The Day I Flew Air India

On January 3, 2004, a plane flying from Cairo, Egypt to Paris, France had a mechanical malfunction and crashed into the Red Sea, killing everyone on board (mostly French tourists). However, because of the general world-atmosphere, until the cause of the crash became known, everyone immediately assumed it was an act of terrorism. In response, Air France cancelled all of their flights around the world for at least 24 hours.

I was in the Chicago O'Hare airport when I learned all of this. I was in the middle of making a connecting flight (to an Air France flight) that would take me from Chicago to Paris, where I would take another flight for the last leg of my journey into Berlin, where I would be living and studying for the next semester-turned-year-ish (and living in Communist Block Housing). I also had a terrible flu-like cold and was fairly heavily doped up on Nyquil.

Our study-abroad program was through University of Nebraska-Lincoln (not where I attended college - but our university didn't have the numbers or program support to do study-abroad for German students, so we were effectively out-sourced), and there were only around nine of us in the group. I have a vague memory of there being someone in charge, but in my Nyquil-haze, I can't recall the exact details. The airport was excessively crowded due to the number of flights that had been cancelled in the aftermath of the plane crash, so our small group huddled together while we waited for someone to give us some sort of direction.

Again, because of my flu-like state and excessive intake of sleep-inducing medications, the specifics of the next few hours are somewhat unclear in my memory. But I do recall that someone (possibly the person who may or may not have been in charge of us?) told us we had to run as fast as we could to the other side of the airport. At the time, I recall having no idea whatsoever as to the reason why. Perhaps they thought we needed to burn off some of that excess holiday weight we'd surely all gained? Or maybe they were merely trying to keep us entertained. Regardless, we obeyed like confused, obedient sheep being nipped at by a herding dog.

If you've never run through the O'Hare airport in a drug-induced haze, I strongly suggest giving it a try. There's a long section of the airport connecting two terminals that has moving sidewalks and a plethora of color-changing neon lights lining the ceiling and mirrors on all the walls. The rest of the tunnel is somewhat dark, so the overall effect (especially while doped up on medications) is somewhat trippy, to put it mildly. Walking quickly on the moving sidewalks gives you the impression of having super-human speed, the vivid colors are reminiscent of a light-speed journey through space (a la 2001: A Space Odyssey), the endless mirrors duplicate your being infinitely, and all the while a constant cautionary voice (God? Is that you??) booms overhead to pay attention to the end of the moving sidewalk. I no longer have any curiosity to try LSD.

When we got through the Tunnel of Drugs, our possible-leader took us into a giant room separated with huge glass walls. For some reason, we were still in a hurry. He/She told us in a panic to get our passports ready and wait in a line that magically appeared around where we were standing. I couldn't see where the line led to, but I could see select chosen people walking through turnstiles into the mysterious glass-enclosed room, which was filled with rows of chairs. Again, this entire area was packed full of people, all wearing heavy winter coats and looks of confusion and forlorn desperation. While most of this time is dreamy fog in my mind, I have an incredibly vivid memory of a boy about 12 years old, sitting on the other side of the glass wall, staring at us with an endless look that seemed to suggest all hope was gone from the world.

After what seemed like several hours (good thing we ran), it was finally our turn to approach the desk (the apparent goal of everyone in our make-shift line). The concept of a help-desk was skewed by the number of uniformed people running back and forth on the "help" side. They seemed just as desperate and helpless as the mass of us on the customer side. We were obediently herded to the desk as a group. A harried young female airline worker took all our passports without once looking at any of us. She turned to her computer and began typing at an alarming rate, then turned to one of the other uniformed workers smashed in behind the desk next to her, mumbled something, and turned back to the computer, seemingly with tears in her eyes. She sighed as she handed our passports back to us (again without once looking at any of us) along with a stack of papers that turned out to be boarding passes.

