Back in January 2002 my friend and I had made it through all of the security checks (3 in all I believe) and were approaching the gate. Alas, one more checkpoint! The man looked at our tickets and asked my friend how much Arabic he spoke. He looked puzzled and said, "Um, none...why?". The man said, "Oh come now, with a last name like 'Medina'??" My friend explained to the man he was of Mexican descent (Mexican parents), the name was latin and he had absolutely no Arabic in his blood line. The man abruptly let us go, but for a minute I thought we were going to be detained! Later on we thought it was pretty funny, but you just have to work with them if you want to fly at all.

Ciao!