Home sweet home

Home at last. The suitcases have been unpacked, most of the laundry is done, our pantry is once again full of food, the mail has been taken care of, the guinneapig has been hugged, our neighbor has been thanked for her wonderful care of our house, and I’m going to guess that some of the dropjes have already disappeared. It used to be that the first day after coming home, when you’re trying to take care of all the things listed above and more, while fighting a jetlag was the worst part of the trip. However, recently I have come to the conclusion that the worst part of the trip actually starts when you arrive at the airport. To be honest, who really enjoys traveling nowadays? Don’t get me wrong, I love the feeling of being on the road, but the harrowing hassle that accompanies today’s travels is less than amusing.

From the first time I set foot aboard an airplane (I think I was about four years old) I loved to travel. I loved the little trays of food you got during the flight, I thought the flight attendants had the coolest job in the world (and got to dress like one of my Barbie dolls to boot!) and I loved the glamour that surrounded traveling by airplane. I mean, I even loved the smell of jet fuel. Obviously, as time went by, my opinion about traveling was de-romanticized just a little bit. Delays were little fun, as was lost luggage. I realized that being a flight attendant meant working really hard while suffering from a jetlag, and learned to bring a good book to read as very long flights did eventually get boring. But up until a few years ago, I still really liked to fly. Whenever I got near an airport, I could just feel excitement rushing through my body. But all that has changed now. Last Sunday, while we were standing in line for security, I turned to my husband and surprised myself by saying, from the bottom of my heart, “I don’t think I like traveling anymore. At all.”

So what happened? It’s not just one thing, it’s a culmination of little nuisances. It really starts while packing. I don’t know about everybody else, but I used to pack my toiletry bag in my carry-on, just in case my luggage was delayed. But nowadays I have to read look at the individual and accumulated sizes of the different tubes and bottles I want to bring, separate them in a “carry on” and a “checked “ pile, and then hunt for the right size zip-lock bags.

But compared to the contemporary airport experience, this is peanuts. I remember those glorious days when you could arrive at the airport 90 minutes before departure. You could sail into the departures hall, leave your luggage with an airline agent, and walk right up to the gate, sometimes even with your family or friends. Unfortunately, those days are no more. Nowadays it’s gotten to the point where we try to avoid early flights because they entail getting up at the crack of dawn to stand in line with hundreds of other fellow-sufferers three hours before boarding time.

Now let’s say that in a moment of temporary insanity (or frugality, take your pick) you do choose to take an early flight. Now let’s be bold and assume that you have made it to the airport on time, with all your luggage. At this point it’s not as though once you’ve recovered from getting up at four in the morning and standing in line for an hour, that you get left alone to wake up slowly. No. Instead you get to answer question after question about your luggage and yourself. And while it used to be that the agent who checks your bags would ask a few questions pertaining to your luggage while tying labels to your bags, looking at his computer screen, and talking to a co-worker, in Amsterdam they have added an additional in-depth interview. When you arrive at the gate, you have to answer an additional set of questions before you are allowed to enter the boarding area, and this time, the interviewer is very serious. These questions don’t just pertain to your luggage, but to a whole host of other issues, such as who paid for the ticket, what kinds of electronic equipment you have in your luggage, and more questions like that which, seeing the hour at which most intercontinental flights depart, should be forbidden, or at least include a free cup of espresso to awaken your brain.

The modern traveler is probably also familiar with the concept of security. While in the past all you had to do was walk through a metal detector, nowadays traveling involved taking off shoes, belts, removing laptops from their cases, explaining at least twice that yes, your bra has an underwire, and, in my husband’s case, taking off his wedding band. Although I understand the necessity of this process, it drives me crazy that in airports like Atlanta, they make you go through them twice, if not three times, depending on the terminal at which you arrive. This means standing in line, taking off your shoes, and holding up your pants several times in a row, which, when you’ve just spent ten hours on a plane, is probably one of the last things in your mind.

All in all, flying, to me, has become such a hassle that instead of feeling like my vacation has not ended until I arrive at my own home, I now feel that vacation-sensation seeping away the moment I smell the jet fuel. Where did the love go?