We were next ushered to a line that was evidently going through the turnstiles into the magical glass room. It was then that we noticed the guardian of the room. A massive black man (who was not wearing a uniform, in my memory) was directing all the peasants through the gates. And evidently, not everyone was doing it right. Every few seconds, his voice would boom out that someone had to "go back to the end of the line." In defeat, the coat-clad individual (or family) would dejectedly walk back to end of the room and rejoin the line on the outside of the glass room. I still have no idea why this was happening.

We got through the turnstile-gates without issue, though he did study our boarding passes with an incredibly discerning eye. Luckily, ours were not declared fakes. And with very little ceremony, we graduated to the glass room.

After several more hours (or possibly just a handful of minutes), it was time to board a plane. It was at this point that it came to my attention that the plane we were boarding was part of the Air India fleet. I have no idea how we ended up on this flight, but I now have a fairly good idea as to why there were so many available seats.

As soon as I stepped in the plane, I was struck with an instant nagging feeling that something was off. The plane just didn't feel right. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was because the plane appeared to be a Frankenstein of various other, most likely deceased, planes. The seat cushions didn't match the ones next to them, let alone the seat backs. The overhead compartment and ceiling panels were all varying shades of airplane-beige. The aisles were lined in worn strips of carpet, as if someone had just laid down carpet squares side-by-side. The stewardesses were all short, chubby Chinese women - but they were wearing Indian-style saris and bindis.

On our original flight, the small group of us students had seats close together, and we were planning on practicing our German on the long flight overseas. Of course, as we were now flying stand-by on another airline, our seats were scattered throughout the plane. The patchwork cabin had the most dreaded 3-5-3 seating configuration. Fortunately, I was on a side, but I was still the middle seat of a set of 3. The person with the window seat was already there, and I was pleased to see that he was a small, nondescript Indian man. I got what I needed for the 8+ hour flight out of my overhead bag (including more Nyquil), sat down, and buckled up. I took another Nyquil, then leaned back and closed my eyes, hoping I could just sleep my way through the entire flight.

When I awoke, we were already up in the air. Groggily, I opened my eyes to the unpleasant sight of broken ceiling panels and various burned out lights above me. As I came to a greater state of consciousness, I became aware of the person in the seat to my right. First I noticed his hand. I've never seen a hand that big before or again in my life. It was practically the size of the tray table. On his massive bratwurst fingers, he had several gold rings that were easily the size of golf balls. The presence of his obscenely huge body in that tiny coach-sized seat seemed to defy the basic laws of physics. He literally could not put down his tray table, because his presence engulfed the entire area between the back of his seat and the seat in front of him.

Seeing that I was waking up, he turned his head (no easy feat, considering it was practically smashed into the ceiling above us), smiled at me, revealing several gold teeth, and introduced himself as so-and-so. From Nigeria. He went on to tell me that he was a Nigerian prince. So here he was. The fabled Nigerian Prince of email-scam lore. In the (massive) flesh. And if he'd asked me to give him my bank account information so he could transfer his fortunes to it in return for many gracious riches of my own, I probably would have done it. His mind-boggling physical existence screamed of the truth of the classic scheme.

Soon after meeting my partial-seat-mate, the fake-Indian Chinese stewardesses (who spoke neither English nor Hindi, as far as I could tell), passed out our in-flight dinner. As it turns out, Air India flies complete with authentic Indian airplane food. I kindly refused, as even the thought of the meal turned my already queasy stomach. The cramped cabin soon filled with the most pungent airplane food smell imaginable.

Refusing the food turned out to be quite a mistake. The small, quiet Indian man to my left suddenly let out an exasperated sigh. I tried to ignore it. Another sigh. This one sharper and louder. I shifted awkwardly in my seat. A third sigh, this one clearly directed toward me.

I cautiously turned toward him, and he unleashed a fury of comically Indian-accented rage on me.

"You could have gotten the food and given it to me. I would have eaten it. At the very least, you could have just gotten it. It wouldn't have hurt you to just get the food and not eat it. I would have eaten the food."

"I... I'm sorry?" I squeaked.

Another sigh of disgust as he turned back to his own meal, which, evidently, was not only appetizing to him, but also not enough to satisfy his tiny stomach.

