It all started with a suitcase.  We checked our luggage, which was a pain because of crazy overage charges for our XXXL bags.  I won the prize for heaviest luggage.  We were all frustrated, but everything was for the most part fine until we walked through security.  I made it through after struggling to balance my laptop, tea set, and backpack. 

As I was putting my laptop back into my bag, a uniformed man comes up to me and says, “Excuse me miss, can I see your passport?”  I agreed.  He looked at the passport, looked at me, looked at the passport again and said, “Okay, please come with me.”

With a puzzled look I told him that I needed to tell my group where I was going.  He said okay and that I would be better off leaving my bags with my friends.  I dropped my stuff off with the gang and followed this man through the airport.  He led me into an unfurnished hallway and looks at me and says, “We need to ask you a few questions.” 

A lot was going through my mind at this point.  “Will I miss my flight?  Did I make the do-not-fly-list in Asia?  What the hell am I doing here?”  And something along the lines of, “Oh my goodness.  I hope they don’t kill me!”  He then led me to a run-down looking metal door.  We entered this room that was just like you would see in the movies.  The walls were bright white and the lights were blinding. 

“Have a seat,” he said, “We’d like to ask you a few questions.” 

“Who’s we?”  I thought.

I waited for a few minutes for the others to arrive.  That few minutes felt like an hour.  I really was freaking out at this point.  Some other men soon arrived with one of my suitcases and asked me to stand up and open it.  I did and everything practically fell out since it was stuffed so full.   Then they asked me to start taking everything out.  Like I said, I won the prize for heaviest suitcase, so you can imagine what this was like.  Once I had completely ruined what little organization was in my suitcase to begin with, they found the culprit, a set of faux old coins.  They took them out, examined them and started asking me the most random questions ever.  I basically gave a rundown of my whole life story.  It was hard to concentrate because the lights were so bright and this huge black bug kept buzzing in my ear.

“Why are you here?  Who are you here with?  How old are you?  Are you a student?  What school?  How many people are in your family?  Okay, you are here with school, but why are you traveling?  Where have you shopped?  How much did you spend?  Why do you have these coins?  Who are they for?  What was the reason for this purchase?  What do you intend to do with them?  Where did you grow up?  Have you traveled before?  Are you enjoying your trip?  Do you like Chinese food?”   Etc.  It was out of control.

After typing what seemed like pages and pages of material into a computer, they finally told me why they had brought me there.  The coins that I had purchased were knock-offs, but they thought I was trying to smuggle old coins out of the country, which is illegal.   They took my passport and boarding pass, stamped the hell out of it, took me back through a private area of security, and let me go on my way.

I was very flustered at this point.  The man who had picked me up brought me back to the BSU gang.  Everyone could tell that I was a little shook-up and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t.  This was quite the experience.  I picked up my carry-ons and we continued on to our terminal.  We got lunch and boarded the plane and that was the end of it.