Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2006 (18. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)

2006-08-25 / 33. szám

AMERICAN Cnylish pnye Hungarian Journal You Can't Take It With You Imagine yourself arriving at London’s busy Heathrow Airport on a quiet Thursday afternoon, on the way home from a won­derful vacation in Hungary. You were hoping your carry-on lug­gage would be lighter than on the way to Budapest, when it had been full of gifts you would not trust to the loving care of baggage handlers, or the lack of it. But then you bought those great cosmetic items, which are so much nicer in Europe, or at least you trust them more because they make you feel at home. The apple-scented Organics shampoo and hairspray from the DM German cosmetic chain, and the large tube of the incomparable night treatment cream from Dr. Juga they had been out of the last time you visited, so now you made sure it would last for the next year or so. You wouldn’t put those in the checked-in luggage because they might spill and stain youf clothes, no matter how carefully you wrap them. Then there is that bottle of life-saving medicine your friend’s Hungarian relatives asked you to take back to L.A., not to mention the priceless - or rather pricey - French per­fume your stewardess friend gave you, and the bottle of Tokajer, “6 puttonos”, of course, the best of the best, that you purchased in anticipation of your upcoming wedding anniversary. You get out of the plane, a little tired from the early depar­ture but basically in a good mood, ready for the long haul over the Atlantic, or as ready as you’ll ever be. Your luggage is checked in all the way, and the carry-on' has wheels, so you don’t expect any difficulty getting through the formalities and catching your connection. You walk through the corridor, step into the transit area, and enter living hell. The first thing you notice is the crowd. Solid walls of people everywhere, looking confused or talking excitedly among them­selves. There is a tension in the air, palpable without having to hear what the talk is about. And By SUSAN JANCSO then you see the signs. “ATTENTION! Due to heightened security Absolutely NO LIQUIDS are allowed on board aircraft.” At first you think someone is making a practical joke. A very bad one, at that. You never go anywhere without a bottle of min­eral water, definitely with bub­bles, and another one filled with homemade coffee, the way your husband likes it, with absolutely no sugar and just the right amount of cream, good and strong, to keep you on your toes during the trip. True, you can ask the flight attendants to get you those bever­ages, but you only want a sip at a time, and then you get stuck with the almost full glass, having to baby it for hours, afraid to go to sleep in case the liquids will end up in your lap. You stop a uniformed man to find out what this is all about. He is a tight-lipped Briton, all you can get out of him is, “there was a security problem” So it is true, not a joke. Well, there goes the coffee and the water, so carefully packed in sturdy plastic bags, with a bright yellow dixie cup on top of them. They will probably end up in a trashcan. A pity, but no cause for alarm. And then you read the small print. “This includes beverages, hairstyling products, creams, DUNA Travel 8530 Holloway Dr. #102 W. Hollywood, CA 90069 SPECIÁLIS ÁR LAX-BUD-LAX $566.“tól +TX. az ár szeptember 3-tól érvényes Információért hívják ZSUZSÁT TEL: (310) 652-5294 FAX: (310) 652-5287 1-888-532-0168 toothpaste, lotion or gels. Please check or dispose of all liquid items prior to the screening checkpoints.” No way! This must be a mis­take! You can’t possibly check in those precious items even if you would be willing to expose them to the rigors of transport in the belly of the plane. You can’t possibly check them, since your lug­gage is checked in all the way. So what are you going to do with them?!? Discard them? Not the expensive Caleche perfume, not the fine wine, definitely not the night cream that was sup­posed to last you for a year. No, this can’t be! It was bad enough when you had to give up your nail scissors, and the fine pocket knives that were such an essential part of your travel kit, but this is outra­geous! Now you know something major must have happened. The line is interminable, so you have plenty of time to ask around. Most of the passengers don’t know what’s going on, but from the occasional crewmem­bers and airport officials passing through, you gradually peace together the chilling truth. Scotland Yard thwarted a ter­rorist plot to simultaneously blow up several aircraft heading to the U.S., using liquid explosives smuggled aboard in carry-on luggage. Another September 11! Loss of life on an unimagi­nable scale! Not just anyone’s life - your life was in imminent danger! Flying is dangerous. You knew that during those 15 years you spent being a flight attendant in Hungarian Airlines. Yet you were never afraid. You trusted the pilots infinitely, even though the planes were not always in the best shape, you felt the fact that you were part of the closely-knit family of flight crews protected you like a cocoon. But with the advent of terrorism, the odds have changed for the worse, and our way of life changed with them. So what next? What if some­one smuggles something danger­The English Page of the Hírlap can serve as a bridge