In an attempt to make some space between my disgruntled neighbor and me, I shifted my shoulders in the direction of the Nigerian prince. He took this as a sign of my interest.

"You know," he told me in his booming, rich, princely voice. "You are very pretty. You could come with me to Nigeria. You could be my princess. Would you like that? You could be very rich. They would like you in Nigeria. You could be my wife."

"I... um... I'm going to Berlin. To study German."

"Forget about that. You will come with me. In Paris, you will come with me on the flight to Nigeria. You won't go to Berlin. I will make you very rich. You will be my princess."

"Um... I don't think I want to, " I said, staring at the massive rings on his hand. They must have weighed several pounds each - they were clearly solid gold.

"Fine," he barked and turned away from me to finish his meal of airplane meat and curry, which was precariously balanced on top of the seat in front of him. He refused to acknowledge me for the rest of the flight.

I turned and faced the old, stained seat fabric of the chair in front of me as I took another Nyquil. "Please just let me go to sleep and wake up in France," I whispered to the magic green pill. "Maybe this is all just a sleep-deprived, drug-induced dream, anyway."

The next six sleepless hours of nighttime, trapped between the small, angry man who slept in his seat with his body twisted into a pretzel of Indian yoga and the enormous mass of disgruntled, rejected, snoring Nigerian prince proved to me that it was all too real.

The Day I Defeated Peer Pressure

In third grade, my school began our lengthy D.A.R.E. (Drug Awareness and Something-that-starts-with-R Education, or something equally as catchy) program. We spent hours in class learning about drugs. Mostly cigarettes (because to us naive 8 year olds, cigarettes were by far the worst drug in existence). We learned how they can give you lung cancer, and how the smoke can be harmful to other people. In my mind, that translated to "only bad people smoke cigarettes."

We also learned about Peer Pressure. This terrified me. To me, this was something that didn't happen until high school - but it was an inevitable horror I was doomed to face. Nameless high school bullies would corner me in the massive, yet deserted hallways between classes, and they would force drugs upon me. Because, to me, drugs were cigarettes, this meant these bullies (usually boys with long, scraggly pony tails and ominous black t-shirts, in my visions) would be literally trying to force cigarettes into my mouth and lighting them, and I would have no choice but to smoke it, or risk never breathing again (as I couldn't logically breathe without smoking if a cigarette were being held to my mouth).

After learning of the dangers lurking in those thin, white tubes, we were sent home with a survey sheet and instructed to ask both our parents the questions, so we could come back to class the next day and discuss the realities of drug abuse in our personal lives. The survey included a few memorable questions, including: "Do you smoke cigarettes?" "Did you ever smoke cigarettes?" "Were you ever negatively affected by Peer Pressure?"

I, being the very straight-arrow, goody-two-shoes little girl that I was, was beyond eager to go home and question my parents on these most intimate details of their youth and early adulthood (it didn't occur to me that my parents could have actually smoked before they were 18, seeing as how that would have been illegal).

I questioned my mom first. But I had the upper-hand through our interrogation, as I knew already that my mom had smoked. She'd told me before that she smoked until she got pregnant with my older brother, and then she'd quit.

Smugly, I asked her, "So, Mom. Have you ever smoked before?"

She calmly gave me her feeble story of knowing the dangers of smoking and quitting when she knew she would be putting her child's health at risk. I wrote down her answers with a feeling of superiority. Clearly, I had never smoked, so I viewed myself as better than her in a way - Peer Pressure hadn't gotten to me. Oh, my poor, simple mother and her misguided cigarette smoking ways. She just wasn't strong enough to stand up to Peer Pressure! (I learned later in life that, more than likely, my mom was the one who pressured her friends to smoke - in high school, nonetheless - as she was a bit of a rebel. She staged walk-outs at college, was out there burning her bra with the best of them, and actually smoked things other than just cigarettes; though, fortunately, our survey didn't ask that, as I believe my innocent little school girl head might have exploded at that prospect.) The rest of her answers were insignificant to me. I already had all the information I needed. My mother had been a smoker.

