Flashbacks: Airports

(Do you see the textbooks in my jacket?)

As my Arabic study abroad rapidly approaches (and I feel less and less concerned about my finals--an unfortunate side effect of upcoming adventure), I have started having flashbacks of my experiences in the Middle East last year. Today's flashback? Airports.

When I went to the Jerusalem Center, we had very strict guidelines of how much luggage we could take over--namely, one suitcase. To supply us with four months worth of stuff. In addition to everything I needed to take over (certainly more than 50 pounds worth--I am a light packer but not that light!) and many of the somewhat useless things on the JC's packing list (a bathrobe? When I can only bring 50 pounds of stuff over? Let's be serious here), we also had to carry over all of our textbooks, given to us the day before we left at orientation.

Needless to say, my 70-pound suitcase (yes I had to pay the fee), my carryon, and my "purse" (it weighed at least 30 pounds...I don't know if it really qualified as a "purse") were still not sufficent for everything I had to take over.

Luckily, I just happened to be wearing a jacket with a full inner lining, easily accessible by a zipper on the side. This means I had space between my outer jacket layer and my inner jacket layer, and I could open up a zipper on the inside of my jacket and reach my hand all the way through to the other side, but inbetween the layers of my jacket (it was for screenprinting).

Before I got to the airport, I realized that jackets do not count as extra carry-on items, nor do they weigh them. In a brilliant move that would save me several times in Jerusalem, I opted to put several of my textbooks, my camera, my passport, and my bag of liquid carry-ons inside of my jacket lining and wear it. It didn't look as silly as it sounds, but did appear somewhat as though I was heavily armed.

I had no problems in the Salt Lake or Houston airports (well, at least with the jacket--I had plenty of other problems and almost missed my flight and lost my passport!), but when I got to the Newark airport we had to go through special "screening" because we were flying to Israel (where everything requires a "special screening"--even entering a public mall!). I sent my luggage through the scanner and set my jacket on the table for the security agent to go through, since I had to walk through the metal detecter.

The guard picked up my innocent looking jacket, ready to discard it to the side for pick-up by me later, but instantly realized that it was full of something because it weighed about 20 pounds more than a regular jacket. She looked all over for how I had concealed these "weapons" in the jacket but was unable to find the zipper opening the inner lining. Finally I walked over and opened up the jacket for her, showing her that I had placed my textbooks inside the lining and ready to take a berating for possibly endangering the airline by trying to get around the carryon limit.

Instead, the security official was so embarressed that she couldn't figure out how to open my jacket that she barely glanced inside the lining, not even taking enough time to see what was inside, tossed my jacket aside, and in a gruff voice announced that I could go through.

I walked away, rejoicing in my obvious victory--but also somewhat concerned for my own safety, as I totally could have gotten away with hauling weapons onto that flight in my jacket!

Just for the record, though, I never would have gotten through Israeli customs without my jacket (and all of my other luggage) being searched at least four times, being questioned in Hebrew and English, and having three "situations" occur where we had to evacuate the building--but that is another story for another day.