On 11.09.2013 14:11, Martin wrote:
On Wed, 11 Sep 2013 13:59:32 +0200, Giovanni Drogo
wrote:

On Wed, 11 Sep 2013, Tom P wrote:

which reminds me of what happened to me some years back. I leave the
house one morning, walk over to the car in the driveway and this
police car...

not about airports, but still travel ... did I never tell this story ?

In the '80s I used to travel a lot Italy to Germany and vv. using night
trains (sleepers, I usually booked a T3 but was almost always alone).
Normally there were no border checks, but once in or around Basel I was
waken up by a couple of German police (and older and a younger one) who
were doing luggage inspection.

I had in my luggage a chestnut cake my mother did (you boil chestnuts,
pass them, mix with a bit of butter, cocoa or chocolate and a bit of
cognac or rhum) ... in the form of a ball of a light brown paste wrapped
in aluminium foil :-)

They wanted to know (very politely) what is was, and I said it was a
Kastanienkuche. The older one wanted to know how was it named (!) in
Italian. I said it had no specific names. He insisted on knowing a
"generic" name, so I said "dolce di castagne". Then, addressing the
younger colleague, he smiled and said "it is as I told you". Then they
wished me good night and left.

In the 1970s I was in a car that drove from Germany into Austria
without any border control. In Austria one of the other three
passengers found he had forgotten his passport in a hotel in Germany.
Returning to Germany there was a control. The driver a German gave
three passports, including his own and his driving license to the
German policeman/border guard. After scrutinising the driving licence
and the passports, he started to wave us on and then stopped us. He
told the driver that he had to wear his spectacles, when driving. The
controller turned to his young colleague and told him that it was
meticulous work like this that had got him early promotion.
first

Back in the 90s I had the illustrious job of flying to Vladivostok as
a computer specialist. At the time, Vladivostok was still a military
security area, and I needed a special permit as foreigner to enter the
city. Our customer wanted to treat us to a high quality lunch, but the
only place with any good food was the KGB headquarters. The solution was
to smuggle me into the building - we went in a large group, and I had to
"borrow" a passport from a Russian who wasn't going along. We gathered
all the passports together, the guard counted the passports, counted the
heads, and let us all in as a group. Needless to say, I had to keep my
mouth shut.