I waited with such eager anticipation for my dad to come home that night. Finally, after dinner, I got my chance to interview him. Approaching the questions with true curiosity and no bias whatsoever, I asked him the first question, "Dad, have you ever smoked cigarettes?"

"No," was his clear and simple answer.

I was stunned. My father. Had never smoked a cigarette.

"Never?!" I screeched incredulously. "Not a single cigarette? Not even a cigar??"

"No," he said smiling, proud of his lungs' clean bill of health and the studiousness of his youth.

In light of this revelation, my father became a super hero in my mind. He had never smoked anything. In. His. Life. He was invincible. He had stared Peer Pressure in its cold, dead eyes, and he had come out victorious. Nothing could stop him. He was... My Dad.

At that moment, I made a promise to myself. No matter how great the Pressures offered by my Peers, no matter my age, location, or situation, I would not smoke cigarettes (or anything else, for that matter). If My Dad could do it, surely I could, too. I would build on the strength I had inherited from him to say "no" to Peer Pressure, and my lungs, too, would remain smoke free for all time. Together, we were an unstoppable force of Peer Pressure negation.

Years later, while working at a t-shirt printing store in the local mall, my worst fears came to fruition. I worked with a boy around my age who, ironically, had a long, scraggly pony tail, and frequently wore black t-shirts. One day, he told me he was going out for a smoke break. I expected him to be gone shortly after informing me of this, but when I turned around, I noticed he was still there.

"Why don't you come with me? You could borrow a smoke from me." Oh, Peer Pressure, you sly beast, you. Taking on the form of Austin's body, just to try and press your evil wears upon me. Knowing this with the pinnacle of my D.A.R.E. training, I looked him straight in the eyes and, squinting ever so slightly against the glare of his dark temptation, I stated, "I don't smoke."

"What? Sure you do. Everybody smokes. Come on." Trying your best, I see, Peer Pressure. Well it won't work on me!

"No, I don't. I never have. I'm not going to start now." Taking out the big guns now.

And to my absolute surprise (but surely, somewhere in my subconscious, I knew this day would come - I'd dreamt about it since the third grade), Austin actually stepped closer to me, and literally tried to shove a cigarette into my mouth.

I pushed him away, and, in the process, broke his cigarette. He told me I'd have to buy him a new one, and I just laughed at him. Poor, defeated Peer Pressure. One last attempt to get me on your side, but it won't work. I will not contribute to that filthy practice. Austin left to go on his smoke break without further incident.

A year or two later, one evening, when I was home with My Dad, he made some snide, joking comment about me being a "bad kid," implying that he believed I smoked and drank (thus further propagating the wrongly assumed belief that so many people have of me as a pot head). I laughed and informed him that, not only did I not drink, but I had never, not even once in my entire life, smoked anything. All because of that D.A.R.E. survey in third grade, and My Dad's unique ability to defeat Peer Pressure. "No, Dad, I've never smoked anything, because I wanted to grow up and be like you - and you told me in third grade that you'd never smoked. Anything."

My father got a surprised look on his face. "I told you that?" He said while starting to chuckle. "Well, that was a lie."

The sound of your known world crashing around you can truly be defined as a "deafening silence." The room stood still as everything I'd ever known, the very principles upon which I'd based my entire life's ethic shattered with those simple words: "that was a lie." I couldn't breathe. How could he have lied? He was My Dad! He was a super hero! Together we could defeat Peer Pressure! And yet, it had all been an innocent lie to guide a third grader on the right path through life.

That part of the lie, at least, succeeded. And quite well. As of that moment, I was determined to rebuild my life's principles. So everything had been a lie. I had still conquered Peer Pressure, even without My Dad at my side. He may have lied, but I'd inherited the strength and will power, nonetheless. I could continue our saga even in his absence. I made a new vow to myself that I would never smoke anything, not even once, in my entire life, so that when my own children were in third grade and came home with a D.A.R.E. questionnaire about cigarettes and smoking, I could tell them in all honesty that I had, in fact, not ever, not even one little time, ever in my life smoked anything.

