Travel Mishaps

Good hello!

 I'd like to welcome you to this week's post, in which I'll be talking about travel mishaps. In my past couple posts, I've been talking about how amazing travel can be. Travel can be amazing, considering that everything goes according to plan. However, as most of us know, travel can be a real pain sometimes. Whether you're driving or flying or anything else, moving from place to place can bring about quite a few problems. I'd like to make this post extra personal by telling you guys about the travel mishaps that I've personally experienced. So grab some popcorn, dim the lights, and enjoy. The horror film called "Marco's Travels" is about to begin.

1.   Having my AGS (Airport Guilt Syndrome) made worse when TSA didn't like what was inside my carry-on suitcase and decided to inspect its contents.

Digital Spy

• Airport Guilt Syndrome is real -- you feel extremely guilty even though you know you've done nothing wrong. My sister and I had spent a couple weeks visiting our family in New Mexico. Our tía (aunt) took us to the airport so we could get back home to New Jersey. My sister got through security without a problem, and decided to leave me behind while she went shopping. But just my luck, TSA decided to move my carry-on suitcase to the "special section", you know, the place designated for all the questionable suitcases with their questionable contents. So there I was, watching a young woman getting arrested for trying to smuggle cocaine through security, and thinking that I'd find myself in a prison cell by the end of the night. What didn't help my case was the fact that I couldn't remember the code on the lock of my suitcase. If TSA didn't find me suspicious enough by that point, they did now. Right as the officer was about to leave and find an all-purpose suitcase key, I remembered the code. As it turns out, I had put a big bottle of hairspray, cologne, and other flammable materials in my carry-on, things that should have been with my checked in items. I'm shuddering just typing this.

2.   An embarrassing fall in a foreign land. 

Zimbio

• For my 10th birthday, my parents surprised me with a vacation to Mexico. I had spent an entire day collecting cool shells from the beach. Wearing a drenched bathing suit and flip flops that were much too small for my feet, I waddled my way back to my hotel room. In my hands were two cup-fulls of the most wonderful seashells. Pro tip: be careful with flip flops and wet, marble floors. The next thing I knew, I was sliding uncontrollably and I promptly landed face first in the lobby of this 5-star hotel. My shells went soaring and shattered all over the floor. Everyone was staring at me. My bathing suit had also slipped a little too far down. Cringe, cringe, cringe.

3.   Umbrellas will not stop a train door from closing.

Original photo taken in Japan

• The summer before last, I took a once-in-a-lifetime three week trip to Japan with my best friend Eleanor. One day, she and I decided that we'd go to the mall downtown all by ourselves, without any help or guidance from her grandmother who we'd been staying with. Ellie and I are both fluent speakers of Japanese, so nothing could go wrong. Or so we thought. We got to the station just in time, and we had to make it on the train that was about to leave. I ran super fast and hopped on, thinking Ellie was right behind me. Instead, she was a mile behind, struggling to keep up because of her high platform shoes. So I put my umbrella in the way of the train doors, thinking that the doors would hit it and open back up again. In reality, no such thing happened. The train doors swallowed my umbrella, and Ellie and I stared at each other in total shock as I left with the train and she was stuck at the station. At the next stop, the doors would only open on the opposite side of my umbrella. I had to leave the train with my umbrella stuck in the door. Luckily, Japanese people are amazingly kind, and someone was able to get it out and turn it into the police. The next day, I got that darn thing back.

4.   Developing bronchitis in the middle of my trip to Japan. Fun times, let me tell you.

Reaction Gifs

• As mentioned in the paragraph above, Japan was an amazing experience. I had been looking forward to a trip like this one since I was in middle school. But then I got sick, and my condition got progressively worse and worse. One day while at Japanese high school, I had to go to the nurses office. My teacher decided that he'd drive me to a clinic to get checked out. That clinic was around 2 and a half hours away. I was terribly ill, and now I felt unbelievably ashamed for making this poor teacher drive so far. The doctor went above and beyond to come up with a diagnosis. I received a nasal endoscopy, which is as terrible as it sounds. I also was asked to breathe in several types of gases. The only cool part about this ordeal, was that I got to speak in Japanese with a Japanese doctor. "飲み込むすることが全然出来ません" I told him. "I can't swallow at all." I was given about 6 different kinds of medication, and recovered in no time.

••••••••••

Have any travel mishaps of your own? I'd love to hear them! Thanks for checking out this post, and I'll see you next week! -Marco