Come, fly with me!

Due to the nature of my work, became a 'frequent flier' in the past years - with all of its up and downsides.
Of course, flying itself is a great thing - as far as I remember, I enjoyed it right from the first time, though that time I was a kid.


When - finally - the plane is prepared to leave ground behind, standing at the end of a runway than speeding up with full throttle - probably that's the best part of it...
...and the moments at the customs / baggage check - those are probably the worst :-)
Even being absolutely sure about you do no wrong, have nothing illegal with you - it can be a stressful process sometimes.

Remember a flight when I was actually on my way back to home, from Warsaw to Budapest, years ago.
It was my first duty-flight and in fact first after a long time too. Got a laptop with me and - like anyone else - some extra stuff packed in the bad of it, along with passport and wallet. Including a Swiss knife, I dropped into the bag months ago - you never know when you'll need it as a universal tool. Never really used, so forgot it.
Well, there were no problems at the first flight TO there, but on the back trip...

I was surprised when called to open it after the X-ray - by the tallest and biggest airport security guard I've ever seen. He was standing there, like a golem, and told me with a nice accent 'you have a knife in your bag'.
Me??? Come'on! - and then, realization came.
'you have a pocket knife in it!'
'umm, well, yes, actually its not really a knife but a Swiss knife' I tried, although this was a case just like when student knows he hasn't prepared for recitation, yet not willing to give it up that easy.
But, partly because I was asked for, partly to convince him I'm not the bad guy he may dream about to catch one day, opened the bag, took the 'weapon' out of it.
It was a small Victorinox (Climber model if I remember correctly) - one of those 'smaller' pocket knives nobody would ever really consider as a 'weapon'.

Unlike him.
Thinking back, there was a kind of funny aspect to see that big bloke standing there, holding the small object in his shovel-sized palms - yes, with both hands, like would be the holy grail! - and all he was able to repeat was:
'it iz forbiddin'
'Well, yes, I'm really sorry, I just forgot it in my bag unintentionally and anyway, just going home...' said, and things like that. No matter, he just repeated all the time: 'forbiddin'
Minutes were passing so finally I asked him: 'OK, but how to proceed than? What do we do now?' - since just didn't look like a great idea to stand there with him until the end of times...
Than came 'da boss' - I felt relieved...
...for a minute, as after they briefly discussed the situation and the chief asked me 'where are you going please?' and I answered truthfully 'to Budapest, I'm going home actually' - but he told than the same anyway 'this is forbidden' Well, they offered of course to get my laptop bag checked in (back to the check in desk? Sorry mate, but no way.) - So than I had to leave it there.

This is the story of loosing my very first Swiss knife - it wasn't entirely a big loss in money, though I've bought it from my very first (summertime-job) salary!

Anyway, loving of flight is still the same - I even like to take photos of planes from the ground! - no matter being on board of a commercial plane or a small 4-passangers one. Frankly speaking, of course the small one is more fun, the experience of flying is 1000x times more intense in that.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

UPDATE: since I started to write this post, Malév, the 'official' Hungarian Airlines (and my favorite air flight company) broke down. :-(

Hope it is not a final stop and can see those planes in the air soon!