I could feel the super powers begin to flush through my veins.

Why You Shouldn't Smuggle Drugs Into Norway

The year after I graduated from college, I got a Fulbright Scholarship to spend a year in Germany, working as a teaching assistant in English at a German high school. I lived in Göttingen, a small town in central Germany. Whenever my skills as a bilingual dictionary weren't being abused by the school (they must have missed the "assistant" part of my job title), I tried to travel as much as possible. This often led to a week of near-starvation at the end of every month, as the US State Department grossly underestimates how much monthly bills as a TA in Germany add up to be, but for me, the choice was usually an easy one. Who wouldn't rather see amazing new cities than eat?

When a group of my friends scattered around Germany (not all were Fulbrights) found round-trip plane tickets to Oslo for 22€ (around $30 at the time), we jumped at the chance. I saved up as much money as I could in preparation (about $100), and eagerly counted down the days until our journey.

The day before our flight left, we all met up in Berlin. Our flight was out of the capital city, and some of the people going with us were lucky enough to be living there. As I've told you before, I used to live in Berlin, so I was thrilled to go back "home" for the day. I met up with my friends who lived there, we walked around town (because that's what you do in Berlin), ate some pizza, and then went to one of their friend's apartments, where everyone smoked a lot of pot. Except me. Because I don't smoke pot. But that is actually a very good story for another time. People have always told me they're very surprised when they learn that I don't smoke pot (and never have). I'm never quite sure how to interpret that...

The next morning, the group of us heading to Oslo woke up bright and early (and hungover), to head to one of Berlin's three airports. The excitement of the impending trip helped with our headaches (I do drink - well, at least I used to, before the whole "having children" phase of life), and by the time we were on the plane, everyone was in great spirits. We were going to Oslo! That's in NORWAY!!

The plane landed after a surprisingly short flight (Europe is really small if you spent your childhood road-tripping across the US). Because we were a group of nerds, we were all very excited about the possibility of getting our passports stamped; Norway is, after all, not part of the European Union. We deplaned and got in line, eager to show the important man behind the glass our passports. We talked eagerly amongst ourselves until it was our turn. We all approached at once, spilling our enthusiasm all over the passport man, who, in turn, didn't really care that we were coming in to his country, and didn't stamp our passports.

Mildly disappointed, but determined not to let that minor glitch get to us, we followed the line out of the customs area of the airport, which led through these giant glass doors and into the unsecured area. A woman a short distance in front of us had an adorable cocker spaniel that was holding up the line. An airport official was with them and pulled the dog out of the line. Before long, we were walking past them ourselves. One of the girls in our group bent down to pet the adorable, friendly family pet. She stood up just in time to be briskly whisked away by 7-foot tall Blond Giants into a secret door behind the hallway we were currently walking down. The rest of us froze in horror as the dog greeted us in his friendly way and the airport official told us gruffly to keep walking.

Before I had any idea what was happening, we were on the other side of the big glass doors, minus one member of our party.

"What the hell happened to Jill??" I tried to keep my voice from exploding into a scream (by the way, her name is clearly not Jill).

"She had pot on her," I was calmly and quietly informed. Panic began to set over the rest of our group as we stood like lost and confused sheep, directly on the other side of the big glass doors. It didn't take long for the giant blond people to approach us and tell us to "move along." We tried to inquire after our comrade, but all they would say was that she had been arrested.

As the recently deplaned crowed thinned out, we realized we were not the only group nervously pacing and waiting on a kidnapped party. A group of Middle Eastern-looking men were next to us looking just as nervous. It quickly became an unspoken competition to see whose abductee would be the first to show. We lost.

We moved away from the doors, but continued to mill around aimlessly. After waiting close to 45 minutes, another Middle Eastern-looking young man came through the doors, and the other party perked up instantly. They shot us victoriously smug glances as they walked away to Norwegian freedom. Finally, after another 30 minutes or so, Jill emerged. Escorted by one of the extremely tall, perfectly white-haired Norwegian Blond Giant police officers. He quietly informed her that she could have a word with us. She walked over to us and we erupted into a bombardment of questions.