between the non-Hungarian-speaking members of the family and the community. Use it to bring people to­gether! Subscribe to the Hirlap! Advertise your business in the Hirlap! If any questions or sug­gestions, please call (323) 463-6376 purse has to go, because on the flights to the U.S., absolutely no hand luggage is allowed. They give you a large plastic bag to put your passport, your keys and your money in. You feel naked, vio­lated, humiliated. You do not feel any safer. You feel mad as hell. And then a sudden thought hits you and almost makes you smile. How many times have you heard it said, why are you work­ing so hard, you’ve got everything you need, why do you want to amass more money, more clothes, more possessions? You’ll work yourself to death, one day you are going to die and you’ll realize too late that it was all in vain. The riches, the jewelry, the cars, the houses - all that you have to leave behind. YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU! Someone said the terrorists wanted to have a “dry run”, to see how efficiently they can blow up planes and kill people. Kill you, and thousands of others. Blow your plane out of the sky instantaneously, with no warn­ing, no time to prepare to die. So why can’t we consider this - the hassle, the loss of time and valuables, the loss of the exhilara­tion and the joy, the very things we travel for - as a “dry run” for the day we are called to meet our Maker? As you stand in line to board an airplane, deprived of all the things you thought indis­pensable for travel, barefoot and empty-handed, except for a clear plastic bag with your passport and ticket, you get a glimpse of what it will be like, in a few hours or a few decades, no one knows when his hour will come. You get a deeper understanding of those ominous words you so often shrugged away with a smile: “You can’t take it with you.” LETTER to the EDITOR Reading the article “Red Arm Bandits” brings back memories of the exact same incident at the Deák-tér Metro junction. Years ago I wanted to show off to my foreign-born wife, we wanted to go a spot in the city, but, exactly as it is vividly described in the article, we also went down on the wrong stairs - to the yellow train. I have never before traveled on the Budapest Metro. After discovering that we were on the wrong platform, we proceeded to go up the escalator to the red line. Tickets in hand, took the escalator up, where the Red Arm Bandit was waiting for us. I was trying to explain in polite, fluent Hungarian the mistake we made and asked him to let us go. He got angry and abusive, demanded the surrender of out tickets and wanted to levy the penalty - just like the folk the article is telling the story. I started to get irri­tated, and raised my voice, pulled out my passport, trying to prove that we came from abroad and did not know the rules. He got even more abusive and produced his folder, I assumed it was the penalty receipt document. I pulled out my ‘American’ passport, but it turned out it was by accident my Hungarian one. The Red Arm Bandit thought that he had won - but then I pulled my ‘real’ American passport, shoved under his nose with somewhat still polite, but not too distant to something one does not want to be proud of language. Actually, I was screaming. People stopped and watched the outcome of the altercation, for which he said: get out of here! We turned around and left for the red line. As we proceeded, I was free to say something not fit to publication - my wife, being not Hungarian, fortunately did not understand it. It turned out that since I was over 65 years of age and a Hungarian citizen, I could travel free on the Metro. This was not told to us by the Red Arm Bandit -1 bought a ticket too before, he could see it in my hand. I am writing this note to dispel the conclusion the unfortunate tour­ists reached in the story: that being Americans had absolutely nothing to do with the treatment you received. Guaranteed. The Red Arm Bandit first did not know that I am an American, yet treated me as he treated the people you wrote about. I am very sorry what happened to them (and to me). PAUL LUKAS Subscribe to the American Hungarian Journal! Tell your friends about it! Call our office at 323-463-6376 ous aboard in his pocket? Do we have to discard our clothes then? Jackets and shoes are already taken off, subject to scrutiny. Are we all, some day, going to travel in our birth suits, or some kind of uniform issued at the airport, all for security’s sake? Before you get to the check­point, you see the large bins full of bottles and tubes and jars of precious merchandise, in addition the water and soft drink contain­ers. “You can’t take those with you!" The uniformed security officer encourages you to discard all the suddenly forbidden items from your bag. You do so with a big sigh, still incredulous, still more angry and shocked than afraid for your life. There goes the perfume, the lotion, the wine, and worse is yet to come. Cell phones and cameras are also forbidden, as they can be used to ignite explosives with electric charges. So where do those go? The security officer points to little things hiding in the corner of your purse. “You can’t take that with you!” The lipstick, the eye drops, the chapstick, the lens cleaner too has to go. Actually, your whole Augusztus 25, 2006

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