RE: I Don't Like Airports
Hey, @tobixen.
re: health problems
I think she's doing quite well now, considering she had three hernias, the one she went in for, which was larger, and subsequently the two smaller hernias the surgeon found while poking around. :)
re: timing flights
I don't think we've ever arrived last minute. Maybe once. We did actually miss a flight even though we had about forty minutes before the plane was to leave because we were barely checking in at the airline counter and they were supposedly already boarding. Fortunately, we were able to fly out the next day without any additional expense, but even that wasn't a guarantee, until we were actually on the plane. And we still missed an entire day at our destination, and lost a day's worth of expenses on room and car rental.
I've never ridden by train. There are some modes of transportation that are great over shorter geographical distances, and as you say, due to their central location and the lack of enhanced security measures. Which is odd in an age of surveillance and security. It's almost like they're begging for something to happen, or they're thinking that terrorists only want the big toppling buildings kind of results, when that's clearly not the case.
At any rate, I'm glad there's still some form of transportation outside of your own car that you can use without it going way beyond the inconveniences.
You, though, need to write a book about all your experiences. Seriously. It's amazing the stories you have to tell. :)
Well, I've seen attempts on "securing" train stations and metro stations in Russia and China ... but in practice it doesn't work - and anyway I believe it's more theater to make us feel safe than real security.
I've seen the craziest things in Russia and China ... like an x-ray-scanner for checking luggage where only people who specifically queued up for the scanner got the luggage checked and everyone else could go around.
My son, now 14, he did the most amazing things when he was like 2-3 years old. Like, at a time right after some school terrorism attack in Russia the security on the airports were tightened up quite some notches.
That was the first time ever that I needed to take off ordinary shoes in the security control (I've had to take off boots with too much metal earlier). While the security personnel spent long time on me, my son grew impatient and just ran through the security and the metal detector with jacket and rucksack, metal detector beeping like crazy. Do you think the security personnel cared? Not a bit. He did the same thing in the passport control in China, after we arrived by ferry from Hong Kong. Do you think the passport controllers cared? Not a bit. Did we care? He just ran away from us both times, and we couldn't run after!
I'm in absolute total agreement about it being more theater than security. I might even say it seems to make at least some people feel secure. I'm not at all sure about what government's intent is here, though. I think it's just as much a show of their power and control over us as anything.
If it were meant to make me feel more secure I'd have ways to get through security without being treated like a common thug, which I guess would mean the TSA pre-check you can sign up for online for $85 and then renew every five years. If I flew frequently, it would be worth it. Still doesn't stop them from looking at your stuff even if you don't have to remove certain articles of clothing or show them what liquids you have, or your laptop.
I'm glad your son was actually treated humanely, though it was obviously very disconcerting for you since you couldn't just go get him.
I think it's quite simple; whenever something bad happens, it looks pretty bad if politicians do nothing to prevent it from happening again, it looks much better if they do something. For the politicians it's much more important to get reelected than to make useful regulations.
I think one of the most ridiculous is regulation about lights at cars here in Europe - for safety reasons, the headlights should always be on when the car is in motion, and on all new cars the headlights should automatically be turned on when starting the engine - this sort of makes sense (or, perhaps not, when one has become used to it, it's easy to assume every car without headlights on is parked). At the other hand, according to another regulation, in order to save energy, all new cars should be produced with taillights that turn themselves off automatically if it's daylight. Considering that the taillights probably eats lots less energy than the headlights, and serves the same purpose in the daytime (and also, considering that tailights can be pretty important in fog and blizzards) ... this doesn't make much sense to me.