In the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve, the USA became more and more paranoid about possible terrorist action against Americans during the millennium switch-over (especially because of the whole millennium bug thing). Since I was living in Vermont, I heard a lot about this on the local news, especially after the police caught a "suspected terrorist" trying to cross the Canadian-Vermont border on Dec. 19. Shortly after that the State Department issued a warning that Americans ideally should not travel over the New Year, and if they must, to be very careful. So I started to get a little (just a little, not a lot) worried about being a target, especially since I was travelling via LAX which was said to be the target of pre-millennium terrorist activities.

I thought the best thing would be to disquise myself as a Canadian by sewing a Canadian flag to my backpack (a lot of Canadians do that so as not to be mistaken for Americans). Unfortunately, none of the stores in Burlington sold Canadian flags, and I didn't have time to drive up to Canada to get one. But I happened to have a Australian flag patch laying around, so I sewed that on instead and figured I'd just keep my mouth shut as much as possible (so as not to reveal the accent). I knew that I would be obviously North American to any Australian, flag or no flag and accent or no accent, but I hoped it would confuse anyone else who might be trying to determine my nationality (i.e. potential "terrorists").

When I met up with Andrew on the 27th, he asked me "What's with the flag on your backpack?" So I explained my resoning for it to him. But I think it kind of annoyed Andrew, because he said "No self-respecting Australian would ever wear a flag on their backpack, so it's not like you're fooling anyone you know." "Yeah, I know," I sheepishly replied.

I had absolutely no problems travelling, and it turned out that the USA's millennium terrorist fears were blown way out of proportion, so I guess it didn't make any difference in the end. The patch remains on my backpack to this day, because I am too lazy to take it off. Most Americans seem to think I have it there to brag about where I've been (which makes me feel bad and so I consider removing it every once-in-a-while). However, on my trip to Norway I was mistaken for an Australian twice because of the patch on my backpack. And about a week ago, a guy at a protest rally asked me if I had it there so people don't think I'm American when I travel overseas. So I guess it does it's job sometimes...

7/13/01
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