Singapore

November 11, 2010

We flew to Singapore to visit an old friend of Bill's, someone he's known since kindergarten but lost contact with years ago.  I went to a winery to get a really nice bottle of wine, put it in one of those really pretty wine bags, and without thinking Bill put it in his carry-on.  We then had our "What was I thinking?" moment when security pulled it out and said, basically, "Uh, this is over 3 ounces, what were you thinking?" She advised we could either dump it in the bin (no!) or see if customs would allow us to go back through and then ask the airline if they could find our luggage and put it inside (not very likely.)  But since we had plenty of time, Bill talked his way back through customs (they had to stamp his passport as having come back into the country, then leaving again, just a few minutes later when he came back through.)  At that point they recognized him as the idiot with the wine and waved and welcomed him back.

When he got to the baggage check, several people took on the challenge to figure out what to do with the really nice bottle of wine, and they took Bill's sweatshirt and wrapped it around the bottle, then finished it off with lots of bubble wrap and a cool little handle to carry it with.  They called it a "poor man's stripey bag" and sent it off down the conveyor belt - and it actually survived the trip unbroken - amazing.  Most hard luggage doesn't fare so well.