Travelling light

I already told how anti-terrorist measures are forcing me to travel with a clear plastic bag as hand luggage. But of course I am not the only one, everybody else also had to check in most of his luggage, and take only a minimum of hand luggage. And it turns out that this has advantages. I've never boarded and got off a plane that fast before. No more people blocking you from getting to your seat, because they are still trying to cram an oversized "hand" luggage into an undersized overhead storage compartment. No more having to help elderly old ladies to stow a bag that weights more than her. Most people don't even use the overhead storage any more at all, the thin plastic bag easily fits into the seat pocket.

And, to give credit where credit belongs, the people working for the Transport Security Administration (TSA) in the USA did a great job to get everybody through the security checks as fast and efficient as possible. I passed immigration, security checkpoint, and customs in just half a hour, and easily caught my connecting flight in Atlanta. Today I'll travel back to Europe, and hope that everything will go as smooth in this direction as well.

Short trips to the USA are a bit annoying, because for one day of meeting I end up travelling four days, from Tuesday to Friday. On the positive side I arrived early enough on Tuesday evening to still have time for a shopping trip to the mall. So I stocked up on DVDs with American TV series: the complete first seasons of "NCIS" and "House", plus two series I know less well, but was willing to try, "Las Vegas" and "Law and Order". I didn't buy any of the modern fantasy stuff, I watched an episode of Alias on the plane and found it horribly constructed. I'm more into series that are a bit closer to reality, even if I am of course aware that nothing on TV is real. Good that I was travelling light, that way I had room in my suitcase for the stuff I bought.