Places

Places I want to go...or want to visit again...

The Kraken 2010

A Gaming Convention. Schloss Neuhausen. August, 2010.

Baggage blunder

My box was lost somewhere between SFO and frankfurt. My backpack, containing most of my clothes, arrived on the baggage claim belt in a ridiculously timely manner. And then I waited...and waited...

After 10 minutes I wandered to the Baggage Services desk.

"My luggage has been lost" I said matter-of-factly. I had been traveling for 19 hours, I wasn't in the mood to pussyfoot around.

"What does it look like" said the drab-looking German man.

"Like a box. It's a box. It's lost. It never came onto the carousel."

"Oh," said Mr. Drab, "Thats different. Thats a box. That will come out in the bulky pickup, over there." He pointed to the far corner of the baggage claim lobby.

I looked down at the top of the counter, which displayed a laminated diagram of various luggage characteristics, with bar codes next to them. If you lost a fabric duffel bag with wheels, they would scan 'duffel bag' 'fabric' and 'wheels.' When I was fourteen I took a flight to Australia. My suitcase was a monstrosity, giant and plastic. I had spray-painted it bright pink and stenciled stars and giraffes on the side. When it was lost the airport workers had a hell of a time trying to figure out what barcodes to scan.

I headed over to bulky pickup, and mentioned to the giant German in tight blue overalls my lost luggage, ahem, excuse me, my lost box.

"Nothing's come out yet, wait a minute" he told me.

As I waited giant malformed packages came sliding out on the conveyor belt. An army of clowns could have fit in some of these packages. Meanwhile I waited for my little, ordinary-sized box. And then I waited.

Mr. Drab didn't look particularly surprised to see me again.
"My box never came."

He handed me a slip of paper with the phone number of the airport circled in yellow highlighter. "Call this number tomorrow. We will deliver the box once it is found."

I went through customs, very discouraged. My pajamas were in that box. And the BBQ sauce! What a travesty!

I met my friend Fabian on the other side of customs. "My box was lost" I told him. "Got lost somewhere between San Francisco, Krakow, and here."





Fabian snaps a photo as I am on the phone with my dad, lamenting my lost luggage.



"Ah, the Polish probably stole it" Fabian said, joking. "It's ok, later I will give them a proper German phone call. We will get your box!"

Two days later I decided that the airport was being decidedly un-German about returning my box. They would tell me the time it would arrive, and so we'd wait, and nothing would come.

Finally I received my box, tattered and battered.

Chicago: Ohare airport

As I exited my plane in Chicago, ready for my two hour layover and a nice fat cup of coffee, I realized that I had never actually been to this airport before. And since I was coming from San Francisco, with the next layover in Krakow, I needed to get from the domestic terminal to he international terminal.

This task proved harder than I thought. I passed a multitude of coffee shops and ass on my quest to find gate M4. I followed signs for terminals E,F, and C, but could find no sign of the destination I longed for.

It wasn't until I happened on a little diagram of terminal 2, hanging quietly on a wall, that I discovered I had to take a friggin' tram to the international terminal. I followed my gut, for the lack of signage, and hauled my ass to the tram station.

I always figure when at places like airports where your actions depend veryuh on times (if you want to catch your flight, you better get there in time, or else you'll be spending your night in a hotel that smells like the canals of Venice).

I find it unfortunate that his tram takes you, at least according to the security officers, out of the airport. And so I had to trudge through security, again, which means I had to throw away my $5 water I bought in SFO.

I emerged, in the international terminal, only to find that he coffee shops and restaurants that littered the domestic terminal were little more than a distant memory. Its as if this amrican airport was saying "you're abandoning your country, you don't get to eat...you must suffer with airplane coffee...take that, traitor!"

The moral of this story, of course, is grab that coffee and deep dish pizza while you can, because your flight is destined to be delayed anyway (by 45 minutes).