The trip back from South America

Our trip to Washington DC was pretty uneventful. Everyone managed to sleep including me (thanks to the miracle of sleeping pills). In the morning we were given breakfast and arrived to the Washington airport. WE all heaved a sigh of relief to be on American soil thinking that from now on we were in full control of our destinies. That thought was a bit premature. Masha sat in front of all of us by about 10 rows so she left with most of the passengers. The rest of us were in the second to last rows of the plane and were almost the last people to disembark. When we got out of the plane, the crowd of passengers already left but we followed the signs for transfers and arrived at a shuttle.

Olya asked the attendant if we could get to customs and baggage claim on the shuttle since we just got in from Argentina. The attendant told us to get in to the shuttle and she will take us to the right terminal. She even called someone to double-check her information. As soon as we arrived to terminal C the United Staff told us to go back. We took the Shuttle again and the attendant walked us to the Customer Service area of United. She kept telling us to walk faster, which was a problem for me since my foot really hurt. Once we got to the counter and the attendant told the staff that we were from Argentina and didn’t go through customs yet they flipped out. One started frantically paging her supervisor to come to the service desk “immediately” which I guess translates into 20 minutes. She was also angry with us and asked how we managed to make it through without going through customs. Olya inquired about our luggage and was told that our bags were “the least of [our] problems”.

Finally the supervisor came and escorted us through the entire terminal to a different shuttle. She was also freaking out and talking on her cell phone the whole time. She must have asked us if we were the last passengers about 3 times and we kept telling her no. She must not have been paying attention though because when someone else asked her she told them that we WERE the last people. Olya didn’t let that slide though because by that time she was pretty pissed, as were all of us.

We took the shuttle and found our bags. My bag’s tag had a red substance that looked like blood on it. I was trying to figure out what it was when the baggage people started hurrying me up again. I told them that I will not touch blood. Thankfully the substance turned out to be something else, so I was able to continue and check my bags in. After going through customs we had to check in again and they made us all take our shoes of and made us feel right at home. They stopped Ilyusha (because carrying 2 pairs of women’s tango shoes is a little suspect) finally after getting 2 different gate numbers from 2 different employees we proceeded to take yet another shuttle (our 4^th) to the gate. It was smooth sailing all the way from there :)