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his throat.  I blinked and turned my attention back toward him.
    “I don’t have terrorism experience,” I insisted.
    The Chief Inspector stood. “Let her go. She can still make her next flight.”
    Mr. Hunky Iceland Man had other ideas. His smile vanished, and he looked noticeably less attractive. “But we’ve only begun the interrogation,” he protested.
    “Let her go,” Doyle Wellington repeated with the last bite of sandwich in his mouth. He opened the door and went out without looking back, leaving me with the Icelander, who seemed disappointed by the turn of events. I saw a flash of waterboarding and electric shock in his eyes, and I shivered. He definitely wasn’t as good-looking as I first thought.
     
    ***
     
    Wellington was right. I made my flight to Hamburg with minutes to spare. I was starving by the time we landed, but the airport was jam-packed with families anxious to get their vacations started.  I squeezed my way through fifty German dads in shorts in order to get to the express line at McDonald’s, but after an hour waiting for my turn to order a Big Mac and fries, my credit card was declined, and I realized I didn’t have any euros.
    I had forty American bucks in my wallet and no time to find a place to change money. They announced the boarding for the last leg of my journey, and I hightailed it to my gate. It was a short hop to Mallorca, but I was wedged between two oversized people in undersized seats and with absolutely no legroom.
    I counted down the minutes until we landed, sitting with my knees up around my ears. It’s not the journey; It’s the destination, I repeated in my head. I tried to think optimistically. In a matter of minutes, I would be in a beautiful home on a beautiful island, sipping tropical drinks with easy access to a gorgeous beach. What’s a little discomfort—and arrest for suspected terrorism—leading up to paradise?
    Paradise with a side of healing. A month of pampering away from everything would be perfect no matter how hungry I was, I reminded myself. My stomach growled. Forty-five minutes until we landed. To pass the time, I thought of Spanish food—paella, tapas, and Spanish rice.
     
    ***
     
    After landing, it took another forty-five minutes to deplane as the hordes of tourists pushed in front of me, determined to beat everyone else off the plane. Was I the only Zen tourist in Mallorca? For that matter, was I the only American? And was I the only single person?
    I walked through a sea of German families toward the passport checkpoint and stood in a line of one under a big sign marking the place for entry of non-European Union residents. I was congratulating myself on not having to wait in the other mile-long line when the officer studying my passport raised an eyebrow.
    “Would you please follow me?” he asked me in a thick Spanish accent.
    “Why?” I asked, which I guess was the wrong thing to say, and in a matter of minutes a female customs official was telling me to strip down in a small room. “I’m not a terrorist,” I told her as she felt up my boobs for bombs and contraband.
    The police in Iceland must have put some warning on my passport, and now I was being molested by a tiny Spanish woman with a thick mustache. I had been traveling for hours. I was starving and filthy. I was being treated as a criminal for the second time in one day. Suddenly, being jilted by the man of my dreams and being fifty thousand dollars in debt didn’t seem so bad.
    “I don’t think you’ll find anything there ,” I said as she patted down my crotch.
    I was told to get dressed, and my luggage was brought in. The two customs officials searched every nook and cranny. I’m the world’s worst packer. I had brought three suitcases and two carry-ons. I had brought clothes for every kind of weather and social event.
    “I probably didn’t need sweaters,” I said as they continued to ransack my belongings.
    It was hotter than hell in the airport. No