I left my bag Unattended in an Airport Trashcan

Being abroad was a lot of fun. Coming back home was not fun. Each place I stopped presented me with some type of misfortune. First, we have the Athens airport. As you may have found out in my previous blog, there are unpleasant memories tied to the Athens airport. My last day created even more of these unpleasant memories. It all started in March 2020 because of coronavirus. Fast forward two years and you have to present a negative covid test to enter the United States, despite almost all of our country's other restrictions being lifted. We (me and two other Loyola students taking the group flight home) were told we would need to show a negative covid test within 24 hours of arriving in the United States. With a 16(!) hour layover in Copenhagen and 2 hours in Oslo added on to 11 total hours of flying, getting a test before leaving Athens would be far more than 24 hours by the time we get home. Being the responsible, smart Greyhounds we are, we planned on getting our rapid test during our layover in Copenhagen. The Scandinavian Airline workers in Athens did not like this idea. They claimed they couldn't send our bags to the United States because we didn't have negative tests on us. We explained what I just explained above but they did not care. Our bags would get off in Oslo where we would have to reclaim our bags, go back through security, and check our bags again. I tried arguing this, saying that our bags can't get covid so they should just send the bags anyway but they didn't seem to care. 

Nothing bad really happened at first in Copenhagen. We got our tests in the airport, met up with some Loyola kids abroad in Denmark, walked around the city most of the day, found a cheap hotel to sleep in, and returned to the airport early the next morning. Then I had to interact with more airline workers and things went south. So the two other Loyola kids and I each had the same flights home, as we were on the group flight Loyola planned for us. For whatever reason, mine was slightly different than theirs. My flights from Denmark to Norway and Norway to the United States, for whatever reason, did not have an extra carry-on bag. Seeing that I came to Greece with that extra carry-on I assumed I would also have it on the way back, terrible assumption. When I was trying to check-in for my flight and get my boarding pass one of the workers noticed my extra bag and decided to give me a hard time for it. She kept saying I would have to pay for it, but I did not have enough money to pay. I asked if I could at least see if there was room on the flight for an extra bag but she wouldn't tell me if the plane was full or not. I asked what to do with my bag and she said she didn't care. I transferred everything from my backpack into my duffle bag and began to look for someone to take my bag, I didn't want to waste a perfectly good bag. I tried to give it to the lone employee who actually made an effort to help me but she said they couldn't take it and said I should just leave it in the trash. That confused me. I explained that that doesn't typically fly in most airports, because you know, terrorism, but that only confused her. So after a brief conversation, I stuffed my backpack in an airport trashcan and walked away. 

                                                              Got this cool picture though

                                  

The plane ended up being half empty, there was so much room for an extra bag. I could've brought seven extra bags and there wouldn't have been a problem I hate Scandinavian Airlines.

In Oslo, we got our bags and went back through security. We did everything just in time to make our flight. But we had to do maybe the stupidest thing I've done in my entire life. Despite having a negative covid test and proof of complete vaccination, we had to fill out the "Combined Passenger Disclosure and Attestation to the United States of America" form. There is literally nothing on the form other than checking off a box saying you're vaccinated and signing your name. Oh yeah, and it's $12. You have to pay $12 to check a box that says you're vaccinated, regardless of the fact that you have to show the airline workers you're vaccinated to get on the plane. I handed someone the paper and they instantly dropped it in a big pile with the others, definitely never to be seen again. 

 Frontpage of the world's most useless form. I don't know why it's blurry but it doesn't matter there is literally nothing important to read 

I'll end the blog with a text from my Dad reacting to almost everything I just wrote about. 

"The government bureaucracy? Doing something stupid? No way!"