Home Sweet Home

I got home Friday afternoon without any troubles at the airport. I was all prepared to be let down when I got to the airport. I was planning on having to stand for a long time everywhere I went. I was equipped with the number for American Airlines so that I could call and complain if I was bumped or cancelled. The lines were incredibly long at the terminal. My advice to anyone is E-Ticket. I don't think that they give paper tickets anymore unless requested. E-Ticket is totally the way to go. I was pretty nervous because the curbside check in lines were VERY long. I heard some people complaining of a 30-45 minute wait. I walked into the terminal, asked where the self service kiosk line was. The line was a tenth of the line for the counter agents. Within 15 minutes I had my bags checked and my boarding passes in hand, heading for the long security line. I missed the bomb sniffing dogs on Friday. When I was hanging around on Thursday they were constantly running up and down the terminal. I didn't see any Friday morning.

I was standing in line behind a family from the middle east. The son, who was in his late 30s or 40s was the one who was traveling. As we were inching towards the security check point a TSA agent came and pulled this man aside. This man could hardly understand what the agent was saying. Each question was repeated at least once. The man was traveling through London Heathrow with a final destination in Pakistan. At first I felt very sorry for this man, this was an instance of racial profiling at it's best. However, after leaving the checkpoint and listening to more news I felt comforted as there were arrests of Pakistanis in connected to the thwarted security plot. I am well aware that not every middle eastern person is a terrorist and that all terrorists aren't middle eastern and you hear stories of the increased percentage of middle eastern travelers who are always pulled aside for secondary screening but, I did feel safer.

I stopped to buy some souvenirs, a book to read and a bottle of water. I made it to the gate and had plenty of time to sit and read or surf the internet. I was however a little nervous because my boarding pass for the flight from Chicago to Madison said that I had to see a gate agent to get my seat assignment. I didn't know if that meant that I didn't have a seat and had to go on standby or if they were just waiting to hand out seat assignments due to not knowing how many people were going to be on the plane. When I got to the gate I was happy to see that it was that they hadn't assigned seats yet. It was such a quick flight to Madison, I believe it was something like 25 minutes from Chicago. I was so excited to get home! Don't get me wrong, I had a great time in Boston, which I will post about soon, but my extra 20 hours in Boston really wore me out!