I'm Back

Ok well I've been back but since the minute I stepped off the plane I was working wrapping the Taco Bell job and then immediately starting a Gatorade job. Truth be told I was doing both jobs at the same time. Shhh! But back to the plane. So I had the luxury of being in first/business class for all the legs of my trip which is amazing and I am totally spoiled now but it did not help what happened in the Miami Airport.

I haven't traveled abroad since I went to China in 2004 and even then I swear I didnt have to do this but when I arrived in Miami from Grand Cayman I had to go through customs and get stamped saying I was indeed back in the US, then I had to pick up my bags at the international baggage carousel, bring them through separate customs and then RECHECK them for the leg to New York. Now this would have been all well and good had I not been a one woman equipment mule for all of our lighting and grip equipment on the shoot. I had 13 overweight and oversize items traveling with me as excess baggage, a total of nearly 900 lbs of crap. Things like this don't come through the carousel, folks. You have to wait until a guy brings it in personally from the tarmac on a cart. And let me tell you, though it may be their job, no one likes pushing around 900 lbs, so it made for some surly men glaring at me.

So I wait and wait in the baggage area where I have convinced a nice SkyCap man to be my personal chauffeur. While we are waiting I explain to him what it is we are waiting for and he says, "Well you have a carnet, right?".

Cut to me with a blank stare on my face.

For those of you who don't know, a carnet is a list of items and values of said items and hopefully serial numbers for said items that you are taking in and out of the country so the government knows if you are selling things so they can then tax you when you get back. OK well its not just for that but moving on.

I tell the nice man, "I didn't need one for the way out, it's just excess baggage. They didn't tell me I would need one on the way in."

"Oh, honey, they're the government. They don't tell you anything. You tell them things and they tell you if it's ok."

I start hyperventilating thinking about being stuck in the Miami Airport with all this equipment and Homeland Security breathing down my neck because I don't even really know what all of it is and how could I leave the country to the CAYMAN ISLANDS with thousands of dollars of equipment and not having been doing something shady. Maybe I went in with 900 lbs of cash and came out with all this equipment in some shady money laundering scheme cooked up by those crazy Hollywood types. Who know the stories could think up.

The pieces finally all arrive. I procur a 2nd SkyCap man because it really is that much stuff and it's time to head to customs...

...To Be Continued