Tips for Air Travel - #1 Passports
Dear Reader,
Given that I've been travelling for work quite a bit these days, I decided to put the power of this forum at the service of the people. You will probably wonder what drove me to write about this as opposed to my usual diatribes about online dating or pop culture, I'll tell you what, a little thing I like to call life experience.
Now the first tip and I cannot stress this enough, is bring your passport to the airport. This has become more and more pressing of late, the days when you could get into a plane by using half a pack of chewing gum and an old battery as your form of identification are long gone. This, obviously, will become more and more of a priority as the shift towards interstellar space travel occurs but then again, when that happens you will also have to worry about which member of the family gets to start a new life in the space colonies as a larva farmer and which one stays to perish during earth's nuclear apocalypse so priorities tend to shift a little bit.
Now for those uninitiated in Air Travel, there are three basic kinds of passports, you get either of these depending on your country of origin, IQ or level of cholesterol.
1-Handwritten passport. This is obviously the best kind of passport, it brings you back to a time when people cared about things and craftsmanship was paramount to the human experience, A handwritten passport tells the world; hey I know I will have to spend an extra 30 minutes every time I go through passport control given that my official form of ID looks like it's been written on top of a prison toilet seat by an illiterate inmate and that's OK. Things to look out for in a good handwritten passport? Anything that will ensure the reader of said passport that no means of technology or technical advancement have been exposed to the document at hand, spelling mistakes, this screams authenticity penmanship? the more doctor like the better. For extra points some white out or a scratched word.
2-Homemade passport. A close cousin of the handwritten passport, most homemade passports have been crafted by 5-10 year olds. Incredibly charming, these passports usually show a picture of mommy and daddy on a plane and possibly a flying dragon, what those stupid kids don't realize is that, other than in some Baltic countries, most passports don't feature any dragon's hence making the document unsuitable for international travel. Then again, there's always the odd central american country that will accept this as a form of ID.
3-Swedish passport. Enough said.
Now that you have your passport, you need to go through passport control. Most people will compare this process to drinking hot chocolate in a log cabin during a skiing vacation in the alps. I for one, fully agree. Nothing makes me feel warm and fuzzy like a stern figure of authority asking non-english speakers for hotel reservations while a long queue of passengers await their turn to be let into the boarding gates. Now I titled this post "tips for air travel" for a reason, here are some surefire tips: lines are for suckers ALWAYS look a bit distracted, walk straight to the front of the line and hand-in your passport to be stamped. Violence (led by the 30 odd passengers you just skipped) will incur but like Kelly Clarkson says, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Once you are in front of the person checking your passport looking him straight in the eyes and mutter, slowly moving your lips.."I had sex with your mother last night" inevtibably the control person will reply with a "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY??? to which you reply " I said that It has always been my dream, since I was a little child, to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo" for added effect this should only be said if you are not going to Congo, if you happen to be going there just use some other ridiculous place like Sweden. The high levels of insanity displayed by these actions will make the person in charge deal with you promptly in order to get rid of you as fast as possible, this is particularly useful if you are carrying passport kinds 1 or 2 where the less scrutiny applied the better.
Next chapter, what to do between passport control and boarding time and how to get access to those fancy lounges for free - stay tuned!
Happy travels.
Mar Hat.
Given that I've been travelling for work quite a bit these days, I decided to put the power of this forum at the service of the people. You will probably wonder what drove me to write about this as opposed to my usual diatribes about online dating or pop culture, I'll tell you what, a little thing I like to call life experience.
Now the first tip and I cannot stress this enough, is bring your passport to the airport. This has become more and more pressing of late, the days when you could get into a plane by using half a pack of chewing gum and an old battery as your form of identification are long gone. This, obviously, will become more and more of a priority as the shift towards interstellar space travel occurs but then again, when that happens you will also have to worry about which member of the family gets to start a new life in the space colonies as a larva farmer and which one stays to perish during earth's nuclear apocalypse so priorities tend to shift a little bit.
Now for those uninitiated in Air Travel, there are three basic kinds of passports, you get either of these depending on your country of origin, IQ or level of cholesterol.
1-Handwritten passport. This is obviously the best kind of passport, it brings you back to a time when people cared about things and craftsmanship was paramount to the human experience, A handwritten passport tells the world; hey I know I will have to spend an extra 30 minutes every time I go through passport control given that my official form of ID looks like it's been written on top of a prison toilet seat by an illiterate inmate and that's OK. Things to look out for in a good handwritten passport? Anything that will ensure the reader of said passport that no means of technology or technical advancement have been exposed to the document at hand, spelling mistakes, this screams authenticity penmanship? the more doctor like the better. For extra points some white out or a scratched word.
2-Homemade passport. A close cousin of the handwritten passport, most homemade passports have been crafted by 5-10 year olds. Incredibly charming, these passports usually show a picture of mommy and daddy on a plane and possibly a flying dragon, what those stupid kids don't realize is that, other than in some Baltic countries, most passports don't feature any dragon's hence making the document unsuitable for international travel. Then again, there's always the odd central american country that will accept this as a form of ID.
3-Swedish passport. Enough said.
Now that you have your passport, you need to go through passport control. Most people will compare this process to drinking hot chocolate in a log cabin during a skiing vacation in the alps. I for one, fully agree. Nothing makes me feel warm and fuzzy like a stern figure of authority asking non-english speakers for hotel reservations while a long queue of passengers await their turn to be let into the boarding gates. Now I titled this post "tips for air travel" for a reason, here are some surefire tips: lines are for suckers ALWAYS look a bit distracted, walk straight to the front of the line and hand-in your passport to be stamped. Violence (led by the 30 odd passengers you just skipped) will incur but like Kelly Clarkson says, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Once you are in front of the person checking your passport looking him straight in the eyes and mutter, slowly moving your lips.."I had sex with your mother last night" inevtibably the control person will reply with a "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY??? to which you reply " I said that It has always been my dream, since I was a little child, to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo" for added effect this should only be said if you are not going to Congo, if you happen to be going there just use some other ridiculous place like Sweden. The high levels of insanity displayed by these actions will make the person in charge deal with you promptly in order to get rid of you as fast as possible, this is particularly useful if you are carrying passport kinds 1 or 2 where the less scrutiny applied the better.
Next chapter, what to do between passport control and boarding time and how to get access to those fancy lounges for free - stay tuned!
Happy travels.
Mar Hat.
