dear diary, is this trauma?

12

Airports are so annoying.

I said in the last update that I would explain the times of me being stopped in airports, I mentioned that I had been stopped on my way home because of a peanut butter wrap, but that was just simply one of many in a single holiday.

Heading off to Australia

I like in the UK, specifically Scotland. On the day that I was travelling to Australia, I had to get a train to Aberdeen and then taxi to the first of many airports.

The wait for our first plane took forever, and it was so boring but also terrifying. But once we got to getting through customs, I had my school bag as my carry on, and apparently I forgot to completely empty it, I had my pencil case stuck at the bottom. A fucking pair of scissors in it.

I didn't realise I had the pencil case in there, so I was happy to let them go through my bag, the swabbed stuff and ran a metal detector over things. At first I thought it was my makeup brushes, as they were made of metal. But finally at the bottom, my see-through green pencil case was brought out, the 1.5" scissors were found.

Still being in Scotland, they put them back in at the top of my bag and set us off once everything was checked.

This was my first plane ride since I was four.

It didn't take long, but as it was a domestic flight, the plane was quite small and shook in the air.

Landing down in London we took our carry ones back to the next costoms for a quick check, it being domestic they didn't do much, but with it being a huge airport the whole environment was much to much for me anyway.

This time I put my pencil case out on the tray that they give you to send through the machine, it got noticed again, but it being a small pair they let me keep it.

Another while and we were on a plane to Shanghai from London. This was the longest flight.

(Side note, from here on out, my father was drinking heavily on the planes while I was still a minor in his care.)

In Shanghai I done the same, putting my pencil case on the tray with the rest of my metal or electric things. This time a woman started talking loudly and quite quickly in Shanghainese (yes that is technically the term for the language)  before then taking my scissors and confiscating them.

We ended up having to wait a few hours in Shanghai before our next flight to Sydney. So we wondered the duty free and other small stores within the airport before heading to the gate we had to leave from.

More drinks for my father and a flight through the dark sky, out of the window I seen a lightning storm, I don't know if I was seeing things with the altitude but I could have sworn the lightning was purple.

Eventually we arrived in Sydney.
Apparently in these domestic flights you need to pick up your luggage. We didn't know that and were about to leave to go on the shuttle to the next flight when the guard obviously thought there was some sketchy stuff going on as we were traveling for two weeks with just backpacks. So he told us and we had to go all the way back around to collect our suitcases.
After the shuttle it was about another hour or so till we got to Adelaide and were picked up by my grandparents.

Return from Australia

There was one less flight on the return trip. Adelaide to Beijing, Beijing to London, London to Aberdeen.

Just like heading to Australia and being stopped at EVERY customs, it happened again.

This time it was my face and my passport.

I didn't look like it.

I'd only had the picture taken two years prior for a school trip to Belgium. But apparently in that time, I changed too much.

I hated it. Every single stop.

The automatic checks would fail and I would have to be seen by a human to check my face. They would then ask some questions as they did so,
Name, age, date of birth, reason to be flying.

I have anxiety and I end up stuttering or being mute or rambling random things that I really shouldn't. So ofcourse it seemed suspicious that my face wouldn't pick up correctly with my passport and then stuttering at simple questions.

But eventually they would let us pass once my father explained.

Each time this would happen.

We also ended up checking out each duty free on the return, getting the odd last gift for people or just getting some food and drink during our wait.

In London we went into the harry potter store. Got some potter related snacks, a Slytherin lanyard and keyring. I got to nerd out and explain everything to my father.

After that we went to a café, my father getting a coffee and I got a cake. We stood and waited over 15 minutes after we ordered for my cake, only for the same server to come and ask if we were wanting something else. He was quite shocked that we never received the cake so he personally made sure to get it and give a little extra as compensation.

We wandered around some more before going to our final flight. Then a bus to the city to get a train to our hometown to be picked up and happily put the issues behind us.