes)? Was I married (no!) ? What race was my boyfriend (White)? Why am I alone (because?)? Why don't I have a business card of the people I'm meeting (hadn't met them yet) and on and one. He wanted to check emails, names of my boss, names of factories in India, you name it. From there, we went into the curtained area where a very intimidating fellow was to go through all of my luggage for explosives. When I say everything, I mean everything! from the crumbs at the bottom of my purse, to the pages in my book, it all went through the explosives machine. My heart was pounding. During my 15 hour layover, I managed to come down with a brutal cold. During my interrogation, I wasn't allowed to go to the washroom and had to be in the company of the security guys the whole time. Though I had nothing to hide, I was so nervous, I started fumbling! I think I even made light of this by saying "geez, this is so nerve wracking, I had no idea" to which my security companion said "well, if you had nothing to hide, you wouldn't be nervous".
2 hours into this ordeal, a lady walks into the room and says to me "strip search" and points to a curtained off area. I don't know if it was nerves, the cold, no sleep or what, but I just started crying. No control. Just tears coming out. I thought I was in for full strip search. I loved my job and I loved that I got to travel, but this? This was beyond any job description! Luckily, my new friend just wanted a heavy pat down, rather than strip search. Tears stopped. I felt better again. By now, my hand luggage failed to show any explosives. The end was almost near. Half an hour before take off, I was cleared to go on the plane.
I should mention that the whole time I was being questioned, it was totally visible to all of the other passengers. I should also mention, I was the only passenger selected for this in depth screening. I get on the plane, sit in my comfy business class seat and everyone gets on the plane and starts glaring at me. Right before they shut the door, my security friend comes up to me and says "Ms. Correia, did you have beer in your suitcase" I confirmed I did (I was buying some to bring home) and thought that they'd just take it away. He said to me "It's no problem, we've just packed it in a seperate box so it doesn't explode in your suitcase, when you get to Tel Aviv, look for a small box with your name on it"
The irony of this is priceless. I guess they're so concerned about ANY explosives, they didn't even want the beer to explode. And, you can imagine, when I got to Tel Aviv to pick up said box, the looks I got from the other passengers. Here's the girl that was detained the whole time, what's in her box? surely they wandered.
Once I got into Israel, it was a beautiful and safe country. It's no wonder it's safe if it takes that much to get into the country!
No comments:
Post a Comment