"What's going on?" "Are you going to jail?" "You had pot on you?" "That COCKER SPANIEL was a DRUG DOG?!" "Who the hell makes a cocker spaniel a drug dog?!" "It didn't even occur to us that a cocker spaniel could be a drug dog!" "Did YOU know a cocker spaniel could be a drug dog?" "Are you okay?" "What the hell are we going to do?"

Jill managed to keep her cool (although she was clearly shaken as well). She informed us that they were not going to make her go down to the police station. She had been officially arrested, and would have to pay a fine, but she would be released to go with us - in just a few hours. She told us we could go on to the hotel, but we decided, after all the trauma we'd already been through, it would be best to stick together as much as possible. The Blond Giant approached us from behind, and, in his hilarious Norwegian accent informed us that, "Iht was tihme to go bahck." First he escorted her to a near-by ATM, then walked her back through the big glass doors. He wouldn't let her say anything else to us. We stood in slightly calmed desperation, watching our adorable little friend being dragged back to Blond Giant airport prison.

We spent the next two hours getting to know the airport and writing prison letters to our dear friend in lock-up. While waiting, we had another terrible realization: Norway is insanely expensive. We had to share airport food, because we couldn't afford to each eat our own meal. It was the start to a very thrifty four day vacation, which included switching from our decent hotel to a not-so-decent hostel, walking through miles of very cold snow (our visit was in early January - no wonder tickets were only $30!), and eating at gas stations to try and save money, where even the gas station attendants speak English ("Hof course, Ih speahk Henglish").

Finally, our Jill was released to us. She came out through the giant glass doors, once again, but this time without her perfect aryan escort. We sat on a bench outside the airport trying to recover from the terror and fear we'd all just endured (Jill more than any of us) for the last three+ hours. After ensuring Jill was doing better and feeling okay (she even laughed at our prison love-letters), one of the other girls in the group got a sly grin on her face.

"Don't worry, Jill. It'll be okay," she said, quietly, through the conspiratory grin. "They didn't catch me." She pat her bag.

I was shocked. I stared in absolute disbelief. There is no way TWO people in our group attempted to smuggle illegal drugs across countries - especially going from an EU country to a non-EU country, where we were sure to have to go through customs. And yet... here we were. Maybe it's just because I don't smoke pot, but I was starting to question the ability of my friends to make appropriate critical thinking decisions.

Finally, we set out on our way to our (expensive) hotel (that we could only afford to stay in for one night). As soon as we were there, my friends "partook" in the illegal substance they were able to bring along. My disbelief had started to wear off (after all, I have spent a good deal of time with people who do smoke regularly - maybe that's why people are always surprised to learn I don't...) And then, Jill blew my mind (and I wasn't even the high one, people!!).

She confessed to us that this was not the first time she'd smuggled marijuana illegally into another country. In fact, she'd done it just a few weeks before. When she went to ISTANBUL. In TURKEY. Where they probably would have thrown her in jail for a few years (if she was lucky), had she'd been caught. Although now, in retrospect of our afternoon, Jill was lamenting her foolishness and expressing her intense gratitude at being caught this time, in civilized and polite Norway, rather than terrifying and outrageously-strict-on-drug-smugglers Turkey.

The rest of our trip was significantly less eventful and overall very enjoyable. Albeit very cold. Oslo is a beautiful city (even in several inches of packed snow), and we had a great time seeing authentic Viking ships from the 800's, Munch's "The Scream," trying to find Bunny Island, tracking down the tallest person we could find (he turned out to be a German baker who was well over 7 feet tall - we figured he must have moved to Norway to finally live somewhere where he could fit through all the doorways), seeing giant Norwegian fishing boats, shopping at authentic Norwegian butchers (with real stuffed reindeer in the window), watching all the beautiful Blond Giants at their annual equivalent of the Oscars, talking in our best (terrible) Norwegian accents, and tromping through the snow.

And of course, smoking a little grass.